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Calling All Cases! (Patreon)

Published:
2023-07-19 16:57:17
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Your savage Bailiff Jake here, seeking cases for Dungeon Court! Please submit your brief (I beg!) incident on this thread here and we will bring you righteous justice.

Comments

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.

Cienna

Forgive me Dice Christ for I have sinned! This incident happened 3 years ago in a campaign held over discord that I played with my best friends. Our characters were at a festival, which included a bull-riding event featuring an actual living bull with the mechanic being that you needed roll a high enough animal handling check to stay on the bull. After my party members attempted the feat and all rolled terribly, my human Druid stepped up to the challenge. She got onto the bull… and I rolled a 4. In a panic I secretly rolled again, and got an 8, which still wasn’t enough to beat the DC 15 check, even with my proficiencies, so I lied and said I got a 17 overall. My party members all laughed and our DM narrated that after the complete failures of the rest of the group that my character soothed the beast with ease, and it didn’t even attempt to buck me off. We moved on and it ultimately had no consequence on the campaign, but I know I doubted the judgment of dice Christ and lied about my roll. Can I ever be forgiven for my egregious sin? Sincerely Cienna

Fuzzboxx

Hello Beautiful Judges and equally if not more beautiful Bailiff Gemma's Dad. 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?

Mason N.

May it please the Grand Court of Crit and Tucker’s baby daddy (Jk congrats Jakes), 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.

Fabrizio Moreno

Dear high priests and bible camp counselor, I present you, the "jawa incident" A few years ago, some friends and i were playing a star wars campaign, it was the first time for all of us, including me, playing a ttrpg. In our first session the wookie ranger encountered some jawas in the back of her store, and because some anxious, some misfortune and some WILD rolls (a nat1 in persuasion, 2 in intimidation and 19 and nat20 on attacks) all the jawas died in two rounds. Now, this wasn’t supposed to be a battle encounter, they were only the guys that give them their first mission (they were a married couple that escaped a slave trader and were looking for someone to go there and save their children), and I was desperate thinking what to do, until the fighter got a nat20 in investigation (wild rolls) and I told them everything. They were shocked, realizing that they killed some innocent people, destroyed a family and made some kids orphans. After that they continued with that mission and save the slaves, but the campaign finalized shortly after, and till this day the "jawa incident" it’s an obscure part of our lives, so I ask: was it wrong for me to tell them everything? Or should I just respect Dice Christ in the rolls and flow in the game? I expect your words

Sam Ross

Honorable Justices of the Crit, and the serviceable Baliff, I seek adjudication on a recent event. I am a GM in a Westmarches campaign for the Twilight Imperium RPG, and in a session this week a PC was engaged in a hostage negotiation. To assuage the kidnapper fears, the PC parked their ship near the enemies, walked towards them unarmed with hands raised, and rolled a Negotiation check. Which succeeded, but with a Despair icon on the dice. I ruled that that meant the Kidnappers would start negotiations with the PC, but in a show of bravado pre-talks they blew up the parked PC spaceship with anti-aircraft guns. This annoyed the PC, who just so happens to be another GM in the campaign, who also just so happened to have run the session in which the PCs stole this now blown-up spaceship in the first place. Was I too harsh? The scene was very dangerous and a Despair is a Despair. But I also blew up valuable party property. Did I wrong the campaign and my fellow GM/Player?

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. Both new 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.

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 if when faced with a challenge he tries to use his wealth or army to get out of it. Mighty judges I ask what do I do?

ChefJustinLane

DM Vs. Player, Honored Justices and First Time Guest Bailiff Jake, 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 (@TheBrunchGuild)

Guy

May it please the court and displease or please the Bailiff depending on how we are feeling today(pulling for you Jake). I present the case of the Monk gone rogue. I DM a Wild West themed campaign where our party had just entered the mansion of a Water Tycoon that the Wizard believed had kidnapped her mentor after a group deception check. After acting strangely in front of the guard escorting them, the Air Genasi Monk cast Levitate(her Lineage spell) on the guard and claimed he had “floating disease” as a means of distracting him. Obviously this didn’t work because the guard isn’t an idiot and a tense combat to knock him unconscious before he could call for help ensued. Everything was going fine until they realized they needed to hide the body. The Monk said she would take care of it, and took the stabilized body outside. She then maneuvered the body over the manor’s walls, waited for the Levitate spell to end, and dropped the body twenty feet. I gave her that “DM look” but she went through with it anyway. There are no rules for what would happen to an unconscious body taking fall damage, because why would there be, so I described the body hitting the ground with a sickening splat. The Monk was pursued by the guards on top of the walls, who I had mentioned were there and used Step of the Wind to escape, while the rest of the party was caught in the manor and imprisoned. At the end of the session the Monk claimed I should have rolled damage because an unconscious body is actually better at falling from certain heights than a conscious one. I reluctantly agreed and didn’t roll enough to kill him, but decided to resented death saves. He died anyway, and even if he had lived I don’t think anything would have changed because the guards still saw her run away after a dude was dropped over a wall. My question for you is this; what should happen when an unconscious person takes fall damage? There are no specific rules like there are for melee and ranged attacks. Also, less importantly, what should I do about this player?

AshDronaut

Honorable justices and new daddy, Bailiff Jake! I’m running Out of the Abyss for my partner and friends and I let them use third party sources for their character builds. My partner chose ratfolk plague lord (inspired by the Skaven from Warhammer) from Valda’s Spire of Secrets which has been very nasty and fun so far UNTIL his new ability at level 6; projectile spew (it buffs his main ability but also allows touch spells to have a range of 15ft instead of touch). This is great for attack spells (which is flavored as “you use magical projectile vomit to deliver your payload” per Valda’s which is gross but on point for his nasty rat) but now him and the other players are trying to argue for him to cast identify from a distance by throwing up on items. This was tricky with a particular artifact they found: a cursed gem that causes madness when they touch it. I think it’s clever that he thought to use that ability for it but I’m still trying to work out how throwing up on something, even magical vomit, would allow someone to understand it better. I didn’t allow it for this item but I ask the court; going forward should I allow my partner’s ratfolk the ability to cast identify and other utility spells by throwing up on the target?

Amber Schneider

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

Anna

May it please the court, and the lowly, but respectable only in Boston, bailiff Jorn. I present the case of the Accidental Whomping. I was a first time DM for one shot, and I hosted a clue themed dinner party. I planned it as a classic 1920s murder mystery, and hyped it up to my group. But after a month or so of work, I realized it's really hard to make clue into a DND session. So I made a quick change, and had the apparently murdered man, come back as an oil dragon, with the stats and CR of a young gold dragon (for context my players were level nine). When it came to the session, all my players had stocked roleplay based spells, and I was sweating. Eventually it came to the encounter, and I stated I would give them two real life minutes to restock their spells for an encounter. As if Dice Christ was punishing me further, the internet was slow, and they only got to swap some of them. And if that wasn't enough, I accidentally began to whomp them, and I could tell my players were not enjoying themselves. In a moment of panic, I threw an NPC into combat, and stocked her with like seven potions of superior healing, and I fudged a roll so that the dragon would not get its breath roll back, preventing a certain TPK. I throw myself at the mercy and cruelty of the court. Should I have killed them? Or was I right to go against Dice Christ, and save my relationships.

MJMM

May it please the Court and Bailiff which then may please or irritate the court. This is not a case but an update of a former case. Over 2 years ago I submitted the case of the tiny cow familiar named Abner*. That campaign recently ended, and the spark notes version of what happened is my character got turned from a Blue Dragonborn to a full Blue Dragon. He became a bad guy for awhile and even tried to kill Abner but they were saved by the other members of my party. Later my old character was changed to a Sapphire Dragon and regained their good alignment. We then had a tearful good bye with the party and Abner. My new character (Paladin) then prayed to his God for a way for Abner and my old character to be together again. (Meta gaming but wasn't called out on it) I didn't get a nat 20 but did a relgion check of 23, and Abner then changed from a Tiny cow to a Cow Dragon. As they flew off in the distance my character declared he would from then on do the GOMAD diet in thanks to the gods, but my DM said, "No." Which I respected! Abner and I thank you for your time!

Samson

I must make a confession before Dice Christ that I have held in for too long. About two years ago, one of the players in my old group volunteered to DM a campaign. He showed us some of his notes and the map he made, each country having a rich history and culture. We, being the sinful, out-of-control players we were, decided that our entire party would be composed of former WWE-style wrestlers who lost their wrestling gigs and decided to take on odd jobs as adventurers. Soon after, the serious campaign that our DM crafted, descended into absurdist, slapstick humor in which we wiped out some kobold raiders and proceeded to grift from a poor farming village with staged wrestling matches and tomfoolery. Our DM never complained about our appropriation of his world, but I had the feeling that he was disappointed that he wasn't able to tell his story. As fun as that campaign was, I still feel bad a year later that we took our friend's dream and stuffed it with tights and luchador masks, and I wish to repent. I ask the court, in all it's divine wisdom, to enlighten us about what punishment we deserve for trampling on our friend's vision. I humbly await your divine decree.

Andy Horton

A Dice Christ Confessional A confessional before the chief popes of the church of dice Christ I humble myself before the triumvirate of popes and also Jackson i have come to confess a sin of getting too excited about an idea. While on a date recently my date expressed they had an interest in D&D we went back and forth about some of our fav podcasts (good luck for me she’s not a listener of NaddPod, which is bad luck for her) In the conversation and after a few bud heavys, we landed on the subject “Game of Thrones but for Whales” and I proceeded to spiral into an amount of Freeform lore that can only be described as a vision from the dice themselves: Game of thrones but it’s whales and dolphins after humanity has been wiped out by global flooding from climate change. A game of high political intrigue of a hyper intelligent sea Creatures living in the flooded wreckage of society. I then went on to describe the following: A clan of sharks having dominion over the state of Florida and the American south, have a working class of manatee as their main citizens that weave sea textiles The tops of the Rockies are still above water and the seals and sea lions claimed that land Their main commerce is penguins they raise as livestock. The Midwest has been taken over by bottom feeders like catfish from all the rivers, but it’s so much deeper now that they evolved to be like angler fish with little lights bc it’s dark down there now since the Midwest is basically one big bowl. New England area is run by baleen whales and there are crab farmers tending the coral huge reef that used to be manhattan, which attracts all the krill the whales want and in exchange the whales protect them from the southern raiding sharks. The west coast is the kings landing capital of the empire, originally founded by the dolphins left in sea world they were over thrown and exiled. There’s a young dolphin last of the line like Daenerys Targaryen, who is the mother of squids, three long extinct giant squid. The rich tyrell family can be humpback whales in the pacific north west, redwoods evolved to grow incredibly tall and poke out of the water, so they have a lumber empire. This seemed to put her off and I haven’t heard from her since. Please helpme be forgiven in the eyes of dice christ, and help me forgive myself for getting too excited about a bit, and ruining an otherwise great first date!

RefuelSapling

May it please the honorable and venerable Supreme Crit Justices, and the astute bailiff Jakes. 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 quickly started and ended a fight with a hiding trio of ogres. The party discovered—much to their horror—these ogres were civilians fleeing persecution with their three children. After this 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 they 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 pulled out his sword and pointed it towards the Ogres. The ogres recoiled, but the Druid claimed he 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.

Elizabeth Urban

Esteemed Supreme Crit Justices and the pathetic little bailiff blake; I humbly seek your counsel in the case of A Truly Awkward Party. The problem is twofold: the interpersonal makeup of the real life players is bananas, and the table is dry as fuck. In previous attempts to explain the complex relationships at the table, I have literally made a venn diagram of semi transpart colored ovals, which results in a sort of oil-slick blob/therapist's wet dream. My boyfriend is the DM, and alongside myself, the party is made up of my best friend, her ex boyfriend (chill), another of her ex boyfriends (sucks), and said ex's new girlfriend. We live in a small town so it is hard to find other like-minded players, so we continue to meet weekly for some deeply uncomfortable face time at the table. It would all be easier to tolerate if the gameplay was fun and exciting, but Justices, I simply cannot express how boring those ~4 hours a week are. Amongst our party of 5, 4 of us are experienced players and yet I am the only one that bothers to make any choices, talk to NPCs, and attempt to drag the rest of the PCs towards something that resembles a plot. I am uncomfortable taking charge within this group out of fear of the accusation of "ohh she's sleeping with the DM of course he gives her the good stuff." I also feel limited in my position as a barbarian, because I did not build my character to be the one making all the mental stat checks. So even when I try, there is a good chance I fail at making anything interesting happen anyway! I have tried everything at this point short of a confrontational callout to my friends/frenemies about how this game sucks ass and me and the boyfrienDM are getting sick of it. I have tried setting up roleplay scenarios then suggesting other party members who might be better than me at a skill, gently asking if the cleric or druid has a helpful or fun spell prepared, and just simply being quiet to see if anyone has the good sense to fill the space. The concept of the campaign is awesome (orcish bachelorette party) and I do genuinely enjoy exploring this world with my boyfrienDM, but are we beyond the point of reason? Will the court sanction some vigilante justice so I can attempt to implode this campaign and start fresh with a table that isn't stale?

Andrew Whitford

Dear Supreme Crit Justices and Bailey, My party has been running a weekly game for about three years now. In that time, one of my friends has become a huge min maxer - he makes insanely broken characters that can destroy whatever monsters are thrown at him. On the flip side, my other friend still barely knows how the game works and doesn’t realize his character has two attacks at times. Ultimately we have a really good time and I love my group, but how do I balance encounters when one guy is doing 50 damage a turn and the other guy forgets which dice is the d6?

Kelly Roberts

May it please the court and the Extremely Intelligent Judges and smart in his own way Jacob Penn Cooper Hurwitz; I bring to you the case of the Want-to-be-Adventurer… a local grocery store I frequent has what looks to be a TTRPG hosted on Saturday nights. Its populated by employees of this store and some folks I don’t recognize. I see them sometimes when I am shopping late, they play in the closed coffee shop area of the store. I desperately want to approach them and ask what they are doing (and maybe ask to play one day) but it seems way too awkward especially since I am a customer of their store! I don’t want them to feel obligated but I don’t have anyone else to play with and I would be so psyched to join them! Is it treachourous to cold approach strangers playing in public or would it be a great origin story for our friendship one day? Forever in debt to you and your wisdom. -Envious in the Produce Aisle

Nick Torino

To the all mighty people of the court and To whomever else it may concern: I am currently running a Lost Mines of Phandelver campaign for 6 new players and I try to be very generous to them. I consider myself more of a north-facing DM if the court still goes by that system, or more “Dunkle” leaning than dungeon daddy. When my players got to ask the banshee Agatha one question for a side quest, they could not decide what they wanted to ask her. After 10 minutes of talking over each other I mute the call and tell them “the next question I hear is the question you ask” and they all agreed. A second later a player goes we all need to agree on this, RIGHT?” and since this player does not use a voice I replied as the banshee. The entire call went silent before they all tried to tell me I was being mean and unfair, and one player even gaslighting me into believing i misheard them! To calm them down I relented on my decision cause it wasn’t worth ruining the night for everyone else. But it still haunts me; people of the court should I not have rescinded my original ruling? I humbly await your decision

Don Kianian

To the humble justices, whoever they may be this time, and the always reliable, buff, cool, and kind bailiff Jefferson, I present the following query: is it out of line to want to become an antagonist in your campaign? For context I’ve been playing a monk skewing neutral good. After a series of epiphanies and discoveries, he has become disillusioned and is skewing toward chaotic. I think an interesting progression would be this monk’s fall from grace and subsequent development as the next BBEG of the campaign potentially. My DM has not let me explore this idea really, and I’m wondering if it’s cuz I’m a nutcase for wanting to play Evil or if it really is just a bad idea. I await your true and faithful verdict - many thanks from Burbo Dink Mezuzula the halfling barbarian/monk

clevername

Honorable Justices and that Jack guy who likes to hang out in the courtroom, I present the case of the Drastically Altered Combat Rules. About a year and a half ago, I was part of a D&D campaign in a homebrew setting that played every Monday. After several sessions and a full campaign restart because the DM was feeling "stuck", the DM shared with us on Sunday night a fully reworked combat system that, while being extremely complicated, also invalidated my character's entire build. I raised these concerns with the DM but was told "It's my game and I worked hard coming up with this, so we're using it now." I asked my fellow players their thoughts and one of them agreed with me, the other said "It's the DMs game, she can do what she wants." I left the game before we played another session and ask you now, should I have just rolled with it and had my character's build ruined or was I right to leave?

Grace Atkins

Honorable, Fantastical, knowledgeable judges, and the bailiff however we feel about him today, I bring you the case of the ignorant player. I DM for a really large D and D group like 8 sometimes 9 people, so it can be really hard to organize everybody together to play, but for the most part we make it work. The problem is that there is one person who has been playing with us for 2 years (hasn't missed a session), who STILL doesn't know how to play. This slows down combat considerably. I mean this person stills asks what they are supposed to do to attack. They have played the same character the entire time. I could understand being out of practice now and again, but we can play several weeks in a row and they still don't know how to play every time. It is starting to make us all want to stop playing, because every round someone has to explain to them how to act on their turn during combat. Would I be too harsh if I told them that they need to learn to play or stop coming to group? Or should I just accept that some people just cannot get this game? I humbly await your judgment.

Billy T

To the honorable justices and the Beantown Justice/bailiff: I present to you the case of the Overworked Disguise Kit. In the current campaign I'm DM-ing for, I gave the players free reign in terms of character creation. As a result, we ended up with a ludicrously diverse party, including a centaur, a leonin, and a loxodon. On more than one occasion, the party has attempted to use one character's proficiency with the disguise kit to blend in. One such instance saw them attempt to infiltrate a drow stronghold by "making ourselves look like guards". I quickly shut this down, saying that no amount of clothing and makeup will help a horse and an elephant look like drow. My players were annoyed and complained that there was no point in even having the skill if they weren't going to be allowed to use it. Was I wrong to deny them this opportunity? Or was it fair for me to set what I thought was a reasonable limit on the disguise kit's capabilities? I humbly await your judgement.

Krysha Syrin

To the most honorable justices & sometimes honorable bailiff Jake, I submit a case of an elemental dilemma, may it please the court. In an online Christmas one-shot with some other Naddpoles during the pandemic, our amazing DM had an encounter involving a sentient Christmas tree. My level 3 Druid cast Flaming Sphere on the tree, which did a good amount of damage. The tree then cast Ice Knife, flavored as Icicle ornaments. I posited that the Ice Knives would melt as they passed through flaming sphere but the DM disagreed. So am I correct that the Ice Knives would've melted in the Flaming Sphere (Caldwell's favorite spell) or was my DM right in his ruling? I eagerly await your judgement & shout-out to my fellow Naddpoles who were part of this session, as it really helped me keep me engaged & connected during a rough spot in my life 😊

Austin from Austin

To the benevolent justices and Bailiff Tucker, I present the case of the chaotically persuasive player. I was in a campaign where everyone was new to the game including the DM. While most of the group was trying to follow the questline the DM laid out, we had a sorcerer player who was more chaotic and often wanted to go off and do their own thing. That would be fine if they truly were by themselves, but the issue is that they wanted to convince other players to follow them instead. For example, while the group was trying to talk to a sweet old lady about clues for my missing little sister, the sorcerer decided that she was actually evil. Instead of trying to do an insight check or anything to see if they were right, they asked the DM if they could roll persuasion to convince the other players, which was allowed. Being a sorcerer, their high charisma was no match for us and we were told that we now thought the old lady was evil and to stay in character, we didn't talk to her anymore despite the players wanting to. I at least tried to ask if I could roll something to challenge the sorcerer's persuasion like an insight or deception, but nothing I did was high enough. There were a few other times where we stopped the main quest line because this player "convinced" us to do something else against our will. So I ask, is that the appropriate way to persuade a player group to do something you want or could there be a counter roll or some different way altogether to handle this? Thank you.

Kellie Cthulhu

To the most honored crit on high and the lowest of gutters bailiff I present the case of Not So Tricky Tarot. I was a DM for some friends in which the campaign was centered around the PCs living a groundhogs day situation where if they died, slept, or tried to leave the island town they lived on the day would reset. The eclectic group of adventurerers had met my hot goth self insert who was also aware the day was repeating. She was an information broker and quest giver so I thought it would be fun that every time the day reset and the PCs came to her for a quest or advice that she would offer the character either guaranteed basic items or to draw a tarot card for an item. The idea was I would at the table shuffle my physical tarot cards and whatever was drawn would correspond with an items table I had made that I felt matched the meaning of the card. This was NOT a secret deck of many things. I had explained this whole system I had created to my PCs when they all decided to choose basic items like rope or a lantern instead because they all did not want to chance drawing from the deck of many things. Still they refused to draw a single tarot card and due to scheduling and life things fell apart soon after. I humbly ask the court was I too pushy and at fault for trying to use tarot like a gachapon or should my players have been brave and at least attempted to use my cool system that took me way too much time to make? -Kellie

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, and 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; he had an average roll of 23.6 on a flat longbow attack, 4.1 higher than 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?

Pistols O'Brien

To the esteemed justices and the lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly bailiff Jimbo. I was dming a game where a player had to step away, and we continued playing without her. On the next session, she was in character, but verbally berated another player character for a mistake he made, and while she was role playing and in character, it was very intense and it seemed like the other player actually was upset by this. How can I ask her to tone it down without discouraging her roleplaying? In the session, I tried just moving on and continuing the game, but I fear if this keeps happening it might alienate other players.

Kyle Corbett

Greetings gentile justices and the gruesome ghoulish bailiff. I present to you the case of the party versus the ring of spell storing. The rogue and our party had a ring of spell storing they had stolen off of a noble. As we were starting through a dungeon, our rogue activated the ring to utilize the spell currently stored within the ring. Our DM, the narrated that the ring loudly performed the verbal components of the spell alerting the guards to our location. Should I ring of spell storing makes sound? We debated this back-and-forth for some time until our party shared a look and went full on rage mode in the dungeon. We were trying to avoid casualties, but peace was no longer an option. We then stopped using the ring as the ruling of our DM made the ring difficult for the rogue to utilize. I beseech the court for jewelry justice.

Aaron Mayo-Smith

Hello Grand Court of Crit and Jonathan. I present the case of the real housewives of D&D. I was running a one-shot based on the reality tv show the real housewives. As part of this the players hosted a charity auction where they each offered an item. In line with the goal of bring the drama, two characters “Dona-Shella” and “Bee-anca” had started a friendly rivalry. While taking a break, Bee-anca asked if they could set up traps for Donashella. I allowed this but asked Donashella to make a perception check, which she passed, and I told her that she noticed Donashella casting magic on the stage but she did nothing about it. In short spells went off and Bee-anca humiliated Donashella. The mood instantly became very tense and Donashella looked pissed. After very uncomfortable minutes in which both of us offered to walk it down, Donashella played off this by creating a memorable moment. The mood became light again and everyone had a lot of fun playing off what happened, with the rest of the session revolving around it. But I still have guilt over allowing it to happen. Was I wrong to allow this PVP to happen and especially without checking what Beeanca intended to do first?

JC

Wonderful justices and the wonderless bailiff, I bring to you the case of the surprise player and the accursed concoction. I was running the final session for my homebrew campaign where the party was fighting an archangel who wished to kill the gods on a battlefield that was made of fragmented bits of the different planes of the DND universe. To my surprise when everyone was showing up, one of my other dnd friends, let's call him Dan, showed up, unannounced, with a character fully leveled up to play in the session. I had no idea this would be happening, nor did anyone else, but not wanting to turn away Dan I allowed him to join. About half way in as they are now midway through the fight, Dan disappeared to the kitchen. He then came back with a cup of water, mayo, and an egg. He then proceeded to make a drink of water, with mayo mixed it with a raw egg. Without warning he then drank the foul liquid and continued on his way. One of the other players had to leave the room for a moment and I don't blame them. Justices, should I have kicked out Dan or does he have a right to play and drink what he dubbed, Mayo-Egg water.

Aurora Koch

May it please the benevolent crit, mildly inconvenience the “bailiff” 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 loyalty to following commands, based off my alignment. 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 a microphone in my head so we could silently communicate, they reprogrammed 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. I wanted him to have an arc to change, but it was done so quick and without my consent. 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 leave myself to the justices mercy. (As I side note, the campaign did die off quickly afterwards because not everyone agreed with the action taken, and I’m still friends with some).

Bobomb36x

I bow before the benevolent and esteemed members of the court. I bring you not my story, but one from a friend of mine. He has been playing dnd with a small group over several years in a few different campaigns. Recently, for their newest campaign, they returned to a world from a previous campaign, but set a few centuries from the events of the old one. During play, his character was imprisoned, and couldn't be played with the rest of the party. He and his dm talked over playing a version of his old character, and everything was going well, but his dm got mad when he made a joke about his character's diet. Though it had been years since the end of the previous campaign, Hardwon eating beans was established in episode 95: minute 37:45 when Bev is making his weird coffee drinks, and though it was never stated, baked beans could have been included in Moonshine's Hero's Feast, due to being a cornerstone of a Full English breakfast. Should Murph have been so salty about Hardwon having eating mainly beans since making it back to bahumia? P.S. Sorry for the fake case. I know its a running joke now, but i was re-listening to c1, and couldn't resist trying to razz murph.

Justin LeBlanc

If it may please the court and it’s silly little bailiff, I have a concern over pathfinder power gaming. We are running a few short campaigns to prep for our big transition to pf2e, but one of the players is a chronic power gamer and this really becomes problematic in this system. He’s a magus (think spellblade-esque) and he does upwards of 30+ damage per round of combat, which is a ton, after sleuthing I’ve noticed he’s adding extra modifiers and dice! I’m not sure if it’s intentional but he’s critting all the time as well sometimes doing 70-80 damage! I know the class has high burst potential but my gunslinger is usually doing 10-25 damage per round, albeit she’s built more supportively, our fighter isn’t even reaching those crazy high numbers! I ask the court, how aggressively should I come down on this power gamer and make sure for the main campaign he isn’t abusing mechanics, even if it’s unknowingly. PS- he gave himself an iguanodon as his mount and just straight up used the actual monster stats (80+ hp HUGE creature) instead of standard mount stats resulting in the DM having to take his mount for this second arc of the mini camapaign.

Alysha Knaphus

Hello Supreme Crit and new dad Bailiff (congrats!) I might have an overstepping DM I'm playing a campaign as a drowned warlock with some friends of my DM and things are getting rocky. It first started with our character intros. My character met our scholarly wizard who writes everything she sees in her notebook. In the first session, the DM sends me a private message, saying that the wizard has dropped her notebook, and that I pick it up. At the end of the session it's revealed that I have the notebook, and when I offered to give it back, apparently I have ruined it with my drowned warlock ocean hands, and the wizard is furious. In our second session, we need to get a boat to travel to where we're headed, and my character being a sailor, is the one captaining it. My DM says "player name, you start to steer the ship in the wrong direction, into the middle of the ocean". When I start to protest saying that I don't want to do this, she says it's because my Patron is calling me that way, and that I lose control of myself. My team members have to tie me up Odyssey style. And we come to our fifth session, when I get to meet my patron for the first time. Our DM admonishes me as my patron, saying that I have been disobeying his orders by not taking the boat into the middle of the ocean, and threatens to take away my warlock powers if I don't listen in the future. A few times my dm has made me make wisdom saving rolls to control myself, but not always. These instances of my character being driven by her patron are causing small spats in the group. I feel like my dm is oversteping her boundaries by telling me what my character does, but is it within the dm's right to control a warlock as a patron? I await your deepest of crit knowledge.

Jackson Cross

May it please the mighty justices as well as the downright coquettish bailiff, I present to you the case of the ruined apartment. My friends and I have been playing dnd at college for about a year now, and we've always played at our friend's apartment. He has room enough to host all of us, which no one else really does, and he very much enjoys hosting. Unfortunately, while we were all home for the summer we received word that a straight-up murder had taken place in the very same apartment building that we played in. We were planning on resuming our campaign when we got back to college but now many of the players are apprehensive. Personally, I would not mind playing dnd in a building that someone was murdered in and even think it could add some nice ambiance, but alas, it seems unlikely that our sessions could be comfortable if they continued there. As we have truly no other space to play in at this time, please advise on how we should proceed. May the wisdom of the court guide me.

Benjamin Krawchuk

To the illustrious and magnificent judges of the court, and the bellhop Jormp. I present the case of the nerfed PCs. I started a campaign with friends where we used rolled stats, and on one of my rolls I got an 18. Naturally, for my rogue PC I allocated this to Dexterity and with my racial modifiers I started at 20 Dexterity and middling rolls on all other stats. My DM after a few sessions decided it was frustrating to have no dex or stealth based challenges actually challenge me, and ruled that until a later level he would determine, I would have to treat it as a +3 to Dex instead of the +5 I had rolled. I argued he could make things more challenging instead of nerfing my character. Am I in the wrong or is my DM a chode for this? Thanks

Delani N Wright

To the austere yet benevolent judges and the bailiff also. I present to you the party of 12. I am the forever DM in my friend group which I love. However, I fear that Dice Christ was testing me. My friend wanted to play a one shot for her birthday. I was already in the mindset for crafting adventures because I was making one for my birthday as well(our birthdays are days apart). So I wrote out a wizard tournament with elements of breath of the wild and NADPODD and I was very excited about it until my friend asked. “Can you make it to work for 12 people?” I was stunned, the largest party I have ever ran was 5 and that was a lot for me to keep track of. How was I to make monsters who could withstand this? My first thought was just use a super hard one and kill whoever I kill. This is insanity after all. But the youngest player was 7. And I couldn’t murder a child. So I modified the hell out of a dragon and held back hard. They won, and it was a lot of fun but it was pure chaos. My dear court, should I have said absolutely not to my friend? Should I have killed them all children be damned? I anxiously await your ruling. P.S. did I mention she insisted they all be level 3 wizards?

Cats

Not a case, but I do love how this show tends to devolve into AITA stories

Rylei

Forgive me Dice Christ for I have sinned. I was running a one-shot & my party met the big bad: an adult red dragon. One of the players, my best friend who normally DMs for us, immediately trapped the dragon in a wall of force. Distraught that my big bad was incapacitated so easily, I called for an emergency lunch break. In the break, I quickly added an archmage to the game in Roll20 who specifically knew the spell disintegrate to destroy the wall of force trapping the dragon. I’d like to believe that my heart was in the right place because I didn’t want the game to end on an anticlimax but it’s still objectively wrong to spawn an enemy to specifically hinder a player’s plans. I await my swift & terrible punishment.

Aaron W

Lords and ladies of the RPG Holy Cloth, I have a Dice Christ confession to make. I joined a Pathfinder campaign with a first time DM, and wanted to create a character with a unique item as part of his backstory — a con artist sorcerer who went from town to town selling a “God Box” that supposedly could replicate any spell via mechanical means, which would promptly fizzle out of charges after he sold it to a buyer and left town. The confession is this — I never figured out the game mechanics that would allow such an item to exist, but I told the DM I did, and it was part of a new sorcerer subclass trait. We had a fun time, but midway through the first and only session I realized having access to any spell, even as a con, broke the game and there was no way to fix it without creating a new character… and the game fell apart soon after. I humbly beseech the forgiveness of RNGesus. Yours in Dice, Contrition from a Con Man

Colee

To the venerable justices of the crit (and Jonk was it?), I present to you the case of the perpetually split party. Three years ago I started law school in the city my high school best friend lived in and he was so excited to have the opportunity to run a homebrew campaign he’d been working on for me and his two significant others. I was also so excited because I hadn’t had the chance to play D&D in a long time. He developed the campaign to start on what he called “the Skykip” (read: flying brothel) and had each of us come up with a reason for being on the ship. My character was a sheltered young woman who’d recently escaped a cult so she’d taken the ship as a cheaper way to get from A to B and spent more time exploring the ship. Whereas the other two PCs spent the whole time partying, so there were rarely any good reasons for our characters to cross paths and form a party. The two other PCs eventually did manage to meet up but my character got intercepted by an NPC (who eventually wound up selling her to his evil twin brother to buy his freedom). This all culminated on a fight on the ship which I thought would finally unite the party. I was so wrong. It ended with the three of us splintering off into different factions and the DM revealed that we would be playing the campaign every week but each of us would be expected to develop new PCs for the others sections of the stories which felt a lot like being the main character once a month and a glorified NPC the rest of the time. The campaign pretty much fell apart at that point due to my reluctance to play in this way because I liked my character and being so busy with school I wanted to actually enjoy my time spent playing D&D which the other players and DM thought was me being unreasonable. So, I ask the court; was I wrong in my reluctance or was this an unreasonable ask? I throw myself at the mercy of your judgment. (P.S. if Murph is worried I am no longer friends with them and found other, lovely friends to play D&D with every week).

Kurt

Dear Honorable Justices Axford, Tanner, and Murphy, and the so-so Baliff. I bring to you the case of Discord on Discord. Since the pandemic my group has played virtually and recently started using Discord. Everything has been going fine until one of my players, a chaos wizard changeling, found a soundboard and activities that can be used in chat. I have put up with klaxons going off during intense moments, and the party getting distracted on a side game of poker. I have found a way to block the soundboard and activities from being played on the chat, and have done so recently due to a characters resurrection ritual and wanted it to be dealt with respectively. However, I was met with UPROAR from some players, with them even threatening to buy instruments so that can make their own soundboard. I ask, am I in the wrong for taking a distraction away, or should I have to put up with our game being interrupted with mayhem? Ps the ritual failed due to terrible rolls from all players. I humbly await your judgement, D20rollerkurt

Aaron Bleackley

May it please the court: I present the case of the party proclaimed TPK. Years ago I was running a short-ish adventure with my friends. At the point of litigation the party was infiltrating a castle as part of a sneak in, smash, grab, and flee style heist. The party was doing well until they all rolled spectacularly badly on a puzzle/trap room and were all rendered unconscious by sleeping gas that was filling the room. At which point the party started picking up their papers and declared a TPK before I could even get to the next scene. There was a written 'so you've been knocked out and are in the dungeon' section! I don't recall how hard I protested, perhaps not hard enough? I was so baffled by the self TPK declaration. I think they were having fun, and do like playing with me as evidenced by their continued playing in my games for over a decade. Should I have shown them the written module or otherwise protested more strenuously? I think they felt that I was softballing what should have been their doom. I await the wisdom of the court.

James M

To the finest members of the court and to the joke…. I mean Jake, that is the the lowlyest… umm I meant lovelyest bailiff. I bring forward to you the case of the cutscene conundrum. I had created what I thought was to be a quick one shot session. The party were bought to the floating city of Sparrows Ridge by the great Wizard Balthazar. They chose to investigate the going’s on in the town and collect a stolen scroll to which Balthazar had the other three for safekeeping. After countless hours of puzzles and searching, the party finally defeated the big boss in a spider mech who they had found out would have been able to destroy the city with meteor swarm if he had gotten his hands on all four scrolls. At this point the party sat round the table and looked weary, I noticed a player yawning and so I began to panic. ‘I’m just very tired’ was the response from the player when I asked if everyone was good. But I had a cliffhanger planned so that the party could potentially play once again with these characters (I doubt they will now) I therefore cutscened the remainder of the session so my players didn’t fall asleep. With the bad guy defeated I described how the party returned to Balthazar via the cities transportation system of rocket ships, steam punk style, and down to the port below. When they reconvened I gave the players a choice as to wether they handed the final scroll to Balthazar or not. They of course trusted the wizard with their life and handed it over. This is where i then cutscened the moment the friendly wizard became a seething world destroying monster. With the fourth scroll the wizard had planned all along that he would destroy the city and become the rightful ruler of chaos. At this point of course you can imagine the players tried to stop him. But instead of letting them I had him destroy the city behind as the players watched and I ended the session there. This same tired player was extremely cross, leaving the screen, (as we were playing in the lockdown) screaming ‘you have to let the players play!’ There was a horrible silence but the other players said they enjoyed themselves. Was I wrong to not let the players interfere with my ideas and plans for a following campaign because of one tired soul? Or was I right to cutscene the hell out of the end and destroy my players hard work and dedication to the game? That is for you to decide my lovely court and the bailiff joke ah I mean

Tenaya F

Honorable justices and Jake, who we may or may not feel good about depending on the day and bit, I present you with the case of the lair action reaction. In a game I've been playing in for two years now, our party found ourselves facing off against a manipulative adult green dragon. It convinced us to let us fight it in its lair (a mistake for which my over-sympathetic bard was mostly responsible for), but we didn't trust it much. All of us had actions readied to attack in case it showed any sign of being aggressive, and our DM informed us that it also had an action readied. When the tension broke and it made a move to strike, the DM had us roll initiative to determine the order in which our reactions would go off. The DM then informed us that instead of the green dragon taking a standard attack as its prepared reaction, we would suffer the effects of a lair action that would cast wall of thorns, which took effect on initiative 20. This divided our party and made it impossible for half of us to see the dragon itself, rendering our readied actions useless since they needed line of sight. While we talked it through, I eventually deferred to our DM and things went as he planned, but I still don't believe that the dragon should have been able to ready and then release an initiative-dependent lair action during a reaction round. Were we wronged or did we deserve to be divided in the fight to come?

Spencer

To the honourable judges and that one guy whose name escape me right now. I bring you the case of the Sassy Dad. last Christmas I decided to make my dad and sister a one shot and they were super excited to play as they had never played dnd before and when it came to playing they honestly took to it like fish to water in all aspects but one. My dad couldn’t seem to understand that NPC’s continue to exist in a scene even when they aren’t being spoken to. He and my sister were trying to gain entry to a part of town that is made up of a close nit gaggle of thieves and adventurers, upon entrance to the gate an NPC gave them a hard time entering and my dad and sisters PC’s began talking about how they planned to sneak in or what tactics they could use to get him to let them in, even saying ‘we could just bribe him’. I asked if this was in character and they said yes, I then asked if they had taken any measures to be quiet or step away and they said no. Above game I informed them that the guy could hear them and that it would be a good idea to try and have this conversation else where, my dad doubled down and said ‘but we’re not talking to him and you are behind the screen (referencing my DM screen, sassy phrasing but ok, go off pops)’ I told him that NPCS are still there and with you even when they’re not talking. We moved forward and I rolled to see how much of the conversation he was paying attention to and raised the DC’s for persuading him accordingly. Do you think I should have let it slide considering that it was his first time playing or was I right to try and explain how it all worked and make it a little harder for them to get in? I leave myself and my father in your judgy little hands. JACK! THAT ONE GUYS NAME WAS JACK!

PawPaw’s Overalls

To the Honorable Justices and Onerous Jack, I write in with the story of the Husband NPC. Usually our games are great, but there has been a trend happening over the past months that has me questioning if I’m going insane. Occasionally our DM’s husband will come hang out with us and sit around the table as we play. At first he would sometimes voice a character or two, or help our DM with keeping track of combat. However, over the past few months he’s been creating a random overpowered NPC during combat and specifically targeting and attacking only me. Usually he has magic items that give invisibility, crazy ACs, etc that make it nearly impossible for me to attack him back, and even at times our other party members don’t even know he is there without “meta gaming”. He has downed me twice and even killed my level 12 sorcerer in our last encounter. Upon challenging him and our DM that this was unfair and unfun, I asked if he would at least roll to see who he would attack. After agreeing, he proceeded to roll a D6 behind the screen and “randomly” attacked me three straight times by saying “oh another 4”. After the 3rd time I stood up to look over the screen and the dice was showing a 6. So Justices, I ask, and I crazy? Should the DM have put a stop to this a long time ago? Is this normal table behavior?

Dave Large

May it please the astute justices and the ever descending baliff Jock? I think? I present the case of the shifty shapeshifter! I dm a game and one of players is a changeling bard. Very neat character combo. Following a firefighting encounter at their home base town, he set to asking the locals for info which concluded in the tavern. After the sorcerer and himself failed one too many con saves, his methods got…creative. He stumbled out of the tavern, took the visage of the bartender, and triumphantly waltzed back in. He began trying to work the patrons for info IN FRONT of the bartender he borrowed his look from. Upon inevitable failure to gather intel and near banishment from the bar, he looked disappointed that his ruse failed. I ask the court, should I have been more loose lipped to sudden twin brother or could a different disguise have been the better option? I humbly await your verdict.

Jon Poderdunk

I stand before the court with a case of a puzzle gone... sexual? In college my friends and I were trying D&D for the second time, I was once again given the honor of the HOT dm chair. I ran a one shot for the group in a players dorm room and at one point I challenged them with a puzzle I found on Reddit called 'The Gentleman's Mirror'. If Murph wants to use this, I request a humble earmuffing your honors, a magical shimmering reflection blocks the party's path. They felt their own warmth and skin if they touched the mirror, and their reflections react if they collided. Ultimately you have to gesture kindly for your reflection to pass, before they will step out of your way. Now the group really tried to screw themselves for a while... I did not understand the implications of the mirror, but after they tried everything they could to get certain things in certain places, they returned to failing to get themselves through the mirror. I refused to give any hints, I let them solve it or not, moving on was an option they did not take. We started playing at 7 or 8 PM and they did not get through the mirror until the sun was up the next day. Our friend had class in the morning and had gone to sleep but he let us keep playing and encouraged the party to keep trying to F themselves, but they just ended up ass to ass most of the time. When it was over, The party was relieved in a hobbits on Mount Doom way, no energy to be upset with me, so I ask the court, was I a gentleman for letting them earn their glory? PS I had the one shot's big bad run through a doorway and throw the mirror up

Carter Carscadden

Honorable and benevolent justices and Jill and tuckers Manny; I write to you with the case of being a sleepy little guy. In the height of the pandemic I joined my first dnd game as a player through a discord server. Playing over zoom, our dm was located in PST while I in EST. (Most of the players being in either cst or est to my understanding). We’d often start games at 7 est and play for close to four hours. I was an essential worker at the time working hardware. Often times having a wake up of 7am on weekends to make my shifts. I’d tell my dm that I would have a hard out at 11pm est / 8pm pst so I could get any type of rest. The group would get carried away and play for hours after that. Often times with intense lore dumps and context given to the other players while never being communicated to me. Leaving me coming into to sessions completely clueless and making huge swings that I didn’t necessarily know the consequences of simply to be involved that might’ve been out of character for my 20 int artificer. While I would ask more questions during the game I became a little shy because it seemed to ruin the flow of things and I tried to just fill in blanks. I tried staying up with the group at times but it would just lead to me quietly falling asleep in my chair midcombat. So I ask, should I have just invested more into my coffee addiction or would I have been within my rights of asking the dm to do a better job at closing down the session?

Jack Nolan

May it please the Court and the Rightous but Fair Bailiff. I bring you the case of the accidental PC death. I was a new DM running a Percy Jackson and the Olympians themed campaign with homebrewed character classes to represent the players godly parents. Shortly after the party of 3 level 3 PCs arrived to camp, the camp border was attacked by a group of griffins. The PCs rushed to the defense of the camp and attempted to push the monsters away. Being a new DM I quickly realized I had accidentally poorly balanced the encounter and my PCs started to go down. The camp drove the monsters away and one of the PCs was on 1 failed death save with a high level NPC coming to save them. All they had to do was not roll a 1. Of course they rolled a 1. Mortified, I allowed the players to try and plead with their godly parents to resurrect the player, leaving it up to a roll of the dice (straight up and down roll 11 or higher being a success) which unfortunately failed. The player was upset but ultimately created a new character and continued playing and the PC death became an important event that drove the party together. The problem is this. A few sessions later, the player said that if their PC died again, they would stop playing, and the other 2 members said the same. Of course I don’t want to kill my PCs but without the threat for character death, I struggle to make combat feel like it has stakes. Was I wrong to have the PC remain dead in accordance with the rolls? Or should I have allowed the PC to be revived due to my mistake. This mistake haunts me 3 years later. I throw myself to the court and accept any punishment they give me.

Shambles

Honourable Justices of the Crit and Big Jake* (that asterisk will be important later), if it doth please the court, I present the case of the Premature Initiative. This one's a shortie: the DM in my first ever campaign used to make us roll initiative as soon as we saw an enemy, even if they were super far away. We'd regularly spend multiple rounds of combat just saying "I dash 60 feet" until we were close enough to fight. My suggestion of starting initiative once we were in, or even NEAR combat range always fell on deaf ears. Sweet Justices on High: was this a super weird thing for the DM to do, or should I have just enjoyed the imaginary exercise? I humbly await your wisdomful words of justice. * The word "Jake" is an insult in Scotland 😎

Andrew Whitford

P.S. I apologize that there’s not really a conflict here. Think of this more as a civil case rather than a criminal case I guess.

Marcos, PhD...Eventually

Dear Justices / High Priests of the High Crit / Dice Christ (& Bailiff of Varying Repute / Random Priest of the Church of Dice-Christ), I DM for a few friends (from a former place of employment) and a Manager from said place wanted to join in our game (all the other players still work there). Another player and I built a simple barbarian for the Manager-Player to try out DnD (first time playing). We're running Rime of the Frostmaiden (published module) and took part in one of the random side-quests in Icewind Dale - a non-traditional mini-adventure involving gnome ceremorphs (mini-Mind Flayers with Laser Guns) trying to track down some lost creatures that broke out when their ship crashed. As the DM, I really wanted to play this mini-adventure, but in retrospect, the Manager-Player seemed lost and confused. After the fact, the other PCs noted that perhaps, introducing tentacle-faced aliens & spaceships might not have been the best first foray into DnD. It has been some time, but the game has weighed on me - did I subject this brand new player to an insane scenario that unintentionally burned the new PC from DnD? Should I have run a more newbie-friendly one-off instead for their first session? This was an established / running campaign with the same group that's been playing for over five years (except new Manager-Player), with I as the DM for most of that period. I present my case / confession to your judgement. Humbly, a nearly-forever DM, Marcos

Geoff Welch

To the esteemed crit justices and to the lowest of the low bailiffs, what’s his name, oh well not important, we ask your wisdom. Our DM had been planning a homebrew campaign for over a year. She has been hyping it up nonstop this whole time. We are seven sessions in now, and while the initial hook was really cool, we have done absolutely nothing to forward the plot. Several times we have met seemingly important NPCs and seen cool locations, yet no combination of checks or actions has lead to anything happening. We just keep encountering the same wildlife and documenting locations of objects in an empty forest. Once on a nat 20 perception check, she gave me a path to an NPC’s house who was clearly important to the concept of the world and the DM herself seemed excited we were meeting him, but then we spent the next two hours trying to talk to him, investigate, tried combat, etc only to walk away with carrots for our supplies. We are parents of two small children and barely have time to play; are we in the wrong for wanting to quit this campaign our friend is so excited about since absolutely nothing is happening? We eagerly await your verdict.

William James

To the honorable Justices Axford, Murphy, Tanner, and optional guests, along with the bailiff jayk (spelling?), I present a case of Clammy Charisma. I'm playing a Tempest Oracle in a Pathfinder 2nd Edition game. Without overloading you all with too many details, this is means 2 things: the first is that I have a high Charisma score, currently an 18 at level 2, and the second is that (quoting the rules for the Oracle's Tempest subclass) I am "the center of your own tiny tempest, ever surrounded by wind and rain. Even when you are calm and at rest, you are slightly damp." With skill training in Diplomacy and Deception, I've been playing my character as someone who is very Charismatic, with a sort of windswept, romance novel cover type guy, but my GM plays his NPCs as weirded out by my character's natural wetness, and sometimes fully preventing chances to use the skills I'm trained in. Judges, which side should prevail here? Should my character be allowed to work his charms despite the curse, or is my GM right to say that NPCs would be weirded out by some wet guy? I await your judgment.

Santa Grinch Hugging HumBaba and two Fairies

Mystics of Dice Chryst forgive me for failing an IRL insight check before moving across the country to live with someone i met online playing DnD. How can i improve my Cha Save against the spell rose colored glasses

Court Davies

To the effervescent justices and the bailiff of varying degrees of lowliness, I bring you a philosophical quandary regarding the ethics of animating dead. Our party includes a lawful good paladin and a chaotic neutral circle of spores druid. One of the druid's favored strategies is to cast animate dead, to which the paladin fervently protests every time, claiming it to be immoral dark magic. The druid defends her actions by saying that in this context, the reanimation is natural and beautiful. Her class ability describes it as a corticep-like fungus merely taking control of a soulless meat mech. The paladin refutes by saying it is still disrespectful to the dead, and has even gone as far as to warn the druid that if she continues, he may eradicate her new undead followers to put the bodies to rest. So I ask the honorable justices, do you side with our paladin, who believes our druid is committing an evil act of dark magic regardless of the context, or do you side with our druid, who believes she is simply a perpetuator of the natural cycle? We anxiously await your qualified ruling!

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

Kevin Alman

To the 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.

Jordan Brown

To the venerable Supreme Crit justices and the pretty okay bailiff - I present the case of A Bag of Sharing. I run a campaign where one of my players is a rogue/artificer multi class. They went artificer after I had an NPC that was a higher level artificer who helped the party in a unionization campaign against wealthy elites in a city. This is great and I appreciate so much their dedication to the NPC I created. The issue comes in that with their new artificer multi class, they asked if their bag of holding that they created with their new infusions could possibly be able to have two separate openings to the demiplane that the bag places items into, the second being given to the high level artificer NPC. The thought was that if they they could send a message to the NPC and ask for them to purchase items and place them into the bag of holding, they could place the money in the bag and have the NPC shop for them. I was a little wary of this idea, not wanting to give the players a way to just have a store pretty much whenever they needed and never having to worry about their inventory and item consumption especially with healing potions. I decided to leave it up to the dice and set a high DC 25, then I had the player roll an intelligence/arcana check to modify the bag and they scored a natural 20. Now they are in a difficult longer dungeon crawl and the players have already asked for some materials to be purchased for them, which kind of ruin the stakes of the game when it comes to resource accessibility. I ask the court, would it be wrong of me to have a creature disenchant the bag or steal it? Should I have been more stern about it so it does not ruin the stakes of the game and said no, or did leaving it up to Dice Christ mean that this is as intended by the gods? I leave it in your tea-pouring hands.

Winter Bishop

May it please the court and the honorable justices Murphy, Axford, Tanner, and the other guy. I bring forth the case of the Level 20 PVP. A few years ago, I played a level 20 pvp with my then boyfriend. He chose a druid and I chose a sorcerer. The Druid’s strategy was to just wild shape into an ancient dragon so I’d only be knocking out its HP. After a while I did manage to get the druid out of wildshape before they could go back in to it. I casually asked “hey, how many hit points do you have left?” They said a number under 100, and I having saved my one 9th level spell, used power word kill to finish this once and for all. The druid was mad because they said it wasn’t fair for me to use power word kill. And insist they’d have won if I didn’t have that spell on me and I shouldn’t have asked how many hp they had and it was a cheap victory. Judges, was I right to find an efficient way to win this pvp via power word kill? Should I have found another way to fight back? Whether it was a cheap victory or not, I’ll take it. I hope this finds you well, and I await your honorable and truthful ruling. - Anna

Aydin Prineapple

The Case of the Devious DM and the Problematic Player. May this find the ears of the supreme justices and the even more supreme bailiff Josh. Or was it Justin? I used to play in a D&D group that had effectively poached some players from a different D&D group (unrelated to the story). Both that game and the game this case is about were very lighthearted, and not serious games which took me a bit to grapple with, but I eventually got over. The DM and player in question were close friends and had known each other for a long time. As this was an online game, almost everyone new each other only a bit except for those two who knew each other IRL. I didnt care about that at all until they started to message each other during our sessions, when the problem player's character went off alone to do who knows what. Again, I didnt mind this too much. The straw that broke the camel's back was when the problem player's character met back up with the party, after having gone off alone, but this time, came back yoked out in magic items. He had some powerful shit such as +3 armor, a homebrew hammer that could turn into any tool he pleased as well as any +2 weapon, as well as similarly powerful items. I should also note, we were all level 6. After seeing this, I asked if I could talk to the dm (who is a really cool guy when not doing stuff with the other player behind our backs.) I wanted to talk to him about why he gave the player's character such op shit, and he said something along the lines of, "He is my friend so when he DMed me about wanting to go do a dungeon wile the rest of you guys fuck around, I of course obliged." I was left speechless and due to the unfairness of the game as well as the lack of fun I was having, I left soon after, though I stayed in contact with the DM and some of the players. One last thing, the problem player's character was one from a previous campaign that both him, and the DM played in previously. That campaign was set in Eberron wile this one was set in Faerun, so two completely different worlds. Everything that the character did in the previous campaign, carried over to this one, say for the his level. Now I ask you all, should I not have left? Should I give them a second chance? Or did I make the right decision? I rest my fate in the hands of the justices as well as the bailiff Jared.

Jesse Dunlap

May it please the esteemed court and your brand new bailiff Jake (Welcome to NADDPOD Jake). I am the DM for a rag tag croup of new players. One of the players wanted to be half orc named Fat Bastard. After hinting that the name might break the Role play I relented. During our first couple session fat bastard kept trying to eat people during or after fights and the rest of the party was not having it. I thought up a plan to remove him with out me actually targeting him. I set up an encounter with gnomes (mini me like fellas) and one of them had a cursed weapon of the beserker. I said plainly that it was coated in black flame and the gnomish leader seemed deranged. Instantly fat bastard killed the gnome and took the weapon just as I knew he would. A fight between fat bastard and the party broke out and even after the paladin commanded him to drop the weapon the party killed him citing his dangerous and Evil ways. He then sat there as we played seeming dejected. He now makes comments to me about he will kill my brothers character (who landed the killing blow) as his new character. We kinda stopped inviting him to sessions. Am I in the wrong to have deliberately set him up to be killed and have it look like my hands are clean or did Fat bastard take his own life by being a murder hobo from an Austin Powers movie. P.S we didn’t stop playing with him over this incident but rather we discovered he had a baby just born that his hadn’t told us about in the year+ of hanging out with him weekly. Insane. He still wants to come to every session and we all kind feel that he should be making up for the time he wasn’t with his baby momma. Literally so insane.

Connor Dub

Personally I just like going through and reading the comments

Abigail Martin

To the esteemed High Crit Justices and the Bailiff Jack, This court case comes from a campaign I was running set in the Feywild. My party was exploring a dark cave system looking for secret passages when they came across a deep chasm. As I began describing the yawning depths and the glittering ores and gems that represented crystallized wishes, one of my players asked: “So it’s a big ore chasm?” The table immediately erupted into chaos, and I was beset by questions like “How deep is the ore chasm?” “Is the ore chasm wet or dry?” and “Are there any monsters in my ore chasm?” In a moment of pure spite, I doubled the amount of monsters in the ambush on the rope bridge across the ore chasm, which almost TPK’d the party and killed the rogue. I ask you justices, was I justified in almost killing all of my players in the ore chasm, or should I have accepted my razzing? Side note: every time I talk about caves my players will now ask me if there are any ore chasms.

Alex Weatherhead

To the esteemed Supreme Crit justices and Bailiff Jake whom I sincerely congratulate on becoming a father and insincerely think looks great today. I present a case for mediation if it please the court. I recently DMed a campaign set in a home brew setting the players and I created together using the world building game, The Quiet Year, re-flavored for 5e. We were all excited but quickly learned that game is dependent on the entire group sharing some sort of common goal. This was not the case in my group. One player seemed to actively sabotage the world by making decisions such as “the only fabric available in the world is denim, there’s a race of sentient mammalian spiders whose milk is more valuable than gold, and the villagers spend six weeks building a giant straw to suck up all the lava from a nearby volcano.” We ran the campaign for a while before moving on to a new one and I think it fell apart because it was so hard to exist in an insane world in a sane way. I seek not punishment but mediation. How could I set boundaries for the world while allowing them their fun?

Jon

To the amazing judges and the bailiff who is awesome, just ok, or sucks dragon pussy (depending on how Murph is feeling). I bring to you the case of the player who doesn’t seem to ever be happy with a character. While running a campaign for my 3 players, everything seemed to be going well for the first 3 sessions. However, after finishing up in the starting town (while running from the current enemies) the session came to an end. Before the next session, my friend playing a wizard decided he wanted to completely change characters and be a sorcerer. Which I was fine with and allowed him to completely roll a new character/stats (which ended up being slightly lower than his wizards stats but overall all players were within 3 total ability score points) all players had 2 highish stats, 2 average, and 2 lower. My main problem comes from after ONE session with his new character he decided he wanted to roll yet another character. I told him that was fine, but he must keep his previously rolled stats but may reorganize them if he would like and change them based on his chosen race. He decided he didn’t like that and we went back and forth but eventually I let him have his way and roll all new stats… the raw numbers were 17, 11,12, 9, 9, and 7. Obviously he then wanted to have his old stats back. I said no because this is what he wanted. Now I’m not cruel enough to have him play a whole campaign with these stats, but a few sessions? I mean this IS what he wanted right? I should note that his newest character is a paladin so I had plans on his god granting him more power (improving his stats after a few sessions). My question is am I in the wrong for making him stick with shitty stats for a while? If not, am I being too easy on him giving him an out? Should I be more harsh? (P.S for Murph, finding new friends isn’t much of an option in this scenario because all players are going to be part of my upcoming wedding party)

Fia (but not Boginya)

To the honoured members of the Church of Dice Christ who are all equal in power, and if one of them feels like people place them on a lower pedestal within the church that's really more of his issue and he should maybe examine why he feels that way, because we're honestly worried about you Jake… I come seeking atonement from Dice Christ, for I have stolen a soul from his embrace. I was running a one shot for new players, and I ran a level 1 encounter of them fighting some Goblins. Things were going great until one of the Goblins Crit on the already injured Wizard, and I rolled enough damage to kill them outright without death saves. Instead of announcing the character had died, I chose instead to lie about the damage roll, saying I did enough to drop them to 0, but still roll saves. They were then brought back by the Cleric, but I feel guilty. Dice Christ had called for this Wizards death and I denied him, so I come to you, his humble servants, seeking his forgiveness

Spencer

To the unforgettable Justices Axford, Tanner, and Murphy, [beat of silence, don’t read this out loud] I’d like to present to you the case of the headache-faking fox demon. A few years ago, I was DMing a session where I had my party get ambushed by a spellcasting jackal-like fiend called an arcanaloth and some of his henchmen in search of a macguffin the players had. During the fight, the only player to directly engage the arcanaloth was our bladesinging wizard, who promptly cast Shadow Blade and went to town. However, Shadow Blade does psychic damage, and the arcanaloth has a spell called Mind Blank, giving him immunity to psychic damage. Normally I would hint when a creature has resistance or immunity, but since psychic damage has no physical evidence, I ruled that he would be clever enough to “pretend” to take that damage. Round after round, the wizard fruitlessly went to town on this guy, none the wiser of the futility. Ultimately, the arcanaloth was the only survivor of his assault, but he managed to kill the wizard and grab the macguffin before teleporting away. After the battle (and the wizard’s resurrection) the party confronted me on how difficult that fight was, to which I finally admitted how little damage he had actually taken. Needless to say, the party was furious at me, resulting in a 30-minute long argument about communicating damage effectiveness. We continued on as normal, but the inside joke of “he was PRETENDING to take damage” haunts me to this day. Was I wrong for thinking it was feasible for an enemy to fool players in this way? Or should I have at least offered an insight or arcana check to see if something was up?

Sarah Gardner

To the Honorable and Holy Crit Justices (and also I guess the Bailiff Jack?), I present to you the Case of the Street Chase Gone WrongTM. My party was investigating a string of robberies in a town that our Fighter was born and raised in. Our party split up (something that we do pretty regularly) to chase different leads in different parts of the city. The Fighter and another party member were leaving a shady tavern and the DM gave them a choice of taking the main road back to our rooms or to take an "awesome" side street shortcut that would get them back to the rooms faster. Since the Fighter was from this town, she chose to take the shortcut as she would be familiar with that route. The only weird thing about the shortcut was that there were a few grimy-looking kids running in that direction. Upon making this choice, the Fighter and other party member were jumped by a gang of children/teens, brutally beaten up despite trying to reason with the children, and kidnapped. After the epic battle in which the Fighter drop kicked many six year olds, the DM said that the Fighter made a bad choice and should have taken the main road as it would have guards and be safer for them. However, the Fighter argued that the DM’s hint of side streets being faster indicated that she would be familiar with that way and should have been just as safe. I ask - nay humbly beg - Crit Justices, who was right in this argument? PS This was a mostly fun argument with the two kidnap-ees being frustrated with the clarity of the hint and the tenacity of the children fighting them, but it all worked in the end as the Fighter is now dating the NPC Leader of the Gang (who is an adult)

Gabriel Felix

To the stupendous justices and the new bailiff baby daddy, I present to you the case of the stolen runes. I’m running a new campaign for my group after having finished our 4 year one several months ago. It’s a homebrew with some locations and lore from “The Radiant Citadel” In this homebrew campaign the world has begun mass producing various Runes and weapons with Rune sockets. These Runes provide various buffs for the weapon and can be interchangeable. This went over pretty well for the group, however, I also decided that when an enemy dies who has a Rune capable weapon, it also loses all but one of the Runes with the lost runes turning to arcane dust (which can be salvaged and used to forge other runes later) as a method of keeping my players from becoming overpowered too quickly. This was fine until they had defeated a enemy who had a powerful rune. He had 4 so I told them which Rune was assigned to which number and rolled a d4 in front of them which is how we decide which one’s survived. They got a more common Rune and not the powerful one, which prompted one of my players to tell me “that’s bullshit” and that they should get to choose which one to pull out of the weapon. So justices, I ask, am I taking their fun away by having the salvaged rune be random? Should I change this mechanic to let them have their choice? I humbly await you’re wise decision.

knitted cape

I throw myself low and prostrate before the esteemed, resplendent, and virtuous Justices of Dice Christ, right beside the quivering and timorous bailiff. I present the case of the Tortle Tempest Domain Cleric vs the me. I recently joined a group of players of various levels of experience, and our most consistent DM proposed an all villain one-shot, which we all quickly agreed to. I played a Bugbear Oath of Vengeance Paladin / Shadow Magic Sorcerer, and after some fun RP and a room full of shadow creatures and a blood bubble (don’t ask), we entered a large chamber and were met by a group of adventures set on bringing our evil shenanigans to an end. Initiative began, eventually it came upon one of the heroes’ turns- a Tortle Cleric of the Tempest Domain. The DM proceeded to take his movement, attempting to get within range of my character to cast Spirit Guardians. He wasn’t able to get there, and thus Misty Stepped to close the distance, and then cast SG as he was close enough. I failed the save and took 17 points of damage, no biggie. However, I brought up the fact that he had cast two leveled spells in a round, which is against the rules. He agreed, thanked me for keeping him honest, and took the Tortle back to where his movement was able to take him. He then decided to instead cast an 8th level Call Lightning and use the Tempest’s Channel Divinity- Destructive Wrath- to deal maximum damage instead of rolling, leading to my character taking 80 lightning damage, dropping him instantly. I then spent the next hour or so of combat making death saves as we all built villains and didn’t necessarily stock healing spells. What self-respecting evildoer would stock Cure Wounds?? Eventually I did succumb to failed saves dealt by AOE spells cast by the heroes, my second ever player death. All-in-all, a tremendous experience; even unconscious and dying, it was a good time and the RP was fun. My question is this- am I being punished, potentially by dice Christ, for being a nerd rules lawyer? If I hadn’t “umm teacher??’d,” my Bugbear would’ve only taken 17 damage and all would have been well. Maybe this is an awakening for me, a sign I should loosen up a little? I await your wisdom with bated breath. Or maybe that’s the bailiff’s breath. It’s hard to tell, again, as we are both prostrate with our foreheads pressed squarely to the floor.

Jess D.

To the honorable disciples of dice Christ, I have a confession. I am running a level 20 oneshot where the players are villains killing a god (a la Thiala). The god has four attacks, and on her first round of combat I chose to go after each player once. I rolled the first attack - natural 20. I rolled the second - another natural 20. These two players are now already at under half heath, and as I roll my third and fourth attacks - AGAIN I roll two natural 20s. Here is where I must confess: for the last two natural 20s, I lied to my players and said they were normal hits. The crits would have dropped those players to zero and I didn’t want this epic battle to end in the first round! I prostrate myself and ask you for forgiveness (ps as a player I usually roll like Murph, so this was tough).

Jack H

To the illest, most badass justices and…aww look at the wittle baiwiff wif his wittle badge. So adorable. I present the case of Players vs Riddles. 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 after an hour he 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.

Kyle smith

First time with an actual case to present nice, Your absolutely honorable judges and kinda cool bailiff, I present to you the case of forgotten players, in our most recent session we gathered 2 new players, which isn’t a bad thing we all like the new people and hope they come back for more sessions I believe this was their first time playing DnD. We were playing the Strahd murder house opener, My brother is the main DM, I’m a cleric, we have a monk, 2 fighters, a kobold and a Dragonborn(new player), and a warlock(new player). This grievance comes from the fact that during the entire 5 hr session I only got to do like 2 things and our monk kept having to fight to get what he wanted to do. Every time I tried to speak up to do something I kept getting cut off by members of the group, or straight up ignored by the DM, If I’m the one who found something the kobold or warlock would instantly take it and claim whatever it was, if I tried to talk to someone they would hijack the conversation or the DM would move on to another scene not letting me do what I wanted it was an interaction with a ghost and I wanted to preform a funeral rite, to bring her soul to peice but the DM kept trying to move on to something else with me fighting to play the game, at this point it was hour 5 and I was pissed I hadn’t been able to do ANYTHING with my character, I was basically watching them play DnD at this point and I was fed up, so I left the group to explore another level of the house it was the only way I was able to play the game because I felt like I had to force the DM to do scenes with me. So judges I ask, am I just being selfish or am I right to be a little pissed off with how this game went? I humbly wait for execution. This doesn’t give the full picture but I didn’t want it to be to long of a post. I should note as the DM is my brother I have brought up these concerns and have full confidence that going forward this shouldn’t be an issue either way but what makes me so mad is that he says I just didn’t try hard enough and claimed that if I went into the room with the ghost she would’ve killed me, I say that should’ve been my mistake to make. Love you all! Big fan!

William Bowen

To the grand judges of the court and the bodacious bailiff Jack, I present the case of the tantrum-having drug thief. In our home game, the bladesinger player is a bit of a problem. We recently defeated a demon lord and took his flaming greatsword, and he demanded he keep this for a character he cannot use while I, the heay weapon paladin, got to watch him continue using his lifestealing rapier. But last night he went a little far. We went to an apothecary to buy healing potions and once the rest of the party left, the bladesigner demanded the shopkeeper show him her best drugs. Once she did, he tried to rob her, saying "since I am so awesome and I'm saving the world, you should give all this to me for free because I'm the best warrior out there and it's for a great cause". He intimidated her, and she threw some drugs to him in a pouch, telling him to just take them and get out of her shop. He responded by getting visibly angry, yelling that he was going to rid the town of a drug-peddler, and tried to burn her shop down with her in it. The DM revealed the apothecary was a strong wizard who proceeded to beat his ass with magic and instead of killing him, tied him up to wait for the authorities. The bladesinger kept yelling at us for not helping him despite us having already said we were at the tavern drinking and having a long rest. After we rescued him, he yelled that he was going to come back in the morning and finish the job. While he was burning her shop down, the guards came and he tried to kill the guards before fleeing the town. The DM asked the rest of us after the bladesinger had gone home if he should have just killed the bladesinger since this is not remotely the first time he has done this. He's a weird person and not all bad but something about DnD turns him into a murder hobo narcissist who makes everything all about him. So I ask, for the sake of Mt exasperated DM, should he just stop handing out mercy every time the bladesigner goes off on his own to fight an entire town of innocents and just kill him already? I await the courts verdict. P.S. the player pitches a massive fit every time he even gets hit and threatens to quit if his character dies.

doctor worm

to the illustrious judges and the bailiff thats there too i guess, i present the case of how do i be more entertaining? i run a spacefaring campaign on the weeks that our groups normal dm needs a break (so once or twice a month!) folks say that they love my campaign and the characters they get to be (since mine is sillier and a little less strict than the main one) but no one is ever paying attention during the sessions. i know im guilty of it too sometimes, but often theyre on their phones, playing Other Games (sometimes with the people at the table, like over text) and also just like… scrolling social media. the sessions are at night, about 3 hours long, and we all have adhd so i do get it, but how do i combat players on their phones during rp moments and in the middle of combat????? im repeating myself all the time, and some players struggle to feel like they have their moment to shine bc half the table isnt paying attention. also, one of the biggest perpetrators is the other dm !! we have to call his name like 3 times when its his turn in combat, & then he doesnt know which enemies/allies are down or up. i love all my friends and i looove dming their characters, so im kind of having a hard time figuring out what to do. please help ! (thank you!!)

Edge Grinder

To the steamed Supreme Crit justices and Bayleaf Jake, I present to you, The Case of the Secretive Dungeon Master. I run massive homebrew campaign based on Final Fantasy 6, 7, 8, 12 and Fire Emblem Three Houses including a Bravely Default style job system. Since I try to emulate features from those games, I've been offering monster hunt side-quests. The first hunt I offered after a three month hiatus was a jacked up sandworm. Most monster hunts in the past had been easy so I added a few boss style mechanics to make the monsters hardier but not harder. Resistances and immunities to certain effects and instant death spells/tricks. One of my players, a samurai/dragoon was upset that I would spring "new mechanics" on them without telling them that it stopped the encounter right there and I had to write out a list of possible boss mechanics that I would use from then on. Some of the other players agreed with the sentiment. Justices, am I correct to assume that I should not have to inform my player base of any off-the-book changes I, the DM, make to encounters?

Joseph

May it please the honorable justices and the bailiff Jake, who is probably doing his best. I present the case of the erupting ceiling. I was the DM my first campaign for a bunch of first time players. It was the final battle vs the BBEG, who was a wizard. This fight took place in an ancient temple carved into a mountain. The main gimmick of the fight was that the wizard was on the ceiling wearing boots of spider climbing and cast darkness. She would pop out of the darkness, shoot some spells at the players who were fighting her minions on the ground, and pop back into the darkness so the players could not easily target her. The druid of the party (played by my wife) casted Erupting Earth at the area of darkness. I argued that it wouldn’t work because the spell states that the caster targets an area on the ground. My wife argued that since the temple was carved out of the mountain, the ceiling counted as the ground. I liked the creativity and didn’t want to shut her down so I allowed it, after all, my big bad wizard was relatively unharmed. A failed save and a roll of max damage later, and the wizard came falling to the ground with a splat. Ultimately my players loved it and I wouldn’t change my ruling because it created a very memorable end to that first campaign. However, was my initial argument that the ceiling shouldn’t be considered “ground” correct or did my wife whomp me completely within the rules?

Jake de Medeiros

I write this confession to plead guilty before dice christ and beg you paragons of the faith and the lowly alter boy to forgive me. I am guilty of the sin of greed. Last week I was playing a one-shot as a cleric, healing my party of 4 through a tricky and punishing dungeon. One of the players, my friend Ryan, had a really cool divine shield that granted him +3 AC against undead. I wanted it. I needed it. Ryan fell into a trap with poison spikes and required healing, but we had just come out of a combat and I lied and said I had no spells left to heal him. People believed me, and Ryan continued through the dungeon with low HP and exhaustion from the poison, where he was ultimately killed. After he died, I narrated taking the shield from his body and swearing to avenge him. The greatest sin of all? While I know what I did was wrong, half of me doesn’t regret this at all. Oh holy judges cast your judgement upon me, thanks.

Kay

To the ever present justices and the freshly minted papa Jakob, I present to you the case of the “Heinous Homebrew” (may it of course please the court). My good friend was starting a new campaign, and introduced a few new rules to up intensity, things like disarming on a crit. However, the most significant change he introduced was changing the short/long rests. He told us a short rest would take a day, and a long rest would take a week. I was appalled, and tried to explain how bad this would be. I also said that my character as a bee-themed Druid (shameless plug for Axford support) would become a heal-slut, my few spells going solely to healing my companions. I expected the other players to also be upset, but I was sorely mistaken, and was alone in my defense. One had a 24 AC, another one was “indifferent” and ended getting healed by me the whole first battle, and the third stayed silent. After a short debate, the dm fixed a few things, but not all. Justices of the court and Gemma’s dad, was I correct in feeling upset and miffed, or was dm correct in wanting to try his new home brew?

Noble Actual Ballistics

Finally after all this time I can finally get my case out there!!! To the ever esteemed Supreme Crit Judges, and our wonderful, dependable, and exquisitely eloquent Bailiff Jake. I come to you today with a case that nearly tore a campaign apart, and HEAVY DM sweat. I DM for my best friend and my brother. To make an already long winded story as short as possible, on the eve of a fight that would wrap up a story arc, we had to sort of shoehorn in his backup character. The battle ensued, and my friends new character was fighting the main villain on his own. The PC (a wizard) managed to trap him in the black tentacles spell. Thinking he would have time before the next round to get away, he was shocked to hear that the enemy had cast Misty step, and knocked him unconscious with a barrage strikes. Now for the possible crime. The battle was taking place in a tight hallway, and on the villains next turn, who had been given lots of background as a sadistic killer, he could not get to anyone else and had nowhere to go, so I did the only thing I could think he would do, and that was to murder the PC beneath his feet. (The rest of the part was cut off) My friend was quite angry at the situation, he thought the Misty step was bullshit and even though it is only verbally cast, he thought black tentacles should be able to cover the mouth of the trapped person. I realized I needed to fix the situation, so I fudged some rolls on the NPC clerics behalf, and cast revivify on him, using a diamond I quickly made up that she had in an earring. Did I make multiple mistakes here? I was a relatively new dm at the time, but almost 2 years later, I have never heard the end of it. We still play together in the same campaign, and have even had players join. But I have never been able to get over whether or not I made good choices. I throw myself at the feet of the court, willing to bear any judgement you see fit.

Dr.Bees

To the Justices we are indebted to and the bailiff we must put up with... I bring forth the case of Forced Revivify. In an old campaign I played in the party was making an attack on a camp of centaurs. Midway through the battle, all of us battered and bruised, our Wizard cast Fly to see over one of the fort walls. However, the centaur archers had held reactions to fire upon the first person they saw, and a storm of arrows came flying at our poor wizard. The rain of arrows caused the Wizard to go down, take 2 automatic death saves, and falling damage from Fly being dispelled caused the third failed save for an automatic death. Our party's cleric acted quickly rushing over and casting Revivify to which our wizard said... No. We all forgot that earlier in the campaign the wizard had voiced a disgust of necromancy and said that he wished not to be brought back to life by magic. Another party member then spoke up saying that Revivify didn't specify that the creature had to be willing to return to work, unlike other spells. We looked up other resurrection spells such as Reincarnate and sure enough they specify that the soul must be "free or willing" to work. The DM ruled that the wizard didn't have a choice and was returned to life, which in the end helped us survive the hard fight. My question is this... should our Wizard have been able to deny returning from death or should the DM, my party, and I all be punished for denying our Wizard their desire to stay dead. The player then retired their character, having them leave on an existential journey of self-reflection and there were no hard feelings. Unfortunately, due to other reasons the campaign later fell apart, but I can't help but think back on this moment of forced revivify. I humbly await your ruling and shall subject myself to punishment if seen fit. Dice Christ be with you.

Jordan Kreutzer

Salutations to the highest court justices and the lowest bailiff Jim, I have been playing regularly with the same group of 5 people for the better part of 5-6 years now. We have been through four long campaigns two which I have ran. We have a party member who isn't the biggest fan of whimsy and fantasy. This party member has played several characters with low moral compasses and has no issue with brutality. Here's where it gets strange. I ran a western style campaign and he played an old aasimar who had his family farm raided where his wife and daughter were killed. Classic revenge story. I had this thread laid out for him and also wanted a side thread with an Annis hag to build. So in the first encounter with the hag I had it kill his last horse from his farm to get his character involved in this side thread. It worked and we concluded that down the line in that campaign, as well as his revenge plot. Now he is running a campaign for us. He keeps making remarks about how he won't kill another party members dog and says things like: "Now why would and asshole kill your pet?" Or "No i'm not a prick like Jordan." Am I wrong to have an evil hag play evil and kill his horse to get him involved in the story or is he holding onto a grudge for way too long? This happened close to two years ago. I humbly take any punishment from the court.

Noble Actual Ballistics

I really hope this is short enough, as this is as short as I can go while maintaining the necessary details!

Jarod W

To the Judges who command the greatest respect, and the one who shall not be named. I bring you the case of the Alchemist Aarakocra. A few years ago I was playing in a campaign where we were not Evil, but not Good either, my character died and I had to create a new one. I decided to roll an Aarakocra Alchemist Homebrew (artificer was not official yet). My Aarakocra, named Byrd, loved bombs and that was my main gimmick. The town we were in was being sieged and when asked "is there anything you'd like to do before escaping town?" I decided now would be a perfect time to test my bombs, and decided to fly to the Keep and throw bbs at it. Low and behold the Keep is fortified, I get crit by a Ballista and fall, going down in the process. I fail 3 death saves and the character dies after only 2 or 3 sessions. To this day I am still razzed relentlessly about it. So I ask the court, am I just "that guy" and just need to take my Razzing? Or do my friends need to let it go?

Daniel Nickels

Nobles justices and baby daddy Jake. May it please the court. I was a player in a party that was trying to enter a pyramid from its top most point peeking out of the sand. Milo, my PC’s name, had been given a Enlarge/Reduce potion from another player and drank it. Milo had a 20 Strength and Expertise in athletic checks, and the potion added advantage to Strength based checks. I was also given a bardic to help me crush this check. I excitedly asked my DM if I could make a athletics check to pry or push stones yo make a path in. They told me to make an attack roll. I obliged, sadly, and missed needing to add my bardic to just hit, and then only adding an extra 1d4 to my hit. This went on for several rounds as a purple worm made its way towards us. I eventually opened a hole wide enough for the rest of the party, who were riding a flying Manta Ray name Rayman, to jump through. I asked to go into the pyramid, but was informed I needed a Dex check to enter because I was too large, failed, and was attacked by the Worm. I argued that I should have been allowed to make athletics checks or at least straight strength checks to surpass this obstacle, but fully followed my DM’s ruling. Justices, Jake, was I wronged by having all my prep wasted and turned against me, or should I just eat my womping! Thank you! Ps. I survived the Worm to run down stairs and be banished for the whole fight. :)

Rintoul

To the busty judges and Tucker's baby daddy, I present to you killing a PC with an orange allergy. Almost all the party had just been granted accomodation by a group of druids, however this particular paladin PC was not - as they had been rude and dismissive of the druidic way of life. In-between sessions, this player decided to swap characters as they were somewhat into min maxing. So, when the party awoke the next day after a delicious hero's feast, they found the paladin PC dead outside. Killed by an allergic reaction to oranges. I ask you, is an off screen and quick death appropriate for a player who only cares about min/max stats? How would you deal with players who look to change their characters often? P.s. The oranges were due to a random joke where the party was worried about getting scurvy

Sylas Welch

Revered High Archbishops of the Church of Dice Christ, hear my story so that I might offer contrition for my sin. When I was a freshman in college, a guy I knew wanted to DM a game for me and some of my friends (with various levels of experience). We were excited, and agreed on a date and time for our character creation session. We all gathered at the correct time but our DM was nowhere to be found! After *an hour and a half* of not answering our messages, he texted that he had been just two buildings over the whole time, hanging out with his girlfriend, and that he would show up “at some point”. Needless to say, we were pissed. After waiting another 45 minutes, we decided on a plan of action. We agreed to say that we had rolled our stats while waiting for him, and then gave ourselves any stats we wanted. We all chose numbers high enough to be somewhat improbable, but not ridiculously so. We even made a pact that if he raised doubts at anyone’s stats, we would swear that we saw them roll it. I honestly do not regret messing with this guy because I don’t respect him, but I do respect Dice Christ. Given that I would never do this again, can I be forgiven for the grievous sin of fudging stat rolls? P.S. The game fell apart after one session, so maybe this doesn’t matter.

Wings of Silver

For the esteemed justices of the court and Jim, I present the case of the chaotic noble. I was playing d&d with some friends online using a game called tabletop simulator (actually pretty good if you can't meet IRL) my character was called Lawrence Lerlous Von Einswald and I was very, perhaps too proud of him and his backstory. He was from an esteemed family and the voice I gave him was the most insufferable English accent I could manage. I wanted him to be a little annoying with that highborn noble attitude. I got the party into a few tough situations, some of it was me doing it on purpose, whilst other times it was me genuinely not knowing how to play d&d. Towards the end of our campaign I wouldn't be able to play any longer as I was going on holiday, and I didn't want Lawrence to just become an NPC controlled by our DM. I proceeded to abandon the party in a difficult fight, saying that I was worried about the home town where Lawrence had come from. This was previously established in the story as a big motivator for Lawrence. The party survived the fight but they were understandably mad at me. Was I wrong for caring too much about the character I made? P.s the DM later told me that Lawrence's fate after returning home was to spend the rest of his days in a prison cell, his evil uncle had already taken full control on his home town. Thanks guys keep up the awesome work!

Jor Elare

To the conventionally attractive Justices and the bailiff who isn't everyone's cup of tea, I present to you the case of the too wise NPC. I run a homebrew campaign with a fluctuating number of PCs that has been going for 4 years. The premise that took 3 years to reveal is that the world is part of a broken timeline that very few people know of. To make a long story short, the PCs have come across an NPC that they believed dead and (correctly) deduced that it was not from their timeline. The issue is that one of my PCs cast a spell on him and he saved with a natural 5. Using the knowledge that this seemingly background NPC has a plus 11 to Wis saves, my PCs proceeded to focus on him and try to extract far more information from him than they should know to look for. Eventually I solved it by having him tire of their badgering and teleport away, but this left a bit of a bad taste in everyone's mouth. Was I right to deus ex him away? Or should I have had something better planned for this?

Michaela Z

May it please my favorite Dungeon Daddies & Mr. Herwitz, I bring a case of a backseat player. I’m in a game with 3 other players, playing Bonnie the Harengon Bladesinger. I wouldn’t say I’m an expert, I am the most experienced player & know my character well. When the DM asks me a question about one of my spells or abilities, another player, Zor the Orc Barbarian, will try to answer for me. This is already annoying, but they are also usually wrong. What’s worse, they’ll try to answer questions FOR the DM; saying what they think the results of another player insight or investigation before it’s even rolled. I’ve brought this up to the group but the rest of the party doesn’t seem to mind. Is this player’s Wizard/DM-splaining too much , or I have I fallen into a blind rage? I throw myself under the judgement of the court.

Conor Finnegan

To thine humble servants of Dice Christ, I come to you with neither confession nor transgression, but rather a profession of my love for Dice Christ. Now that's progression! Nearly two years ago I started playing with my party, a group of hopeful players from my towns subreddit. To everyone's surprise, none of us were creeps and we all became fast friends. In one of our first sessions however, my character was down with two death save fails, and on my next turn I rolled a 3. My party argued I should reroll however, as part of the dice landed on the battle mat and "wasn't flat", even though the mat was hardly raised. So I rerolled and this time I passed, but in doing so I felt I was denying dice Christ's wishes, that I had been tested and failed. I see now though that it wasn't I being tested, but rather the group itself, and in sparing me we all passed. I just want to acknowledge how lucky, nay, blessed I am to be part of such a great group. Praise Dice Christ 🙏

Sparster

To the esteemed Justices and geoff (congrats on Jill and Tucker's baby), I bring the case of the shield of missile attraction. I DM online for a group of college friends. They recently became cursed with a slightly modified shield of missile attraction (modified to include magic projectiles, but to also grant resistance to those). After a couple of sessions my players were upset because our ranged attackers felt like they couldn't attack the way they wanted to. They said they built their characters to be played a specific way and it was unfair of me to not let them play the way they wanted. I argued that I only placed a hurdle, and they simply needed to adjust for it, such as targeting different enemies than our fighter (who was cursed with the attraction), use different spells, or talk with the fighter so that he could be further away in combat. This was only for a few sessions as they were shortly gaining access to remove curse. They are now further upset because they realized they don't get the benefits of the shield without also the curse once they cast remove curse (since it only breaks attunement on cursed magic items). They say I should now allow them to keep the resistance properties of the shield once they cast remover curse to make up for this slight against them. So I ask the court was I wrong to have put this shield in the game and should I oblige my players, or are they wrong for not trying to find any kind of solution to the shield?

Darkrisky

The Daddy Killing Patron 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.

Paige Kosa

Dear Judges and the returning slacker of a bailiff; my friends are pretty new to DnD and get very distracted whenever we do play together. My bestie wanted to play sentient dirt, and our DM was bending over backwards to make it happen (even tho he also doesn’t understand game mechanics). I made a big stink about it and was (lighty) roasted for being a buzzkill. But I maintain that “dirt girl” would only be funny for one session, and derail future opportunities for play and exploration. Are my friends right? Should I stay quiet about mechanics (even tho they all ask me for help with said mechanics?) Was I too much of a stick in the mud? I hope for a fair ruling, xoxoxo

Johny Dude-Kay

To the virtuous and upstanding judges, and the jakely, jakely, jakely, jakely, jakely baliff, Low, I humbly present "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 probably my 3rd session ever and I was playing a Elf Rogue; a chaotic good thief, and I was all about the freedom the game offered me 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 DM's permission and a passing roll, I would sneak behind enemy, lines about half a mile 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. At our table, 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. I let out a befuddled "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 that I even 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 aiming for me. In the ensuing argument, the best he could come up with was "Well, he's possessed by a demon, so..." where, the worst of his argument was "because I'm the DM and I said so!" The rest of the table tried their best to stay out of it, but did noticeably raise a brow at the attack roll. Things escalated to the point where the DM threatened that if we were all so dissatisfied with his DMing, that he would just quit and we'd be without a game. When no one argued for him to stay, he packed his things and stormed out. Feeling bad that I, as the new guy, ruined their game and possibly their relationship with a life long friend, I offered to try my hand at DMing and did my best to teach myself the ropes of the game. 15 years later, I am a happy forever DM that has run dozens of games, in multiple systems, some having kept on for more than a year and have introduced dozens of people to the magic of TTRPGs. But I always think back to that one session. I humble myself to your authority and ask for a ruling: Was I out of line to question my DM, or was I right to feel that my DM was violating the established circumstances and rules of the table? I will graciously accept any decision from this esteemed court, and honor any punishments ordered. I am at your mercy, Shafted Spekz 🎺Angel LaPamela Sandra-Rita🎺

Penny Leatherleaf, the half-elf cleric

Good tidings, your holinesses. I come before you with not so much a Dice Christ confession, but a request for Dice Christ hermeneutics. On the night of your Boston show this past January, Judge Jake (here in Boston he IS in fact a a judge) threw his dice out into the crowd, and my husband caught one! We were elated, and when we got home he decided we should give it a first roll. We’d recently found out I’m pregnant (YAY) and I told him to roll it on my belly to “see what the baby rolled.” Well my friends, he rolled Jake’s dice across my abdomen, and lo and behold it landed in my belly button as a NAT ONE. Over the course of the pregnancy, we’ve racked our brains as to what Dice Christ may have meant by this nat 1 baby roll, and I’m hoping to receive your holy interpretation before our baby arrives very soon! So, my pious clergyfolk, can you tell us once and for all what this roll may have meant? And more importantly, do we blame Jake since it was technically his dice??? We humbly await your verdict and most mystical interpretation.

Magic zur

To the highest court and lowest Bailiff, I present the case of terrible siblings. During the pandemic probably around summer of 21 I asked my siblings if the wanted to try and play d&d. My brother was 13, one sister was 10 and the other was 6 at the time I was 17. I pitched d&d to the 6 year old that it's like play with - lol dolls and story telling. I was listening to this podcast and others, so I had a very good idea how to at least start a campaign. But I had no books and anything like that. So I made my own home brew system sort of, of d&d 5th edition. They all loved it. So over the next few months I had got books and maps making a sold back story for a campaign. We never played again. I had ask multiple times and they all didn't want to. P.S we had only played 2-3 times per sibling. If that. To the court am I wrong for pushing my siblings to much to play when we were all bored? I will take any punishment like a good boy.

Shelby C

Champions of Dice Christ, I ask thee for forgiveness. In my current campaign I play a Silver Draconic Sorcerer. I found hilarious star-shaped sunglasses in the first session when attempting to hide my eyes from a npc that said my eyes were valuable. My wife and I were the only players starting out so in session two I asked if I could search our room for her to have sunglasses as well. When searching, I rolled a 3, but I told the DM I rolled a 15 because I thought it would be funny for my wife and I to have a sunglasses bit. Now, whenever I try to do something for flavor, I frequently roll a nat 1. Recently my sorcerer tried to high-five our group's pink duck but face planted into the ground taking 3 damage, chucked up a pie eating contest win, and lost a frat bro tackling competition. This admittedly makes the game even more hilarious but I'd like to win a bro tackle at least once! Please forgive me, Shelby

Mike

To the holiest of holy Justices and the strapping Baliff Tanner. I am not a smart man, but I love Dungeons and Dragon. When i first got into Dungeons and Dragons I reached out to all of my friends who may be interested, we scheduled a game to play Howrd of the Dragon Queen. To say I was underprepared for this is an understatement. This campaign starts with the party coming across Greenest in flames, being attacked by Cultists and a Dragon. I was prepared for the party to leap into action qnd become heroes. I wasnt prepared for the group to decide to loot the town amid the chaos. This was my first session as a DM and my first time dealing with murder hobos. The group continued to loot until they came across some of the local town guard. I thought, like a goddamned fool, that if they were apprehended it could be a good hook to get them to help for their freedom. This is where things got tricky. As they were being led to the jail cell one player asked to pickpocket the guard for the keys, another player offered to do the help action. I said sure, but it will need to be a really good roll. The roll was a nat 20. I was at a loss and said that the guards were paying attention and saw you try to steal the keys, you will still be locked up but the guards left acknowledgeing how talented the group was and how they need to speak to their leader. The party was not ok with this, they said that it was a critical success and they should have been allowed to break free. I said that critical success dont count for ability checks and his slight of hand, even with the Nat 20 was not enough. They still bring it up even though now I am a much more capable DM and will not let it go. Your Honors, was I right in this situation?

Victor T (Balnor's Boy)

To the esteemed Justices and guest star Bailiff Uncle Juan, I present to you the case of the epilogue that soured an amazing campaign... >> I had been DMing a campaign where my players were all anime heroes that were highschooler students with commoner stats that could turn into their DND characters as dreamworld style transformations. As expected for an anime campaign, they ended up fighting an evil God and won with the power of friendship. Roll credits. My players had an awesome time and still recall most of the campaign with similar nostalgia to their actual highschool lives. However, the epilogue is where the problem arises. For the epilogue, I had wanted to do a full session as an epilogue and I sent requests for each one of my 7 players to send me what they were hoping to do in their epilogue. One of my players didn't get back to me because they were busy and he just texted "I think I can roll with the punches". I had to double check and he gave me a couple of sentences but left it vague and kept saying "I trust you, I'll roll with it" Unbeknownst to this player, one of my other players wanted a small twist in the ending where he made a wish and it backfired monkeys paw style on him and create a new issue that they could tackle in the future. I walked this player back from it "causing an apocalypse" to another evil God getting free and there being more Gods to challenge. Well, day of the session, this twist happens and most of the players are pleased with it except for my busy player. He was quiet and when prompted, he muttered something like "I just thought it would be a happy ending" and then the mood of the room soured. When it came to his epilogue he was pretty distanced and came up with something small and stayed quiet for the rest of the endings. Though the plan was to revisit this setting, due to this, we have not revisited ever for 3 years. Should I have reached out more to see what this busy players expectations were? Was there something I could have done differently?

Aalexander Knight

To the high justices Axford and Murphy, and to the successful parents of the Court- and also Jake- I come to you with a problem in my group that grows ever larger, like a mighty warrior's thick calves. I've been a player in my group for quite some time now, but only in the past few months have I begun to DM for them. They know it's my first time so they were forgiving at first, but I made a crucial blunder- during the second session of the campaign, I made a mistake and said that a giant rat they were fighting had advantage on its attack against a player because it had an ally within 5 feet- but the player whom it was attacking had incapacitated said ally in the previous turn which negates the buff that would have given advantage. They pointed this out and in an effort to reward their diligence, I corrected the mistake and gave him a point of Timspiration (his name is Tim) which was just an on-the-spot idea I had for a point of inspiration (that stacked with normal inspiration) which he could use at any point. The next time I made a mistake, another player corrected it and afterwards asked if they got a point as well. I didn't want to seem to play favourites, so I obliged- and now I find that I've trained two of my players to aggressively look out for mistakes I might be making and interrupt the flow of the game to point them out, all in the hopes of getting rewarded for it. I tried to walk it back and say that I wouldn't give out the points anymore because it was getting annoying, but they complained and said 'if you don't want us pointing out your mistakes then just stop making them'. Justices, clearly I dug my own grave here, but do they have a point? Is it fair for me to rescind the offer of a reward, or do I just need to be a better DM? I await your judgement and inevitable mockery. -The Golden Troll getting a taste of his own medicine

Winky's Ghost

Devilish DM v. Orcish Lovers To the most Honorable Justices and the esteemed Bailiff Joke. I graciously agreed to homebrew a set of mechanics for my players. Each player could have an orcish lover accompany them to battle. Mechanically, the lovers could perform tandem attacks as a bonus action, or alternatively provide words of affirmation as a reaction. That sort of thing. Before I released the homebrew, I made one simple request: Please stop. I asked my players to treat the lovers like feats rather than full-fledged npcs. Lovers who broke this boundary would be banished. For many moons my PCs honored my request, until one fateful encounter pushed them to the brink of annihilation. My PCs cried out in despair, and two of the lovers answered the call (player driven). The day was won, but the lovers were lost. For breaking their oath, the well-loved lovers were exiled from their tribe forevermore. Roleplay tears briefly turned to real tears as two of my players felt personally responsible for the loss. There had been goofs, misplays, and full on booboo-baby blunders. My players intend to honor their oaths, but the mood at the table is now dour. Justices, and Honorable Bailiff Jake, is this too harsh an outcome for my stupid orc homebrew?

Muqtadaa Miandara

I have previously submitted as a DM, now I come to you as a player. To the fairest and most wonderful Supreme Crit Just-dices - and our homely and cuckolded Bailiff (congrats on Tucker's baby), I present to you the case of the overpowered dinosaur familiar. After 3 years of running a 1-20 campaign in which my players saved the world, extreme-home-makeover-ed the Nine Hells, and fought a god or two, I am finally playing in a campaign run by a player from my table! 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 overly receptive to everyone in the game, 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 magebred animal companion, a polar bear named Mauritius who is useful in combat, and despite many of us having animal familiars (a crow, a monkey, a cat, and a miniature baby unicorn), most of it is just flavor. One player from my campaign, however, has a deinonychus. His whole build is wild, with several stats already at 20, and a custom-built heavy-repeating artillery crossbow, and oh yeah, a fucking DINOSAUR. The 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 grit 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. Please, Just-dices, sees that just-dice is rolled for my table.

Erik Gospodarski

Oh Great Holy Ones, I come seeking forgiveness. I have been working on making a Harry Potter style D&D system on and off for the past year, filled with new, more customizable leveling, new combat rules that fit the HP universe better, using wand types instead of race, etc. I had planned a session for some friends set in a wizarding school I made, but they asked for a quick classroom session for a better feel of the world, so I obliged, intending for it to be a 20 minute little session. Well, it turned into a 3.5 hour, completely improvised session where they ended up challenging the schools best duelers to a 3v2 duel. With the intent of continuing their story, I knew it should be unwinnable, at least at their level. It ended up being a semi close fight, leaving me slightly panicked, I gave myself advantage on a roll that prevented my NPC from being incapacitated. They ended up losing but gaining the respect of the NPCs, and got to learn a new spell as a reward for such a good fight. They were a little salty at the loss, but otherwise had a great time. Great Holy Ones, I await your divine retribution.

Kodi Knight

May it please the court and make the bailiff cry tears of soy, I present the case of the compulsory time-out sack… I’m a new DM running my first ever campaign, set in Bahumia 50 years after the end of the BoB campaign. One of my players is playing a Crick elf. The only bit of backstory I got is that she was a “wild child”, but between the first couple sessions, I was asked if she could have a free Magic Initiate feat because she apparently studied at Gladeholm. Additionally, any character that’s smaller than her always ends up in her time-out sack, no matter the tone of the scene, and has frequently taken spotlight from other PCs. So I ask, o great Justices: should I do something to curb this player’s passion for sacking, or should I let the charade continue? I humbly place myself at your whim.

margot d

Dear the great and powerful justices and the like, kinda impressive I guess? Bailiff, I’ve been playing in a bug themed political intrigue campaign for a while with some of the best and most fun group of people, with the exception of one. This player decided to play a conspiracy theorist who targets anyone who doesn’t follow his religion. After suspecting a different party member each session, he lost in a fight to one of the other PCs and decided they’d be his enemy. Last session, he randomly challenged his nemesis to a PVP combat that was a surprise to not only the other player but also the DM. We don’t want to kick him out but how do we prevent him from doing this again?

Jason Rodriguez

To the honorable judges and the bailiff who's name is ... I bring forward the case of the hiding ferret. In my biweekly game, which I DM, I let the druid turn her myconid sprout companion "Leaf" into a fungal ferret with sidekick abilities from Tasha's by jumping into a tree stump full of magical nutrients that they had found. Leaf kept some of its myconid abilities with the weasel stats while gaining the expert abilities, and is a level below the rest of the party (the ferret has more hit points than the party's bard). The problem I keep notices is that when in combat, the druid always insists that Leaf (which is a small creature) is always hiding in her clothes. Leaf can give the help action as a bonus action, and shares the druids initiative. She doesn't specify that he hides or takes the dodge action, so I sometimes have creatures target Leaf that would look at this small creature as a tasty snack. Am I wrong to attack this fungal ferret as much as I do the party, or is Emily going to take Leaf away to live among her menagerie of cats and possums? I humbly await your sentence.

Iz

May it please the court and that other guy: This is the case of a Dead Sorcerer and the pot brownies A while ago in our main campaign that I’m still in today with my wife and our close friends, my wild magic sorcerer died. Got decapitated on a crit that did over my max hp in a very emotional scene. A few sessions later I told the entire group that I’ll be able to introduce my “new character” (which was a hollow one version of my old character as a surprise) when they reach the next story destination. The party instead spent the whole 3 hour session procuring weed brownies from 3 goblins in a trench coat because they were “sad”, while I was sitting in the other room waiting to introduce my new character. I had driven an hour to play with this group. We still play together in the same campaign, and it’s our favorite campaign we’ve done, but I must ask: Was I wrong to be upset that they spent the entire session buying pot brownies while I wasn’t able to play? I submit to your judgement.

gex

To the Magnificent Justices and the semi-nificent bailiff, I present the case of the Long-Winded Romancer: I'm playing in a campaign online with my boyfriend, where we both only really know the DM outside of the game. One player loves to monologue, particularly to another player character: he keeps asking for separate scenes with this PC, where he will take her on a walk or sit in a quiet spot and then give a long speech confessing his love to her and his admiration of her strength. This happens nearly every time we have downtime in game. The player has largely left these advances unreciprocated: the characters have kissed once, but the player expressed that this romance is not the direction she wants to take her character and in character has been lukewarm at best to the confesser. It's become extremely awkward for everyone to attend sessions, since this guy will not let up on both the speeches and confessions, but since I don't know the other people in the group, I feel awkward approaching the DM about this. Justice, I ask: should I say something to the DM or to one of the players? Or should we just wallow in the awkwardness and hope the speech giver grows weary of his monologues and their tired response? I await your righteous judgement.

FastR

To the most wise honorable Judges and the (insert insult or compliment depending on how how we feel about Jake today) Bailiff. I present to you the case of Social Puzzles. I was a player in a seafaring campaign. The world was dope and we were all having a blast, except for one small detail. When presented with social encounters and branching paths the DM had little to no wriggle room of how he thought we should complete our objectives. The most egregious example was we had captured a Pirate Captain after defeating his crew and needed to find out where he was travelling to from him to continue the story. But even with detect thoughts, zone of truth, bribery, getting him drunk on druid brewed whisky to loosen his lips the DM just described the Captain laughing at and razzing us. After my character straight up broke a few fingers mob interrogation style and I asked to roll intimidation the DM said no because he was now drunk and braver than normal. The player playing our paliden was fed up cut the Captain's head off because we thought he was a dead end. And further searching the ship came up with nothing. The DM looked annoyed and ended the session. Saying that if we just didn't ask the right questions and were too agressive. So now he needs to re write a whole bunch of things. We were all shocked. "Where are you headed?" seemed pretty straightforward. This turned out to be the last session of the campaign and I haven't played D&D since. Were we wrong to not be more methodical on the high seas or are most social encounters more nuanced and puzzle like than our low INT thuggish party thinks? I humbly await your judgement.

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?

Dice Pile

I just have one question. Are all dice equal under Dice Christ? (virtual dice, physical dice, those dice that flip out into lil monsters, etc)

Austin

May it please the elegant and venerable Crit justices and Baliff John. I offer the case of the Player vs Player mugging. In a campaign I have ran for about 1 year, one of my players unfortunately had to leave the campaign. No hard feelings or any animosity there, but issues started to arise when another PC (Warlock named Stain) demanded all the magic items and gear from the leaving PC (Monk named Aloe). The leaving Player was not at the session, so I was controlling their PC Aloe, and had planned on saying that Aloe got a letter from home. Which is why they had to leave the party. What was supposed to be a lovely sunset retiring of the character turned into Stain the Warlock asking for all their gear and items. When I told them that Aloe would need their gear for their own journeys, Stain was quick to cast Hold Person in order to mug Aloe of all their belongings. Rolling for Aloe I had passed the save and used some monk abilities to quickly beat the snot out of Stain and escape. The Stain Player has never let me live this down and while I don't think he is that mad, it makes me wonder if I should have just given him the items considering Aloe was no longer in the campaign. Was I wrong to deny Stain the chance to mug a retiring party member or was his prompt butt kicking the proper way to deal with this? I leave my fate in the soft supple hands of the court.

Alex K.

May it please the court, especially the respectable wife worm, and hopefully Bailiff Jake as well. I seek help on how to proceed. This past week, I was able to DM for the first time for a small group of friends. I had asked all my players for their background for me to work with, after giving them basic information on the lands and the Noble high elf families that have dominion. I kept my info on the families vague, extending the offer for my players to be part of these families should they so decide. One of my players, who was playing D&D for the first time ever, took me up on this offer. Their character became one of 6 children in a noble family and I had asked them help me with names and basic dynamics among family members. What I got was 9 pages of a google doc with detailed personalities for each family member and how they interacted with each other and this player’s character that it seemed I was supposed to memorize. I will add onto this the fact that it was clear in my campaign summary that each member of the family would be present in our first session, and I would likely have to play them all. I was overwhelmed and left scrambling since I originally planned for certain members of this family to be evil (which I did semi-followed through on). I humbly ask you, judges, is it wrong for me to want to limit such creative liberties in the future or should I just be grateful to have a few less NPCs to plan out? Should you decide to bring judgement against my player, I ask that you judge them kindly as they are part of my own “found family” and I love them dearly.

Marmot

To the most high and tasty snacks of the court and the also-ran buttlift, I wanna say, Jorf?, I humbly submit the case of the Sim City sidebar. I'm in a community campaign where the DM is rapidly advancing us through levels (about one per session) and we're accruing goods and gold in tow. He invited us to each design a legacy weapon that would scale with us provided that we put in the funds necessary to see these magical items continue to improve as we level up. Instead of just running with this fun way to not end up with piles of unused gold, a member of our party decided to begin planning a whole economy with a keep, serfs, businesses, etc. No one else seems interested, but that person flooded our discord describing game breaking crafting plans in intricate detail. At by point the DM explained again, "I don't mind some cursory property and hireling purchases, but starting to look for buyers and creating a monthly economy engine is going too far, imo... LOL." What say ye, members of the hottest court in all the land (and... Jarnk?)? Should the econ artificer be allowed to invest their ducats in a 401keep? Or should they be punished for abusing the DM's largess and idea for cool toy upgrades?

Through the Dimensions

hail and well met, honorable and diligent supreme crit justices and the baliff, who i will be nice to in order to get my case picked and no further. i dm a pathfinder second edition campaign with some friends of mine that due to the dreaded scheduling issues lost its healer a couple months back. despite that, the party has faired pretty well sans healer, right up until they went up against their greatest enemy: some bees. the party had handily defeated a war council of gremlins in the room prior, and had been warned about the bees by a group of npcs they'd ran into a few minutes before, but the bees proved too much for them and two of my three party members went down. panicking, because what the fuck, you weren't supposed to die to the bees, i asked them to wait a moment before rolling their death checks (in pf2e, you roll four of them at increasing difficulties to pass) so that i could roleplay one of the npcs from earlier coming back and helping (since these npcs are their friends and housemates and would probably check up on them). but alas, due to discord (both the platform and the situation) and some crosstalk, my players didn't hear me and rolled anyway. both pcs died. TO BEES. since i had been trying to get them to stop, i offered them a choice: to have those rolls count and the pc die, or to rule that since i had essentially hit pause before they rolled, their pc survived. one player chose to survive while the other chose to die, and it's made for some fun roleplay moments since then. but, humble justices, i ask you this: should i have given them the choice? should i have just let them both die to bees? or should both of them have survived? i submit myself to your almighty will and judgement.

Iain McFadyen

To Jake Congrats on the baby!! That is all X

3 Minions in a trench coat

Intro free 2023 here’s my case. If it pleases the court I play a rogue in a campaign with friends and during a particular feat I was attempting my DM told me to make a dex save. I rolled the dice and got an 18 but before I could announce the result, my DM changed their mind and said to make an acrobatics check instead. That was fine, I’m good at both, added my acrobatics modifier to the 18 and the response I got was “you can’t use your old roll you need to roll again.” I protested because it was for the same attempted feat, just a different modifier but they insisted, and I didn’t want to fight so I relented. My new roll was a 13 and while I managed to barely pass the check anyway, I still feel slighted. I ask you noble justices, and I guess Jack can chime in too, was I wronged?

Ellie

Dearest honorable justices and bailiff Jim, My fiancee is running a curse of strahd campaign with his mom and sisters that I am also in. I'm playing a protection paladin and love protecting my friends and future in laws. We were fighting some kind of spooky guy in the death house and my fiancee rolled an attack. He got a glint in his eye and I knew he had crit on his sister. Before he can announce I say that I want to use the protection ability to impose disadvantage. The glint disappeared and he said that he would allow it this once but in the future I would have to announce I was using it before he had rolled. I told him that was ridiculous as it is a reaction and that he was just sad he couldn't one shot his sister. I plead with you all, was I correct in using this ability or did I rob my future husband of a murder?

Tyler Lubberstedt

To the benevolent and glorious Supreme Crit justices and that one other guy, may it please the crit. I am DMing my first campaign for a group of five level 7's who I had finished playing a campaign with a few months prior. One of the players, a Tortle rune knight, wanted his character to take care of a dragon egg in the style of Mando and Baby Yoda. So, 6 sessions in, they defeated a draconic-origin sorcerer boss and found a red dragon egg, which he started taking care of. For the egg's story, I had a random encounter on a table I made where the egg's older sibling, a young red dragon, would find the party\ on the road. About 12 sessions after finding the egg, the Tortle rolled on the encounter table and rolled the encounter while traveling, and so the sibling dragon appeared looking for the egg. I had planned on this being an encounter to perhaps befriend the dragon, run away, or maybe even fight, but the Tortle handed over the egg fairly quick without trying anything first or even talking to the dragon. I spoke with him after the fact and he said it was fine but was upset I made him give up the egg so soon, even though he didn't even try any other route. Should I have fudged the result so the encounter wouldn't show up so soon? I await the righteous judgment of the court.

Iz

An addendum by the wife: In our defense, we didn’t have enough money for the resurrection diamond, even after trying to steal and do odd jobs. We did have just enough to forgor the pain. In the words of Monsieur World Wide “Everybody goin' through something So you might as well you roll it up Pour it up, drink it up, throw it up tonight.” :(

tacticalgrandma

Not a case, but a suggestion-- would it be possible to do an advice column solicitation, for cases where there aren't necessarily people against each other but just people looking for advice? DM Advice was really fun, but there are definitely times as a player when I'm stuck on how to be decisive or stay in character when it's not something I'd personally do, that sort of thing

Liam Cornell

Dice Christ confesion. I was recently invited to play in a campaign that my sister has long been a part of. While making an important attack roll towards the end of an encounter I rolled a Nat 20, but I was not able to tell the DM immediately as he was speaking with one of the other players. I used this time to gather my damage dice but in the process bumped my d20 causing it to shift to a 1. When the DM looked back towards me I stated that I had rolled a 20 however we were sitting close enough that he was able to see my dice and read the Nat 1 he proceeded to laugh and tell me that my attack would instead hit a player character who was next to the bad guy nearly leading to a permanent death. I did not want to argue due to shyness. Was I wrong for not correcting the DM?

TheKeenFool

To the highly honored, respected, and cherished justices Murphy, Axford, and Tanner... And that guy Jonk who "says he has a kid" (Unless we're being nice to Jake this week in which case congrats Jake and welcome back!) I present the case of the Eldritch Blast Residue. I was playing in my first game ever. it was home game ran by my roommates buddy. I played a Air Genasi Rogue lvl 2. My party and I were on our second session having escaped a city under warforged and found ourselves lost deep in a dark web covered forest and we soon found ourselves chased and ambushed by spiders. Our DM had designed a super cool encounter with a giant undead spider that had zombies stabbed to it as armor. As you damaged the spider you knocked off the armor and weakened it but it became faster due to less weight on it. Our party had a rough time killing it and only managed to thanks to the help of an NPC we had fled with who had done something like 50 damage over 2 rounds (remember were only lvl 2.) One of our party members, the warlock, finally hit it (for the first time the whole encounter) and killed it. As we searched and found loot (a few hundred gold, some gems, a potion, and a wand) we began to divide the loot. Most of us voted to evenly. I even proposed the warlock should get the wand being that he's our offensive caster. The warlock however voted that he should get half and we should divide the other half amongst the party because 'he got the finishing blow. The whole party argued against it saying he'd only hit it once. He said and I quote ver batem "should we check the body for Eldritch blast Residue?" We even said we'd rather pay half to the NPC who did all the damage take half. After a lengthy debate the DM ruled we'd solve it after the session well the warlock player left early and took notes on the loot with him so he'd "know if anyone stole". No one else had fun after that and the warlock player didn't show up again for another session. I ask you should our DM have used the NPC who did all the work to shut down the warlock player or something like that or am I just salty about a bad first experience?

Zack Auron

May it please the court and the impish bailiff Jork. My DM took a player aside to have a private conversation with the player and an NPC. My wizard didn't trust the NPC, and when the DM and player returned, I asked to cast detect thoughts on the NPC. My DM became frustrated. The DM said that magic is not subtle and there are somatic and verbal components. The spell's range is 30 ft and the NPC would notice the spell. I argued I should be able to roll stealth in order to mask my casting. My DM said that was what subtle spell is for, and I countered that subtle spell eliminated the need to roll, and I was asking for the opportunity to roll. Meanwhile, the other player was annoyed that my character was eavesdropping on their private conversation. I was simultaneously trying to explain that I wasn't necessarily trying to hear the conversation, but I wanted to help by confirming if the NPC was being truthful. The DM begrudgingly relented, I used a portent to roll a 17 in stealth. The DM said I was noticed, my character left the room, and we moved on. Was this an egregious attempt at spell casting? Was I too bold in attempting to butt in on something that was supposed to be a secret? I throw myself at the mercy of the court!

Clarisse Guevarra

Honorable justices and newly ordained Reverend Father Jack, I seek your council on the matter of our “Polymorph Decision Paralysis!” I play in a mostly-virtual campaign with six or so other players (I say “or so” because some people pop in and out). And I must admit, maybe it’s just the zoom fatigue, but I think I’m being a bit of an ass. For some context, dreams are a big part of our campaign. Some of these dreams can be connected to the sort of main goal of the party, but a lot of it is very specific to one person’s backstory with too little context for anyone else to tap into. A huge chunk of time will be dedicated to roleplaying dreams experienced by each individual character, which is exciting when it’s your turn, but when it’s not, sort of lulls many of us into staring blankly at our zoom screen or otherwise distracted. All I mean to say is, there is a lot of waiting. Which brings us to the decision paralysis. Every now and then, we make physical progress! We ended up fighting the big boss of one arc. One of our player characters, let’s call him Jay, absolutely refuses to kill anyone. In-character, he’s a thou-shalt-not-kill-Daredevil type, which I think is a fair choice. However, when the boss was finally almost dead, he decided to polymorph her into a beetle and trap her because he didn’t want to commit murder on this being that just tried to kill literally everyone else. Honestly, kind of hilarious. But when the party started to argue and everyone else clearly wanted to kill the beetle, he whipped out a timer in REAL LIFE and set it for exactly one hour, which is how long polymorph is supposed to last. He then proceeded to actually argue to keep this boss alive for the next 45 real minutes, and when we tried to wrestle the beetle from him or otherwise kill it ourselves, he had good enough contested rolls to prevent it. In the end, one of the characters finally managed to kill her(???), but Jay did some sort of underhanded ritual that no one noticed as we left the cavern. I wish I could remember the details but this happened a while ago. Anyways, smash cut to this boss almost actually killing everyone a couple encounters later, because surprise! The bitch. Lived. This is just one example of the decision paralysis that plagues us. It’s happened more than once over less trivial matters. This combined with the dreams makes me feel like we are only crawling towards a goal that’s been apparently pertinent for like three real life years. My point is, I’m irritated from the waiting both in-game, in-character, and out. But am I just an impatient jackass who’s too accustomed to the streamlined speed of edited D&D podcasts? Maybe. I await your judgement, with assuredly much more patience than I’ve exhibited before.

Rene the Monster Captain

To the Honorable Justices of the Crit and to the Bailiff: Tucker’s husband in law, I present the case of the backseat player I started playing D&D about a year ago and jumped immediately into DMing with no actual playing before. We have a table of 6 people plus me who were all fairly new at the time and because of distance play online. Our Sorcerer has almost always had his girlfriend in the room with him and seems to enjoy watching and hearing the story. We have invited her to play a few times but always declines and says she enjoys watching. Fair enough. Over the last month or so though she has started offering advice on how to play and what spells to cast during combat. In our most recent session I suggested that if she really wanted to play we could roll her in and the sorcerer can play his own character. She declined and we finished the session like normal but I couldn’t help but notice Sorcerer and his girlfriend weren’t huge fans of my commenting. Am I justified in speaking up or should I have minded my business. I present myself in front of the court

Jacob Figler

I ran a 2 year campaign for a group of close friends, and it came to a conclusion. I suggested someone run a one-shot before the next campaign, so I could get a chance to play. Unfortunately, no one has volunteered, which is a bit annoying. I found out no one wants to DM because they can't do silly voices like I can. So I fucked myself over doing voices, even though I explained that is just one style of play. Should I: -Continue to encourage them to DM? -Put my foot down and make someone do a one-shot since I took DM burden for 2 years? -Accept that I've ruined DMing for them by setting an example that isn't the usual and only style?

Daniel L Hodson

To the hot and sexy crit justices Axford, Murphy and tanner and Tucker's daughters step dad Jakes, I present the case of the sadistic Tortle. I run a game of Tomb of Annihilation and one of my friends is playing a Tortle Warlock named Terrence. I gave Terrence a Trident of fish command which allows him to cast dominate beast 3 times a day on an animal with a swimming speed. One night while on watch our Fighter was attacked by a giant alligator. On the first round of combat Terrence dominated the alligator and made it start eating itself until a guest to our game decided to "put it out of it's misery". Once combat was over I had Terrence make a Charisma save and take some damage, he asked why and I had his patron reach out to him and tell him that this isn't why she gave him the trident. He felt that he was being punished for doing what he felt like a warlock would do, I said that he can do whatever he wants but that doesn't mean his patron would agree with it. Was I wrong to punish a player for animal cruelty using a mechanic that I made up?

reading list

Dear ever-buoyant judges, and nadir Amir’s sidekick bailiff Jake. I ask for your judgment on the case of cross-campaign rule continuity. Moving from early Covid DM duties (three campaigns a week, one meeting twice a week), to eventual, more reasonable once a week meet-ups, several groups I DM’d for eventually mixed and became one new group in one of the established settings, with just one returning PC at a higher level for the first couple sessions (to orient those fishes out of water to the setting naturally). For the first “battle” of the campaign, tourists (PCs new to the town) and local blowhards (the PC with history here) were kidnapped and drugged in the night to compete in the very prestigious pretty pig games in the AM. I had the players try to capture, then kiss, hogs in the muddy pen, with first to three kisses taking first place (and an opportunity for a feat or magical item, etcerera), and the the rest of the group still getting magic weapons or whatever for consolation prizes. The issue is thus: I described it would take a full action to grapple a pig, and another to kiss it. Players could spend an action persuading the pig, a spell casting sleep, whatever they wanted, but it would require two turns or an action surge, or cooperation to get each goal accomplished, leaving room for interceptions and the like. NPCs were also vying for the prize, and our returning PC, human fighter Buck Magnum (he’s just like he sounds) was hoping to get enough money to take the beach volleyball team to regionals with the purse. Buck, being a higher level of course had stat advantages which I felt were evened out by an opportunity for these pigs to dash half their speed in a random direction when approached, to belch in a player’s face requiring a constitution saving throw to hold onto it, etcetera. The trouble is one of the players from a separate campaign, playing a fresh PC here, had previously thrown a dog across a brook with a DC 15 check, as the poor thing was scared by moving water, and the party wanted to reconnect it with its owner. This PC argued Buck should be easily able to pick up AND throw a pig to the rest of the group as a single action to avoid an NPC’s possible victory next turn (literal commoner stats, Dice Christ just had their plan and I wasn’t in the way of it). I told the group it would still require Buck’s action to grab the pig, and he had no action surge left to throw, so the NPC could possibly kiss the pig in Buck’s arms on their own turn in an opposed animal handling / persuasion / acrobatics, whatever. I felt this was a fair compromise, but my players claimed I set precedent in a previous campaign, years before in a different setting, by letting them toss a dog (MUCH LIGHTER THAN A FULL GROWN HOG) across a creek as a party of level 10s. This led to claims I over-engineered the encounter and made it impossible for the level 2 PCs to win, which I object to given much of the hijinks and first round strategies like “I cast firebolt on the pig just because” surely weren’t going to pay off. One of the party members eventually did prevail, but I ask, was I being too crunchy and no-fun for not porting over a similar-ish moment of physics from a previous campaign and setting, or was this actually a more mature and streamlined approach to managing PCs of varying levels by offering a “combat” mad up of a problem, the number of steps to solve it, and a wide range of available checks for each solution? The players razz me for not letting them “pitch the pig” to this day, and now constantly ask to throw animals in new towns in a fever bordering on murder-hobo-ism, and so I sit in the muddy fen just next to the raspberry patch, awaiting your judgment.

Evan

If it pleases the Almighty Justices, and the pretty cool bailiff Jort, I present the case of my old dnd group. I had been playing in a campaign with a few other people I met online for a few months. I started out the game as a tabaxi Monk, but once most of the group had to leave due to scheduling issues and we needed to find several new players to fill in the gaps, I decided to roll up a new character who would, of course, need a new backstory. My DM and I talked for a few days and came up with a backstory involving my orcish paladin/swords bard, (slightly inspired by Callie) a corrupt magic school, and an Evil Administrator who magically took control of my character and made her do horrible things before her escape. Fast forward through a few months and many sessions later and we meet face to face. What proceeded was the most disappointing session I've ever sat through. Firstly, it turns out a bunch of other characters in the world had also been wronged by this guy, so what I thought would be a badass revenge episode turned into my character taking a backseat to the DMs railroading. The Administrator also looked exactly like dopey from snow white. Needless to say, this obliterated my immersion and left a sour taste in my mouth. I tried to stay with the group for a while afterwards, and even reached out to voice my complaints, and while they said they would change it, I didn't notice any difference. I ended up leaving the group entirely soon after, and haven't talked to any of them since, despite some attempts on their end to get in contact. I ask you this, was I in the wrong to quit so suddenly? Should I give them another chance? Or am I in the right to leave that chapter behind me. (P.S. there were some other issues as well, including an obsession with shipping our characters, and the DMs girlfriend getting a disproportionate amount of attention, but this was my last straw)

Ashley Stroup

To the highest justices and court Bailiff Jake, I present the case of the almost blown up opossum. In our campaign, a character has an opossum named Fish who is flavored off of the Scramble Man with a Scramble Plan himself, PawPaw Gump, ESQ. Our party encountered a puzzle in a ground hog day situation where if a person guessed incorrectly, they were blown up and reset. The character attempted to send dear Fish to brute force a guess on the puzzle and most likely be blown up. Our party and DM immediately revolted at her sending her sweet little familiar to die and our DM had him salute with a tear falling down his eye as he scrambled away. The party stopped this heinous act before Fish could die and told the character to use her unseen servant spell instead. Fish subsequently became my familiar until her character apologized. However, this person still believes she did no wrong in sending her scramble man to die despite having unseen servant and no way of knowing if this was the last loop, risking losing Fish forever. The party and DM still believe she should not have sent her opossum to do her biding, however she claims her familiar should have been down with the plan. What do the esteemed justices rule? Should Fish use the law offices of PawPaw Gump to claim emotional damages? We await your answer.

Jada

To the Honorable justices of the court, and the cool dad bailiff Jake. I bring to you the case of The Husband versus the DM. I DMed the module Waterdeep: Dragon Heist for my husband and a few of his friends. We were at the very end, which usually takes place in the vault. In one of the areas of the vault, there is an enthralling fresco, which requires players to make a DC 12 wisdom saving throw or be charmed by it for 24 hours. While charmed, you cannot willingly move out of sight of the fresco, and you defend to the death. After 24 hours, you can gain a level of exhaustion and can repeat the saving throw. This is straight from the book. (I usually don’t go strictly by the book but I thought this was cool) However, my husband failed the save and then saw fit to argue with me in front of everybody about the specifics of this challenge. I told him it was a charm effect, but said the rest of the details would be unknown. He then tried to use various things such as dispel magic, but I told him he was under the fresco’s spell and wouldn’t act against it. This bickering became awkward but eventually he let me continue. After the game I gave him a peak behind the screen of the specifics and told him he owed me an apology. Mighty and sultry members of the court, was he in the wrong to so brazenly challenge me, or was there something I could have done differently while still keeping the mystery of the setting? I will accept your ruling however you decide.

Matt

To the Honorable Judges and Bailiff Jake; Last of his Name. I present the case of “annoying God” I recently started a new Game as the DM and a new player said he wasn’t scared of me as a DM. He told me to do my worst, so I took that as a challenge. At first I wanted to let his Paladin find Health potions with Oozes inside; but instead when he left his Paladin’s God up to me I made it hurt that way (it just had to be something Sun Related) Several months later after his challenge I finally revealed his Gods True form to him, A Massive Sun Sloth that ‘Dabs’. He hates Sloths more than every other animal. He was annoyed about his God and wanted to attack him; however the rest of the table is still laughing about it. He’s taken it in good nature and I’ve offered to let him class away from Paladin but he wants to try to stick it out hoping I will take mercy and change his God to something BA. He’s learning his lesson, but I humbly ask, Did I go to far in using Real life knowledge of my Best Friend and turning his God into the Animal he hates most in the world?

CARGO REAPER

May it please the esteemed judges and Jake the Dog. Case of the ghosting dm. I was a first time player a couple years ago and found a group on roll 20 to play a curse of strahd campaign. With the dm’s own “special changes”. He promised that it would be super fun and a good first campaign for me. Then we started and let me tell you, it was a horrible experience. We had a kid in the party who didn’t know how to use either discord or roll 20 or how any type of combat proceeded. Which is fine I’m a new player too. But if you still don’t know a single thing about it by the third session that’s a problem. We also had someone who would constantly be on their phone and we’d have to wait for them to catch up to what we’d been doing when not their turn. Not just in combat but for everything. One time we even got on and he was playing another video game during the session and told us he had to wait to do his turn in combat after his game ended. After that session we planned another. The morning of the session, I woke up to find that the dm kicked everyone out of the discord and disbanded the roll 20 campaign and blocked everyone from messaging him on discord and roll 20. He then posted in the official dnd discord looking for a group for curse of strahd campaign. Should the dm have told us that our group wasn’t working out and that our party needed to end or was he right to ghost this insane player group? Ps. I joined another group playing a Star Wars campaign and am having a blast. So this first experience didn’t ruin dnd for me :)

CaldWELP

Wildfire Druid v Actual Fire To the honorable and esteemed justices (plus that one guy, Jeff I think?) may I present the case of the Wildfire Druid versus a burning village. I was DMing for my group, we’re about 10 sessions into this campaign and a long time player of mine was introducing his new character after writing off the old one. This new character is a bunny themed shifter who burns down dead forests in order to make room for new life. He came in a session before we had a fight with a giant awakened tree that has branches which canopy a 200 people large village. Naturally, they decided to kill the evil tree that had brainwashed this village by hurling large amounts of fire at it. I described how the flames climbed up his trunk to his branches which span over the entirety of the village. Once he was slain, the killing blow dealt by a paladin hacking at the front of it, he toppled onto the city and flames began to spread rapidly. I made clear before the encounter and even during that their solution would result in the destruction of the village. However, as they fled, the new flame themed Druid decided to try and subdue the flames with a cantrip. A casting of control flames, which can immediately extinguish flames within a 5ft cube. I explained that a 5ft cube cast once every 6 seconds on a house that was already catching fire wouldn’t stop the full fire from spreading. The player countered that a wildfire Druid would know how to stop a fire. I stuck to my decision, eventually saying that maybe a higher leveled spell or ability would be able to achieve this goal. The player didn’t engage with the idea, getting upset and instead wild-shaping into a horse to escape. I ask judges, am I in the wrong? I try to keep a good balance of rule of cool and logic at my table, but allowing this feels like it would have taken away from the stakes of the situation. I accept whatever punishment you deem necessary.

Derek Thedell

To the highest dice court in the land and its practitioners of justice, Axford, Murphy and Tanner. Oh also Jake, you're doing great champ. I bring to you a story of two 20 two phase turmoil. A few years ago, I was DMing the conclusion battle to a year long campaign for my wife and many of our friends who had never played DnD before. They were facing a corrupted adult black dragon, who was seeking to release an evil creator god into this world. The battle was tense and dangerous with many of the spellcasters being cashed on spell slots. After describing the dragon being on his last legs, our cleric drew her dual shortswords (the ceremonial weapons of her God) and rolled to attack and behead the weakened dragon. She rolled TWO natural twenties, plenty of damage to finish this dragon off. The table erupted in cheers - but I faced a conundrum. I had planned for this fight to last two phases and for the dragon to rise again, even more corrupted as before. I even lowered the health of both lives to not make the fight too difficult. Time seemed to slow as I weighed the options of letting the dragon stay dead, honoring the clerics epic kill move, or ruining this odds defying climactic end and having the dragon rise again. I ultimately decided to have the dragon rise, head barely hanging on and reducing the power of his new breath weapon as a result. The party faced this with grace and sent that dragon back to the grave! My friends still bring this moment up today in our games, razzing me every boss fight about there being a second phase. My wife was the cleric, and she likes to talk about how I robbed her of that dragon kill, bringing it up frequently. So I humble myself before you judges, did I make the right choice in bringing the dragon back? Or should I have allowed the cleric to finish him off for good?

MaeIsntClever

To the fairest of supreme crit justices, be it in judgement levied and your shining beauty; also congratulations on the birth of your daughter honorable bailiff Joe. I present to you the case of the digitally drunk tiefling. This past year I was approached to run a game over discord for a group of friends. They wanted to stay connected as a couple of the group moved to Canada over the summer, and DnD was a great excuse to do so. They were pretty fresh faced to tabletop games but very quickly became one of the best groups I've ever ran for due to their exceptional RP, honed over years of friendship, with the exception of one character. Enter Guile, a tiefling fighter and war veteran who lost his horns in battle. They player, we'll call him Phil, always started off sessions strong, being present and participating in the roleplay and story, and without fail, ended the sessions with hours of slurring, cutting off other players, and ignoring the game to make jokes or argue mechanics. It turns out that Phil was an alcoholic, and on game days would start drinking when we hopped on discord and signed off shit faced. After babysitting this grown ass man for two sessions, I had enough and told the rest of the group that either Phil was gone or I was done running. Long story short, Phil dropped the game out of embarrassment after being approached by other players and we're still playing biweekly up to current day, but it still lingers in my mind; was I too harsh towards Phil when I gave the group an ultimatum? Or was his behavior unacceptable even amongst a group of friends? I humbly await your decision

Nick McCornack

To the highest, most honorable judges, and the frankly untrustworthy bailiff, I present the case of the Forever DM Possibly OP PC. I am a forever DM for my friend group currently running two campaigns, and my wife (you all signed her Ukulele after the Nashville show) recently decided to try DMing using the Wild Beyond the Witchlight Module. I chose to play a wizard planning on going Blade Singer subclass. The problem arose when I rolled stats. My rolls were, 18, 17, 16, 15, 10, and 8. This character feels very powerful, especially with the high rolls. (For example at level 2 I’ll have a situational AC of 23 with the possibility of casting Shield, +8 to concentration checks, and +6 to my rapier attacks). I like building powerful characters, but I also don’t want ruin my wife’s first campaign, something she is also now nervous about. Should I redesign my character, or should my wife and I just get a divorce? I eagerly await the judges ruling, though the bailiff can hold his tongue, we’ve all seen how HIS marriage went.

Elise Brinkmann

To the honorable judges and Blake, I bring you the case of the money driven paladin. My brother and his two friends ask me to run one shots for them every few months since they do not have a long-term campaign yet. My brother wanted to try to DM for the first time so I brought my now ex boyfriend to the game along with his two friends (my ex had never played before and did not take it seriously for example his player name was Mike Hunt.) the player in question played a lawful good paladin (which he has played everyone one shot) that he named after himself. About 30 min into the game, we walked into a tavern and the paladin ordered an ale. The bartender mentioned it would be a few silver to which the paladin audibly scoffed and said that is ridiculously expensive for an ale and tried to fight the bartender because of it. I was annoyed at this because a) this was my brothers first time DMing and did not have a good grasp of how the money works and b) we weren’t even keeping track of money in this one shot so it made 0 difference in the game. When I pointed this out he told me that he cannot be submersed in the game if the economic structure did not make logical sense. This led to a heated argument and by the end he loudly said fine and for the rest of the game he sat quiet and on every turn said his character stood still. After the game my ex told me I was over reacting by yelling at the paladin and I should have just not said anything. I turn to you honorable judges, was i right in standing up for my brother, or should I have just let it go since it might not have gotten as heated if I did.

Grace

May it please the most honorable and exalted judges and humble the bailiff who gets too much attention: I have a question about alignment and if it is ever appropriate to tell other people what to do in a game. The first game I ever played the DM had us choose alignments for our characters. I had only ever listened to NADDPOD and D20 and Critical Role and had never played. I double checked with him that he wanted alignments and said I didn't really want to have to stick to one. He made me choose so I said "ok then, my character is neutral and will just do whatever she feels is best." He seemed a little annoyed by that but said it was fine. I was excited because I had a lot of head knowledge about the game but no experiential knowledge. The party I play with is pretty big, and I am the only spell caster (a circle of stars druid). We had a small job to clear out a necromancer's lair of will-o'-wisps and zombies; there were lots of puzzles and locks to figure out during most fights. So, instead of using my one attack to try to attack a zombie when there would be 4 other PCs doing that, I would try to use my turn to try to figure out the puzzles or to explore the space. There was a box on a table with a lock and we couldn't find the key, so I asked the DM if I could wildshape into a spider to see what was in the box; he told me "I guess you can if you want to do that instead of fight" and then another player said "you're useless in battles" - even though I did a lot of healing the majority of the time in fights. I told them that I was trying to be helpful and trying to let everyone have their moment in the fight, but they just said that I wasn't acting like my character would act according to my alignment. I reminded them that I was neutral and could do whatever I felt was right, and at that moment the thing that felt right was letting the rest of the group kill the zombies. They continued to argue with me and the rest of the sessions we played were full of small comments like "that's not in your alignment" or "you're not supposed to do that." Needless to say I don't play with them anymore (especially since they started playing with a different group and neglected to tell me) but I still wonder if it's ever ok to tell someone what their character should do.

Andy W.

I respectfully present to the court the case of DM vs Horny Duck I was playing in the second to last session of the campaign, and we had just been surprised by the BBEG. Early in the campaign we had found a prophecy stating that they could “only be killed during an eclipse” but our plan for this wasn’t ready yet. Panicking, I quickly looked up “eclipse” and found its ornithological definition: before a mallard duck goes into heat its plumage molts, which is referred to as an eclipse. My druid then summoned a horny duck using my wild companion feature. I held it over the BBEG’s head as the paladin went for the killing blow. The DM said this was not in the spirit of the prophecy, then the BBEG turned into smoke and disappeared. While frustrated I accepted the ruling on the day, however in the very next session we freed a powerful wizard, and the DM told us that they would just kill the BBEG off screen. Then the campaign ended. I turn to the court: is killing the BBEG of the campaign with a horny duck “stupid”, or is killing the BBEG off screen boring?

Dexter OG

To the resplendent, respectful, responsible, righteous justices, and the dude you guys hang out with, I present… The Case of the Shifty Shafty dm. I’ve been playing with this group for a few years, and I know all the players very well, including the dungeon master. This current game we’re playing in is in succession to a waterdeep dragon heist game where we were all exploded by a cache of explosives in the Xanathar lair. (we’re playing different characters.) Anyhow, the session before this one, we were chasing one of the big bads of the game through skullport, attempting to wrest from them a ceremonial sword that my character and another were chasing. I’m playing a mobile feat-Oath of Glory Paladin, so my speed is 50 feet per round + expeditious retreat, and I was the only one able to catch up to this bbeg because they were flying at 60 ft. During this previous game, I managed to grab the sword from them a few times using a contested athletics check, banking my superior strength against their puny wizard arms. I was paralyzed at the end of the session, and the sword was stolen from me as the opponent continued running. The following session, I attempted to pull the same trick, as the OOG channel divinity gives advantage on athletics checks, but when I asked to grab the sword, leaping up into the air after the bbeg (and succeeding a difficult acrobatics check to wall jump,) and my dm replied; “make a sleight of hand check.” I paused for a moment, distinctly remembered the different check, but he explained that he felt it was more finesse based than strength based. Here’s the catch: My character has -1 to dexterity, and no proficiency in sleight of hand. This is common knowledge to the whole group, as I am frequently making jokes at the expense of my poor dwarf character, who, despite being incredibly fast, is the clumsiest of the group. I went to protest for a moment, but stopped, as I felt it wasn’t worthwhile, and would slow down an already dragging combat. After my turn, however, another character in the party who was also going after the sword, leapt towards the bbg and teleported away with them in a big moment. This importance was compounded by my DM excitedly putting on an orchestral version of “Paint it Black,” his self declared theme song for this campaign. My query for the judges is this: Was I shafted? Did I deserve to put my meaty dwarven hands around the shaft of the sword? Or was the shifting around of skill checks worth the slightly forced story moment. I leave it to you, the glorious, great, gorgeous, gjustices—to decide!

D Cord

To Honorable Crit Justices, and the Halloween police officer costume wearing Baliff, Jam: I present to you the case of the demoralizing first mate. My background was sailor (pirate variant) and had looked forward to the ship section of our game when we began playing. I was made first mate of our crew when we found our boat. One session two of the PC’s started arguing over what to do (in character) the dm made mention of the NPC crew witnessing this, I didn’t interrupt because of the character moment that was happening. The next session, I went to the npcs and told them how great they were and how grateful we were for them. At the conclusion of the second session, the DM advised the crew had slipped into negative morale, as I had not interjected in the squabble. I retorted that I had made a conscious effort to chat with the crew and raise their spirits afterwards, as I knew morale was a rule they were using. The DM concluded that it was not sufficient and that the morale loss was because I did not intervene in the squabble, as first mate morale was on me. I humble throw myself to the Court, was my first mate behavior lacking, or was my inactivity to allow for character growth and subsequent crew chat enough?

Thundermammal

To the omnipotent judges and impotent bailiff, may it please the crit. I come seeking emotional damages in a case of squandered opportunity. In a campaign I DM, a PC playing a wizard gained access to the Contingency spell when they reached level 11. The spell requires an ivory statuette in their likeness as a spell component. I had prior knowledge that they were planning to take this spell and prepared no less than 5 different options for which they could acquire said statue through various NPCs; some obvious, some less so. The wizard took none of these paths and instead acquired 1500 GP worth of raw ivory and insisted that he wanted the servants within his Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Mansion to do the carving for him. I told him that since the wizard didn’t know how to carve, his conjured servants would also be unable to carve, however if he included raw ivory in the decorations of the mansion each time the spell was cast, they could practice carving and develop the skill to do this over time. Eventually they would have the skill to work on the real ivory he had acquired and create the statue. This started out as a meaningful role play beat and included another PC unionizing the servants and forcing the wizard to pay them a small wage for the service which was hilarious to all parties. Herein lies the crux of this case. After rolling for the statue twice (we had set a max failures at 10 before he auto succeeded), the PC stopped asking to roll for the training. Sessions were sometimes weeks apart and I was focused on the rest of the campaign, so I never really considered it again until we arrived over a year later at the level 20 final boss of the campaign. The night before the fight, I gave the PCs a chance to plan their attack and the wizard asked if he could cast Contingency. I asked him if he had successfully made the statue. He said no but that in the months of in game time since, he would have had plenty of time to fail 10 times and hence would have succeeded and done it. I told him that was an out of game mechanic we had agreed to, to explain in game plot, and while it hurt me to do it, I felt the lack of component had to stand. He accepted this ruling gracefully, to his credit. The party won their fight and we began a new campaign so ultimately all was well, but I find myself still racked with anxiety over a year later that the cool moment of the contingent spell going off never manifested. I contend that the wizard is guilty of negligence for not paying enough attention to the custom mechanics I spent time crafting for them. I await your verdict.

Gary J

To the venerable justices and appropriately respected bailiff. I was running a game when my players, rather than walking down a corkscrew mine shaft decided to affix an immovable rod ( which I admit I forgot they had while planning this) then tie a rope and use a make shift harness/climb down to descend 100 feet. This effectively skipped a few of the chip down encounters I had however given it was rad as heck I allowed it just asking for anyone touring a harnes to do slight of hand while anyone climbing roll a strength check. A player complained this felt like cheating and became upset saying this eliminated stakes and given he rolled only a 10 on his check I agreed and made him fall a D100 feet, it ended up being 11 ( front of the table roll) and they argued that I was now picking on them. Any advice for how to balance when one player has an awesome idea and how to better stop my one hardcore player from being a rules lawyer set out to ruin my other newer players fun? I feel just letting him fail a front of the table role was not picking on but progressed without resulting in bickering and was completely fair.

Brandon Boling

To the lovely Baliff Jake, and the judges I never seem to fully remember there names, I bring you a case of using Opposite Day to get away with murder, and how it plagues me even in submission entries. I was a player in a home game earlier this year, January 25th to be exact. That date may seem insignificant for you, as it most definitely was to me, until it inevitably killed my character. Our DM had us do a session earlier in the week then we normally would’ve, and when we asked why, he urged how crucial it would be to the session. None of us paid much mind to it, and as the session goes along, my Half Elf artificer D’ex begins to investigate a hidden corridor that branches into multiple paths. I got a Natural 20 on my Investigation roll, and the DM coldly looks me in the eye, and says: “the left path is safe”. So when my character D’ex begins walking and gets swarmed by monsters, I was shocked to say the least. He began laughing and goes: “Dude, it’s Opposite Day!”. The party and myself do an awkward chuckle, and assuming he would just go: “don’t worry none of that happened.” He simply began the transition back to the other players since we were split up. What’s weird, throughout the rest of the session, he would do these smaller gotcha moments by saying happy Opposite Day, followed by decreasingly enthusiastic laughter. The session ended without it ever cutting back to me, and when I asked what I actually found down the path, he looked confused and said: “what do you mean, you got GOT! Hopefully the others can save you.” Judges, is Opposite Day not just reserved for childish comebacks on the elementary playground, or do I need to set a google alert weeks in advance for this dumb holiday? I humbly await your answer.

BeuligXander

May it please the honorable justices and really grind the gears of John, i present the case of the initiative insert. I was dming a group and the wizard cast a summoning spell which called for the summon to roll initiative. The wizard was low in the order, but the summon rolled a nat 19. The wizard insisted thay the summon should get to take a turn immediately. We argued about it, my case being that initiative is a circle and blahblah, no one cares. (according to the dmg, I'm right on this one) In the end, this annoying wizard got his wish and I've forsworn ever having summons roll initiative again; they just go after the caster. Should the wizard have gotten what they wanted, or was i right to just RAW the situation?

Taylor Wingfield

Dearest Justices and lowly (or perhaps loved depending on how we’re feeling today) Bailiff Jakes ; I present to you the case of “if a whale falls in the river styx, does it do damage?” In the finale weekend for the Descent into Avernus Campaign that I’ve been DMing for the last 3 years, the party’s penultimate battle was against a general of the BBEGal. The encounter was set up as an aerial battle where they protect a celestial who was holding up a city in order to keep it from falling into the River Styx. During the battle the Dragonborn bard/warlock (who also happens to be my partner of 4 years) flies over the general on their pegasus and polymorphs their pegasus into a sperm whale (technically a beast from icewind dale but not a normal option for polymorph), which proceeds to fall on top of the general of Avernus. The general failed their Dex check to get out of the way, and so fell into the river styx under the whale. I ruled the general would take 15d6 for the 150 feet of fall damage and 15d6 for the whale falling on top (taken from the crashing rules of the war machines). However both the general and whale survived the fall, and so my players argued the whale should get an attack (a tail slam). I said no at first, but as my players pleaded for their whale to get one final attack I relented and of course the whale crit and they killed the general in a single round. So justices I ask of you should this polymorphed whale have gotten an attack to finish off my general or were my players whale out of their mind? I earnestly await your decision. (Ps I absolutely loved this choice, and the final encounters with the BBEGal were amazing and it was a great way to finish a 3 year campaign).

trevor passage

Dear esteemed Judges and bailiff Jorp, I have a case for you all that I have titled displacementgate. Our group was running through the Tyranny of Dragons modules, and through it we had a couple of PC switches—my Paladin died, and was resurrected as an aspect of the feywild (the DM and my answer to why I would adjust my stats to be a little more appropriate in the grim and gritty style game he was running) and another player switching from a gloomstalker to a dwarf barbarian. Here is the issue, my friend was given an amount of gold to roll this new character to purchase items, but instead he sort of did it by feel, and gave himself a cloak of displacement. The set of rules for magic items prices places a high premium on the cloak, and as soon as I saw it on the character sheet—I performed the Murph cardinal sin of snitching on my fellow pc. Our DM let it ride for a session, but ended up concocting a way to steal the cloak away. It has become known as displacementgate in our group, and while we all laugh at it now, I would like summary judgement of my actions—was I right to snitch on my fellow player for the good and balance of the campaign? Thank you for your time and Jorp if you pick my case there is a crisp FIVE DOLLAR BILL in it for ya. Love the show love you all and thank you. Trev

beverly eddie

May it please the court, To the Honorable Justices Murphy, Tanner, Axford, and the animorphs loving Bailiff jeremiah, I present the case of The Trauma, The Flirt and the Wardrobe. (sorry there’s no actual wardrobe). It started out as a group of friends roleplaying as a silly crew of pirates set in space. The DM exclusively relied on the lore one of the players had written and elements from their favorite media for world building. It was the first time playing d&d for several players, and the DM assumed no one knew how to roleplay so he did not allow many opportunities. Without bothering to check in before or after, the DM prioritized heavy trauma-based scenes, often leaving players emotionally distressed. Whenever players brought up concerns they were dismissed or ignored. Half-way into the campaign the DM became more interested in flirting with PCs rather than running a fun game. New players and plot lines were based on who they liked, resulting in comedic plot lines being sidelined and PCs reduced to “stupid” one-dimensional unreliable characters in favor of the “main characters”. For example, my character (a half orc eldritch knight fighter) and my friends’ character (a fire genasi barbarian monk) had a recurring bit of a “prank war” where other characters from the crew were happy to be involved. It was a break for us from the more heavy elements of the campaign and it was fun to roleplay. However, midway through the campaign our characters were dismissed as stupid and unserious. In future missions our characters’ abilities were often questioned, despite our previous capabilities shown. The DM showed no initiative for future sessions and their frequency dwindled despite players trying their best to schedule them. The campaign disbanded soon after that. Since it’s ended we’re reflecting on how things went down. Honorable judges, do you think we were overly critical of our first campaign or are we right to feel like he failed us as a DM? P.S. It turned out this DM was actually a terrible person and not just a bad DM so we are not friends with him anymore lol. - Bev

Cory

If it may tease, please, edge and... ...release all over the court, and the steamy bailiff Yakub: Last year, three sessions before the end of our campaign, my PCs encountered the BBEG while he was too confident in his plan to be angry about his lieutenant dying. Seemingly unprovoked, one of the players declared that his character knelt before the Big Bad and swore fealty. I asked him to either roll deception or persuasion depending on whether he was lying, and it would be against my Insight roll. Well, my player's precious idiot persuaded him easily, and I decided that the Big Bad would bargain with him that he could either walk away consequence-free, or accept a daily use of Dimension Door in exchange for becoming the malevolent god's eyes and ears. Even though we all agreed that the next 3 sessions would all take place during the same day, he didn't hesitate for a second to take the spell, and used it immediately to teleport near where they had started the campaign. Sooooo I moved all of the plot points closer together for this reason, scrambled to find a reason for the players to provoke the villain, and I feel like I didn't do a good job reining in this unhinged behaviour. Was I wrong to present the bargain, or was there a way to make the bargain even less enticing so he would have never agreed to become a private Twitch IRL streamer for the BBEG? I lay myself emotionally (but especially physically) bare before your judgment.

C

To the supreme crit justices of the sweeties and that other guy, I present you with case of forced religion. A friend of mine invited to the campaign was part of because her DM wanted to expand the party to six people instead of just 4. I was super excited to part of it since it was Victorian steampunk inspired world and I finally had my chance to play an artificer. After introducing my character to party/DM, the DM asked what god did my character worship and I replied that my character didn’t worship any god but science. The DM got rather annoyed about my response, saying that I had to choose one. My friend stood up for me telling the DM that if she’s doesn’t want to one don’t force it on her. This is when the claimed that my friend only invited me so we can gang up on him. This was an shocking claim and made the whole table uncomfortable to say the less and to break the tension I claimed I would for a god before the next session that would fit for my characters story (I wasn’t happy to give in but this was my first playing with group and I didn’t want to ruin what they already had going). The DM was not pleased with that answer and demanded that I pick one now. At this point, I was kind over this session (which barely started) so I picked a random one from the handbook, Thoth. After doing this the DM calmed down and the session continued on but I was very uncomfortable the time and fell into the background during the whole session. If it wasn’t obvious I will not be part of that campaign anymore, but I ask you honorable justices was it wrong of me to go into a campaign without a god? Or was it wrong for one to be forced upon me?

Omvega

May it please the court and pester the bailiff, I bring to you this case of the Buried. J, a frequent player, often DM, and dear friend of mine, has created a maneuver in which she uses the Mold Earth spell to excavate the 5-foot cube of earth below an enemy, and deposit the dirt back on top of them, essentially burying any medium creature alive. The DM who ran a one-shot allowed this, and the creatures that were affected at that time were under the effect of the command spell so it was ruled they would not make any save or check to resist being buried. Later, J and I were debating this use of the spell, and I argued that a capable adventurer or monster could pretty easily break free of this. In my opinion they could pass a dex or strength check to not be completely buried, or to break free on their turn and possibly only suffer effects similar to standing up from prone. J argued that 5 feet of dirt is heavy enough to smother someone and would effectively incapacitate a creature unless they took a more costly or time-consuming action to escape, and that if the creature stayed buried for multiple rounds or if she did the spell again to deposit more dirt on top, they would be smothered to death. Is this a big brain strategy, or a misinterpretation of the rules? I humbly await your judgement. (Don't worry, we will still be best friends no matter the ruling)

Cameron Seker

To the big league judges and little league bailiff, I present the case of Drow but not Out. A few weeks ago, my friends and I got an Airbnb to celebrate my birthday as well as my best friend’s GF’s birthday (we share the same one, and as such treat each other as siblings.) She wanted to try DnD for the first time and my friend obliged. The campaign we would be jumping into was ongoing for the rest of our friends, and was split in two parties: An evil party consisting of a newly created vampire, a spore druid capitalist (my own character), and a Lolth Priestess (my pseudo sister), as well as a good party of less importance to the case. During our first meeting in a dark woods, the evil party was attacked by a Dire Bear. The bear crit on the priestess and she dropped instantly. My character stabilized her with a medicine check, but being the capitalist he is, took her +3 whip as collateral since she didn’t have health insurance. Judges, was I wrong to take this persons magic item in her first ever dnd session where she also almost instantly died? Or was my roleplay warranted as she decided to be a part of this evil squad of villains? I bear both my 1s, my 20s, and all numbers between to the court’s eternal, final judgement.

MothMan

To the honourable Justices and lowly bailiff George. I present the case of the Tickling Tiefling. I have started running a campaign for 3 friends, 2 of which have never played D&D before. I was running a chase scene with the PCs trying to escape from some town guards, and one of the new player's tiefling sorcerer got grappled. They asked if they could use Mage Hand to try and tickle the guard to get them to release their character. I said that they could try, but warned that it would be a high DC, as I thought that in the heat of combat getting tickled wouldn't really make the guard release their grapple. My player argued that absolutely it would. Again, I said it COULD work, just that it would be a tough/almost impossible DC. My player ended up doing a regular old strength check to get out which, admittedly, was much less fun. Should I have allowed the tickly tiefling to work those magic fingers, or was I right to make it such a hard check? I lay myself at the feet of the court and await your wise and whimsical ruling.

K-Master Flex

To the honorable judges Brian, Hugh, and Emilio, as well as Father Of The Year Jacob Penn Cooper Hurwitz, I present the case of the French Canadian Tabaxi. Two years ago, I was playing my first ever campaign with some friends who had just finished up a year-long run and were starting fresh. For my first ever character, I chose a grave cleric Tabaxi and thought it would be fun to make him a Canada lynx with a wildly thick French Canadian accent. Cut to session one and as we are about an hour in, one of the other PCs asked the DM across the table if he could find some kind of potion to sneak into my food so that it would "get rid of my stupid accent". I told the other PC that if he tried that, I would one hit kill him. At level 1, a cleric's Inflict Wounds is kind of broken and does 3d10 damage. It got a little awkward after that, but the DM smoothed things out and we finished the session with no major altercations. "Fixing" my accent was never brought up again. I ask the court, was I wrong to defend my character so vehemently? Did I break table etiquette? I humbly await your decision.

Malcolm J Gatlin

To the honorable justices and the summer ant stealing the courts sap, I'm the DM and the party was in a place that was basically the realm of the dead on the mortal plane. In order to enter while still being alive, I asked them all who their favorite NPC was before hand. Death itself approached them and had them choose between their favorites who's soul he will borrow while they are there, if the player dies, they are brought back to full HP and instead the NPCs soul is taken. This mechanic would be manipulated in a boss battle where they could force themselves to go into the ethereal plane to fight the boss who was going in and out like they where. One of my PCs decided to cast Forcecage inside the ethereal plane to block him from attacking, on his turn I had him go back to the material plane where it wouldn't be blocking him, but the party argued it would be in the marterial plane as well cause of the description. I argued it wouldn't cause the spell was cast in the ethereal plane and not the mortal plane. This lead to a awkwardly heat conversation before I evoked my right as the DM and we continued. Honorable justices who was right here.

Jonathan H.

To the eminent and efficient Judges and to the Bailiff Jake who can just read the question. No need for your opinion, big guy. I bring you the case of the Surrender on-command. I DM a second campaign for 4 now not-as-newish players. My group having a sparring match (first to yield) with a Adventurer's Guild sponsorship as a prize. They were fighting your typical weak but rich young man decked out in magic items and his butler, a CR 9 abjuration wizard. The plan was to have the wizard only cast some spells absorbing damage, but otherwise not interact, as he could've easily killed any of the level 2 players. After some incredibly bad rolls aided by a Cloak of Displacement (which was working a little too well), I was feeling my players getting discouraged. That is until the Paladin cast Command uttering "Surrender". One wisdom fail later, I figured I was going to lose the battle, as I chose not to argue that a 6 second one turn surrender was too short. However, I tried to save myself one last time, having the Butler banish his boss, in order for him to be unable to follow the command. This seemed to quickly disengage some players and, seeing this, I backed down and had the butler pretend the banishment came from one of the PCs. So, Judges, were my players too quick to give up on this very weak enemy, or was I trying too hard to whomp them, for once? I await your counsel.

Malcolm J Gatlin

Forgot to mention, he was not in the cage, they used it to block him from casting a spell

G-Money

Most High Judges of the Supreme Crit, and the bailiff of little consequence, I present the case of The People v. Unicorn Inflation: I've been playing remotely in a homebrew campaign since moving to another city in order to stay in touch with my friends there. We were Level 6 and in the Fey Wild attempting to assist the Lady of the Wood, a unicorn who had been mortally wounded by a cursed sword in the hands of the crazed antagonist trying to gain the unicorn's power. As a druid, I used several of my class abilities, spells, and some decent role-playing (if I may say so, myself) to gain her trust. We vanquished the antagonist and lifted the curse, healing the unicorn in the process. In return, she gifted me with a single hair from her mane which, if used, would summon her temporarily to my aid in a moment of great peril. An amazing gift (a-la Galadriel and Gimli) and a satisfying moment for my character. Well. Then the drunk, irreverent-yet-pious tiefling paladin (a vital part of our party played by a good, good friend--no hate) steps forward and asks the unicorn if he can ride her. Our DM clunked to a stop in his narrative tracks, panic-Googled, and then read out loud with little confidence that apparently paladins, considering their typically high standard of moral conduct, were of the few classes which a unicorn might permit as a rider. To which he ruled, "Uh...yeah. So, I guess she lets you ride her," with no charisma roll and little role-playing. Ever since, our paladin has been riding this incredibly powerful, sentient creature and I'm still carrying the single, golden hair from her mane which is now relatively worthless considering the unicorn is always accompanying our party. So I ask you, esteemed judges, am I a victim of unicorn inflation? Should my hard-earned treasure have become akin to a few pennies at the off-handed whims of our bumbling paladin? Or should I celebrate my friend's unlikely success after shooting his shot and scoring big? I humbly await your righteous judgment, G-Money

Ya Boi Troy

To the delightful 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.

Kristina LaPointe

To the glorious judges and the benevolent bailiff Jake, I present to you the case of the Hungry DM and the Split Bill. About a year ago, I was DMing a campaign for a party of 7 people. For one session, I had a friend insist on hosting the game at their house and wouldn't take no for an answer. Before the session, they contacted everyone on Discord asking all of us what we wanted to order from a restaurant down the road. Me, being the DM, knew it would be hard to manage DMing for 7 people and also eating a meal, so I opted to order something I could take home with me. Whenever we all arrive, the food is distributed and my friend mentions they purchased excess chips, salsa, queso, and guac for everyone. At the end of the 5 hour session everyone is tired and ready to go home. My friend who hosted and purchased the food tells us all "I'll Venmo request you for the cost of the food". I don't think anything of it until I receive a request for $45. I was shocked. I called my friend and asked them why the request was so much when my meal (which I had yet to eat) only cost $12. They insisted since they had purchased extra sides that we should all split the cost evenly. I politely told them that since I hadn't eaten ANY of the food, I would not be splitting the bill but I'd pay for my meal. They got really upset and told me that since they hosted all of us that I should still pay because of the inconvenience to their household. I told them that I would no longer allow them to host, and going forward I will be supplying my own food and it will be BYOB/F at my apartment. They told me that I was overreacting and that they would no longer be a part of my games if I didn't allow them to continue hosting. This led to the party eventually falling apart just to avoid the drama within the friend group. Justices, was I wrong to put such hard and fast rules about the place and food requirements for me to run a game? Should I have paid the $45 and sucked it up for the sake of the party and the campaign? I await your judgment and will gladly take whatever punishment you deem fit if I am seen as guilty. -Kristina

Hunter.osty

To the honorable crit justices and Jake the dog, from adventure time right? I bring to you the case of the accidental pvp. To catch you up to the incident in question it was my first time dming and 3 of my 4 party members first time playing, the 4th member is an experienced dm and player, during my intro to the world our blood Hunter experienced player cut me off mid sentence to explain what he was doing and what he was about, we got back on track and soon realized he was a one man show the “lone wolf, doesn’t listen to anyone else” type player Eventually the party made it to a mayor who was secretly being controlled by a demon (which our bloodhunters back story is super against) when he realized who he was I was hoping the party would question him for all the answers and next steps of their quest that they needed, instesd the blood Hunter charged forward declaring he didn’t care if everyone else wanted to talk and they’d have to kill him to stop him.. well being low from the encounter before a ranger asked to attack and I allowed it based off of the bloodhunters words, he went down from a d6 of damage and the party continued to talk to the mayor afterwards, without asking, announcing, or saying anything our bloodhunter rolled 3 times and announced “I’m dead” claiming that death saves are made every round of combat which is 6 seconds. We ended up rolling him a new character a lot more party oriented and things went fine from then on, but I still can’t help but wonder, was it my fault for not knowing the rules better or his for not asking to roll in the first place?

Molly Oxenfree

to the sweet and beautiful judges and Gemma’s dad i guess? recently i joined a game and pitched a witch class which is just multiclassing wizard and druid, but reflavouring a bunch of stuff. i want my character to have to brew a bunch of their spells but the DM says i need to take levels in alchemist in order to do that. i’d understand if i was handing out spells before the battle but all i’m doing is having my witch throw components into a cauldron and then splashing, or scooping the liquid and using that is the means of deliver. am i wrong to have my witch be splashing magical soup around the battle field?

Vojack Norseman

May it please the honorable Crit justices and chafe the bailiff, I humbly present the case of the polymorph circus canon. I am seeking a formal ruling on some hijinks that transpired in a recent battle so as to establish a precedent for future campaigns. I was a player in the final session of a year-long campaign, and our level 7 party was facing off against the BBEG, who had transformed from a high priest into an adult red dragon at the end of the previous session. Our party was wrecked after slogging through the BBEG's first form, as well as several mini-bosses. We were about ten rounds into the battle, morale was low, spell slots were scarce, and half of our party had been unable to shake the fear condition imposed by the dragons in the first round due to rolling poorly. Prior to the battle, our DM had given us an NPC ally (Fandle "Rockhound" Penlock, from a book of NPCs) to help even the odds. This NPC was essentially a 9th-level druid who could wildshape into an earth elemental. My PC was an arcane trickster rogue, and when the fight started to go south, I hatched a cartoonish plan with the guest player controlling the NPC, who was one of the players affected by the fear condition. To get around this condition, which was inconveniently preventing his PC from *willingly* approaching the dragon, I had him polymorph my character into a circus canon with a lit fuse, which he proceeded to enter, firing himself at the dragon as a druid, and wildshaping into an earth elemental as he flew through the air. Upon impact, he dealt damage to the dragon, and then proceeded to pass his saving throw to overcome the fear condition at the end of the turn. On his next turn, he dealt the killing blow after using the earth elemental's ability to tunnel underneath the dragon and deliver a fatal punch to the draconic netherbits. My DM thought this plan was hilarious and allowed it to proceed uninterrupted. However, after the session I felt uneasy about the ridiculous nature of this tactic, particularly since I'm scheduled to make my own DM debut in our next session. Have I gone too far and set a completely ridiculous precedent by establishing that PCs can be polymorphed into light artillery? How do I avoid hypocrisy if I don't allow similar strategies for games I may DM with this group in the future? I humbly await the court's decision.

Lux

To the glam judges and the bailiff who I bet is desperately hoping I say congratulations: I am seeking a judgment for a case that has not happened yet. I am planning my first in person one-shot in three years. It is going to start at an auction house and (probably) end up in a battle between large groups on the ruins of a civilization on on a giant tortoise. I've been building a detailed world for a long time, and in the final battle I want to make the fact that there are big forces at play seem fair to my players. I plan to have them roll to see how many new combatants enter the battlefield each turn (think d20 mindflayer thralls, for example). The point will not be to kill all the combatants. Instead, it will be to secure the artifact stolen from the auction, but I don't plan to actually tell my players how to win. Am I a cruel and reprehensible DM for setting up a final battle where all my players could die if they don't think critically? P.S. I plan to leave lots of breadcrumbs on how to emerge victorious. So please punish my players somehow.

Myles Lee

To the magnanimous Supreme Crit and Justin I think it was? I just joined an ongoing campaign playing a Leonin Barbarian. The DM gave me a plot hook that I'm on the hunt for a very important man named Mike. The party is also looking for him so our motivations should be in line. We were talking to an NPC the polyamorous polymorpher Poly Paul. We had just received some unclear intel from a rat that we might need to kill Poly Paul eventually. However, we were getting information when a party member, Cahir, discovers that he was created for the purpose of killing someone. Since he didn't know who he was supposed to kill he decided to just "start killing everyone until he got it right." Poly Paul had not agreed to help us find Mike yet so when we went into initiative I got between them and tried to talk Cahir down. He did not, so I swung on him. He was saved by a Nat 1 and then the player asked the DM to let me roll a persuasion check which I passed. That diffused the situation but I was still pretty mad that he just lost it like that because it's "what his evil aligned character would do" I'm still planning to go to the next session but tell me O Supreme Crit, was my frustration justified or should I point my Barbarian rage where ever Cahir desires? P.S. after the session he asked me if I would have killed his character, and I told him yes. He was in the way of my objective and that's what MY character would do.

-DivThePervDrowBard-

Dear beloved Supreme House of Crit and Bailiff Jack Hurhurhurditz, I bring the case of consequences, most of it my own making. Our DM has stressed that no matter what we do, there will be consequences and we have coined the term FAFO (Fuck Around and Find Out). I play a Cleric of Pelor, who has been cursed by an succubus called Bo, to have bad luck, because Naz walked in on Bo and her ex-girlfriend sleeping together (willingly may I add). Recently, on the rare full night sleep, Naz had a lead to go to an Arcane University to look up demon princes or bosses that relate to Bo. It was discovered that while things were patched up with Bo and Naz, Bo could not remove the curse as her boss was still keeping it on her. With no experience with demons or its language or how they work, Naz was shown a book on demon princes and did not understand infernal. Frustrated at ending up at a dead end, she asked if there were any names that she could use who would be useful to her to find a demon prince that can help with her curse. She was given three: Void, Leviathan and Orcus. On my part, I noticed the summoning circle and my party joked that I should summon them. Now, side note: my character was on her own as the rest of the entire party chose to stay in the inn, Naz had asked if anyone wanted to come but they all said no as they wanted to wait for the new quest giver (that is five people). Naz being average intelligence thought she would push her temporary good luck and simply said the name Orcus. That was more then enough to summon the big guy, it lead to Naz making a contract with him, she did not give him her name but rather a vague title. She was shocked, embarrassed and scared that she – a cleric- summoned on e of the biggest and baddest demons. Naz asked of Orcus to find a succubus called Bo in a town in the middle of no where because she needed to find out Bo’s bosses name. (a small detail my dm forgets) in return, Orcus asked Naz not to speak of his name ever again. Naz shook on it, gaining a flaming contract seared into that arms flesh. Now, cut to last nights session, Naz had come clean on her deal to her party and feels pretty bad about it as they now hear news of towns in the countryside being attacked by demons. Her party offered to help, sneak into a library and get information on any demons, they grabbed 5 random books (two cook books, one mortgage broker book, one erotica and one on fortune telling) One party member went to the local brothel, found Bo, and was charmed to find Naz and bring her to them. Now, dear court, I am feeling incredibly guilty for my actions and ask for advice on what to do as I have lost confidence on how to play my character and Naz being honest in the past has done more harm then good. What should I do? How do I rise above this or am I doomed to bring darkness to our world? Punish me how you will

TJBA

To the precious Bailiff Jake and the hounding judges I present the case of the players for death. One of my player's decided to go scouting alone and I obliged yet warned them of how dangerous and deadly the swamp ahead. Low and behold they rolled 3 fabulously failed checks (talking single digits and even a negative one) which resulted in their capture and a difficult yet fun rescue mission. The issue however lies in the aftermath. When I was rounding down the session asking for player's thoughts and advice on how things went everyone at the table including the scouting PC thought they should have died! So I ask you this, should I have killed the PC for their impressive fumble? Did I rob the table of an interesting story? I ask for your mercy if I'm found guilty but plead to the court, it was our first session!

ZZYZZXX

To the physical embodiments of Dice Christ: Saint murph the Storyteller. Saint Emily the Profoundly Ponderous. Saint Caldwell the Goofer and Jacque (the guy that cleans up after them I think) I have a confession that has haunted my dnd experience ever since it’s occurrence Having found dnd through Naddpod I was familiar with most of the rules despite having never played before. During the first time I was able to play I was a Dragonborn fighter and toward the end of the dungeon we were clearing our party was faced with a cyclops in a large open room. Having noticed the Cyclops a party member immediately threw a bag of ball bearings between us and the foe so that we could make it difficult for him to approach us. Here comes my confession: once the enemy had approached I opted to shield ram the cyclops hoping to knock it down due to the treacherous floor and succeeded in opposed strength check. The dm who was new to dming but had player experience narrated that as the foe fell prone that it he spent his action just trying to get up instead of just half his movement. I recognized that the Cyclops should have still been able to attack but stayed silent as it was my first time playing and it would’ve made my “hero shield moment” less impactful. We ended up beating him with some ease after that because we took advantage of the incorrect prone mechanic and slew him as he struggled to stand on a floor of ball bearings. Illustrious Chapel of Crit I beg for forgiveness at this transgression

Emily Patton

To the most illustrious justices in the land and the bailiff who I have no opinion of whatsoever, I come seeking counsel on possibly finding new friends. A few friends and I have been playing a campaign together for over a year now and it seems like every hiccup comes back to one player. This player frequently cancels last minute, is normally playing a video game during our sessions which slows everything down, and only makes meme characters. His first character was a Way of the Astral Self fairy monk who begged our DM for a deck of many things then drew four cards and immediately got the void card. I thought that would be the end of our issues but his next character was a Horizon Walker ranger with +3 home brew weapons (we’re level 7). With every attack he would say “bing bong” (from an old viral TikTok) and often did double the damage that I or our other party member could do which made balancing encounters very difficult for our DM. To fix this, our DM (who also listens to the pod, shoutout to Chad) had the big bad tamper with his weapons and shoot us all into space. His weapons were now only +2 which this player was very upset about. My question is this: am I bad party member for thinking of getting new friends or am I justified in wanting a more enjoyable atmosphere for our campaign? I will humbly accept any punishment bestowed upon me. -Emily

Mirra Palindrome

From the Desk of Nora the Explora May it please the Jake, and everyone else there too I guess. I present the Case of the Slowplayed Counterspell. A few years ago I was in a really cool pirate themed campaign. I played a bladesinging wizard and I was the only person at the table who had access to Counterspell. During the first combat after I took the spell, I used it pretty frequently, as you often do with new features. We handled the combat pretty easily, but I left feeling bad as the DM seemed deflated after the frequent counterspell use. I decided that using the counterspell super often probably made things less fun for him and I resolved, to myself, to limit my use to one counterspell per combat. This seemed to resolve the unhappiness, and everything returned to normal. Fast forward to the end of the campaign. It's the penultimate battle that will lead directly into the final battle without a break. In my mind, this is the moment where nothing is held back. It's time to counterspell. We're fighting a warlock who used to be a party NPC before becoming an acolyte of the evil god we were fighting. Long story short, I counterspell the Warlock's three spells and DM looks a little dumbfounded and taken aback. The combat end swiftly and we proceed to the final battle where counterspell was irrelevant. Later he would remark that it kind of ruined the cool scene he had set up for the penultimate battle and lowered the stakes a bit, and he didn't see it coming due to the self limiting I had previously done. Since then, anytime I've sat at a dnd table with him, if counterspell comes up, he'll remark about how much he dislikes counterspell and then gives me a long look like he's still trying to figure out if I deliberately played him or not. So I ask, was I in the wrong to counterspell more than once in the penultimate battle, or was I in the wrong to self limit in the first place, or is my DM in the wrong for not anticipating my slowplayed barrage of counterspells. -Nora the Explora

Shelbeast

To the Crit Court Counselors and Gemma’s dad. I submit to the court, the case of DM Sweat Supreme. I have been playing with the same group for three years with our same friend as the DM. He had been a PC several times before beginning his DM journey with us and has really come into his own as a storyteller. However, I have noticed that he often uses mechanics out of nowhere as ways to advance the narrative. For example: After defeating some goblins, two escaped to warn their clan. When we tried to chase after them he said that it was difficult terrain and the goblins had a speed of 80ft, even though that had not been the case during actual combat. The two escaping ended up creating a large scale battle of the town vs the clan, which he had been prepping for months. In the beginning most of us did not know enough for this to be a problem, but now several players have become experienced enough to realize the abrupt conditions make no sense and argue quite frequently. However I find myself in the center of the arguments because I side with my DM and his sweaty story even though I know what he’s doing is not technically correct. Am I wrong for standing with the DM? Or are my fellow PC’s right to be frustrated?

Im2Picante

To the honorable justices/ sonic fan fiction juggernauts and the homie Jake, I present the case of “ Behind the Screen”. I am a DM for a campaign in Eberron for a party of three. My adventurers were against a group of bandits during one of my combat encounters. This particular group of bandits were known to be prejudice towards warforged and made it clear through out the encounter and before combat was initiated about their particular opinions towards warforged. This matters because one of my PCs is a warforged. The party ended up giving the bandits that two piece combo and eventually took down all the bandits except the leader. The leader was next in initiate and was nearly dead. I knew he was going to go down once his turn was over because he had a condition on him that took his health away after his turn so I figured I turn it into a cinametic moment by describing a dramatic attack towards the warforged PC since he was also on deaths door. I rolled a d20, paused for dramatic effect, and did that “DM look” towards the warforged PC that was uncomfortably long as to give the sense of “uh oh”. But before I could say the leader missed, the party leaned over the DM screen to look at the result before I could triumphly say he missed. I’m glad that I got them on their edge of the seats to the point to do such an action, but were the players in the wrong to look behind the DM screen where my notes/ rolls/ and almonds are put on display?

Figgy the Cat

Dear Lord's and Lady's of the great Crit! And Jim. This week, I present the case of the boy friend npc and the cursed sword. My friend picked up a cursed sword where we needed to collect 100 souls for the kraken to gain control of it, all while the kraken now chases the ones who have wielded the sword (they get a cool tentacle tattoo). When myself and another party realized what happened, we asked the dm (best friend/bf to the other player) if we can discuss what we want to do while the other player waits outside. He asked the player if he felt comfortable doing that, he did and we started talking. Thought about killing his character in the beginning, but realized that's no fun, so we had a plan to lure the kraken to the fort boat we needed to destroy. When the player came back, he instantly casted suggestion onto the bf NPC and told him to 'grab' (the sword). To which he failed and grabbed, linking more of the party to this fate. Super creative right? Well the GF argued that suggestion shouldn't have worked bc the npc knew the sword was cursed and so it was putting his life in danger. There was a huge argument between the 2 players that ended with scaring the cat, a timeout of the game and a quick wrap up to not play again. Would suggestion work if the npc knew of the danger but it was not putting themselves into immediate harm? I humbly await the courts decision. P.S. the cat(Presley) is okay and was given love and treats after.

Casonder Nova

May it please the glorious judges and that guy who’s a father now, I present the case of the one armed intimidation. A while back I was running a campaign where the players encountered a goblin king and his subjects. One of my players challenged the king to a 1 on 1 duel rather than everyone trying to fight the all the goblins. After some rolls the king accepted and a very close battle took place where the king had his arm cut off, but in the end the player lost. As the the other players tried to charge to quickly take him down, I had the king roll an intimidation check on them in front of the table to which I rolled a Nat 20. I stated that they were all frozen with fear, but could make charisma saves to try and fight it off. No one passed the DC of 20, and they had to leave, failing their quest. The session ended shortly after, but the player who lost the fight seemed upset and dejected. He asked afterwards if we at least leveled up to 3, which I answered that they had leveled up to 3 last session and all the other players agreed with me. He then got angry and stated he wouldn’t have lost the fight or been intimidated if he had been level 3 and left, never to play with us again. I ask you, was I right to give the one armed king an intimidation check after winning the fight, or should I have retconned the fight after knowing my player was not up to the level he should have been. I humbly await your answer.

YourAnimeDad

To the most SOAPStastic judges and the werehoggiest Baliff Jape, I present The case of Love Lost Crit Denial. I've been apart of this ongoing campaign for the last year or so where each Adventurer has the option to have level appropriate pets/familiars from some Kobold Press Monster book. I was offered a chance to seek one out. When I expressed to the DM which one I would like it took a few sessions but finally it appeared. The cutest little 3 headed Hydrapuck you've ever seen. Blue and speckled, complimented my Twlight-Circle of Stars Druid/Cleric Aasimars color scheme. And as she attempted to charm this creature I decided to not use magic and leave it to the dice. You roll saves like death saving throws in order to charm a pet. I rolled like absolute bilge, getting a nat 1 immediately granting me 2 failures, followed by a 11. I then rolled 8. I was sweating so I begged my DM for a way to reset. He offered me a persuasion roll, i fed the little homie some jerky to give myself advantage. I crit. Gaining me a 2nd chance. I'm 1up and 2down. I remember about my free 20 from my DM for getting married. I figured it would give me the 2 successes I needed to win the babe over. Instead he treated the total roll(22). I ended up rolling another 8 after and the Hydrapuck, was Hydragone. My question being should the Nat 20 have been treated as 2 successes? Or did my DM make the right call?

Vera

Hello to our righteous judges and He who is without Honor. I present the case of the druids animal companion. This happened 4 years ago during a first time DND session for me, my friend, his uncle and cousin. My friend running the game was introducing his cousins character, a druid, after mine and his uncle had met and were walking down a road by a forest. The druid came running out of the forest and the DM had me roll a perception check. I forget exactly the roll but it was at least above a 14. The way the scene was described was that the druid was being chased by some black mass. I then used eldritch blast and one shot the black mass that ended up being the druids wolf companion. This moment was mostly treated as a non event in game however, over the years when I would defend my choice or the DM would bring it up as "you just attacked the first chance, why didn't you do literally anything else". Of course this is good natured poking fun at each other. Was I in the right to jump to violence to start off what I believed to be our first combat encounter after an okay ish perception check or did I commit the greatest sin and ruin what might have been a cool introduction of our party's last member and his animal companion. I await your judgement and accept what comes my way. P.S years later during my first time being a DM the same cousin whomped me and destroyed an entire encounter involving dire wolves with the spell spike growth and I couldn't have been happier.

Kristina The Sorceress

To the honorable justices Axford, Tanner, and Murphy, and the deplorable bailiff Jake. May it please the court, I present the case of A Song So Sad. For my first ever campaign, I joined my friends mid-campaign. In character, they caught me up to speed on their quest and the BBEG. Not soon after, we encountered an accomplice of the BBEG. This accomplice was a Bard. The rest of the party had encountered this guy before, and took measures to place magical miniature sandbags in their ears to help resist any charms or spells that utilized sound. I, as the player, knew this accomplice and his attack style; however, because he was an accomplice to the BBEG and not the BBEG, he never came up in character. Fearing of metagaming, I did not take any precautions. The DM then had me make a wisdom saving throw. After failing the saving throw, he told me that the song that was played was so sad, it made my character “clinically depressed.” I was told my character felt impending doom and had to be played with a gloomy disposition towards the world, and this magical effect only could be undone by a greater restoration or remove curse. The DM never told me if and what spell it was, or even if it was a legendary action. I no longer play with this DM due to other reasons, but Judges, I ask you, was this penalty too extreme? In addition, even if it was a legendary action of some kind, does it warrant the alteration of my character’s choices and attitudes towards the world? (P.S. We never got high enough level to get greater restoration/remove curse, and we never encountered an npc who had and could use those spells on my character)

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 won’t end so fast, I buff 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?

Alexander Vaa

Dear Justice's and the goat Jake I bring you the case of the Stolen Character Me and my group brought a 4 year campaign to a close a few months back, and due to our characters influence there was a new religion born in this world, "Worshipers of the Fire Lord" and it was created by goblins So in campaign 2 in the same world 200 years later I created a Goblin light cleric named Ooguk who worshiped the fire lord My first ever support character When i showed up for my first session one of our other PCs made a wildfire druid goblin who also worshiped the fire lord This got old pretty quick, especially after some role play and combat I was gifted a small pheonix familiar from the Fire Lord and then the other PC narrated his wildfire spirit turning into a Pheonix After getting to level 6 I decided to send ooguk off to build a church and created a bard to join the team (who died brutally from giant centipedes) same DM who killed my warlock below deck on a pirate ship (nightcrawler defence) Was I being petty by changing characters or was my fellow PC being a Lil stinker ? Ps. The other PC played his goblin very chaotic and more of a cult leader that would burn things and himself to "purify" them One last thing- I told the group I was planning on making Ooguk before hand so they all knew my class and race and backstory

amelia!!

To the oh so honorable supreme crit justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner, and the oh so average bailiff Joe. May it please the court. I ask you a simple question: is a hang glider a projectile? While in a small mountain town our party’s bard/paladin, Ivrath, wanted to go hang gliding - the town’s main tourist attraction. They were barreling through the air at an established 80 mph and lost control. After brainstorming ways to keep them from crashing and taking max falling damage, our monk asked if they could use their deflect missiles ability on the hang glider. Our argument was that the hang glider was coming at us much like a projectile, and arrows ( a common DnD projectile) travel at around 150 mph, so an 80 mph hang glider should be easy to handle. The DM rejected our idea, saying that hang gliders are heavier than arrows. But would a much heavier rock from a catapult not be a projectile?! Not to mention the fact that projectiles are pretty vaguely defined in DnD, and the deflect missiles ability is so infrequently usable for monks. Ivrath ended up being fine, but we still hold that our plan should have worked and that our monk should have gotten to have their cool moment for once. So, we come to grovel at your feet and beg for your righteous judgement.

BrawlerCarnage

I would love to be eloquent bc I love that shit but you guys said be brief. We had a guy who came in to our campaign as a friend of a friend. He started out fine but kept getting really upset about the decisions the group was making on his weeks off (every other week). The final straw was when the party attacked an imperial ship and they were debating what to do with the survivors. Everyone else said either leave them with food or kill them mercifully. He INSISTED that they be captured and sold off as slaves. Really dug in and stood his ground and got upset that his opinion wasn’t agreed to. That was the last day we played with that guy. Should we have just kept dealing with stuff like that?

Zach Collier

Loyal and royal crit court I am here for my characters title and honor on science. (Also hi jack welcome back) This case was from a simple artifice and his friends against the patrons and deities from old worlds. It's been a few months into the campaign and the maker of the group was able to construct various gadgets that could aid us in the future. To a robotic companion made of melded shields to a scepter to free cast enlarge reduce.( our topic and evidence in the bag there judges) When we got to a dimensional door and went through we were met with a trap and met with the vessel of loki, ready to ambush us. (After figuring out his clones share the heal pool...combat was solved) We wanted to find a way to remove loki from the vessel, freeing them. So our group and our chief inventor(hi) shrank the dimensional door while we stood outside ( thinking it's a monster Inc portal i.e. the volume of the space on the other side wouldn't shift. Little to our expirament with science and magic the door was the room itself. It sadly shrank itself and everything inside stayed it's natural shape as it wasn't the casted target, the door was. Judges. Is my artificer possibly innocent for his action due to uncertainty or is he at fault for sealing away loki from our realm? After we saw the impact inside we sealed the door away the the ghost of loki couldn't escape the space (if he was even still there I havent invented ghost goggles) I await his punishment or his honor. Jac; good job at balif_ing

Blake Wilburn

To the high priests of the church and the choir boy who manny’s Tucker and Jill’s child, I seek to confess. You see I believe I am a Paladin of dice Christ and it may be cause it harm to my friendships. I roll good sometimes to good now the problem occurred whilst I was running Waterdeep dragon heist for a group of my friends, all experienced players and we got to about the second fight in the module which has you fighting a couple of different enemies and our problem enemy an intellect devourer the fight was going well and all the other enemies had been killed, it was just the devourer left who proceeded to try and use its Body Thief ability on one of my players, I rolled a Nat 20 on the Devourers intelligence contest and took the players body, I then let that player play as the Devourer in his old body and attack the other players, he took down one of the other players and was then killed. The Devourer then used the Body Thief again and got another Nat 20 (both of these were in front of the board) and I let the player do the same thing again but he was taken out before he could get a turn, leaving just my forever DM and his Small, Medium at Large, Gnome wizard rogue who was promptly Body Thieved this time only rolling a 19 and taking his body making it a TPK, my first, all because I rolled well and my friends all rolled under 10s for most of the fight missing most of their attacks. Although my friends knew it wasn’t my fault and we were all at the mercy of our heavenly Dicer I really feel bad for my forever DM as this was a character he was really looking forward to playing. This whole thing has made my belief in Dice Christ almighty but my relationships with both him and my friends strained.

Kelsey Taylor

To the most honorable justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner, and the (insert adjective from Murph here depending on how he's feeling today) Bailiff Jake-- I humbly bring before the court the case of the teleporting druid vs. the DM. I'm currently in a long-running Spelljammer session with some friends of mine. My character is an astral elven Circle of Stars Druid with the Feylost background from an isolated cult on a far-off moon, who has come to the metropolitan shipyard city in search of her long-lost aunt. In a recent battle during which the Empress was Literally Ripped In Half, my character's aunt (who has not yet shown up before in our game) appeared with a clan of rebel druids, stole the empress's body, and flew off riding a pack of Cloakers. Since finding her was my character's main intrinsic goal, and the rest of my party members were safe at the conclusion of the battle, I asked my DM if I could use a combination of Misty Step (from my Feylost background) and Starlight Step (from my Astral Elf lineage) in the same turn to teleport 60 feet into the air and land on top of my aunt's steed. He allowed this (since one is a spell and one is an ability) with the caveat that it would require a hefty dex save to land successfully without taking damage, and I rolled a nat 20. I could tell he was not expecting this, and after my sick-ass teleportation move and a very brief RP with the aunt I hadn't seen in years, he narrated that she shoved me off of the Cloaker and my character landed in a pile of blankets on a rooftop below. After doing something I thought was cool and creative, the finality of this felt very underwhelming. I ask the court-- should I have been allowed a dex save or a contested athletics check to avoid this? Or is my DM justified in not giving me the option if it serves his story better? I eagerly await your ruling, punish me if you must 🙏

Nyx

To the honorable supreme crit justices Murphy, Axford and Tanner and their work acquaintance jam jar. I am running a Fallout and Horizon Zero Dawn inspired dnd campaign on zoom with my close friends. We are are currently doing a mansion murder mystery where the level 8 party had to relinquish any equipment that they weren’t able to smuggle in. Through several sessions of sleuthing and several deaths the party ended up setting a trap that involved party’s monk (astral self) being alone in a room with the killer to catch the killer red handed. The killer attacked the monk with a compact harpoon gun, bolts covered in poison. One shot hits and does 23 damage. The monk retaliates with a turn of his own and the killers legendary resistance is spent resisting a stun. It’s the killers turn and he hits again doing 35 (8 piercing the rest poison damage). The monk used deflect missiles at this point and reduced the damage by 14. My monk argued that because he reduced the pearcing damage to 0 that he should take no damage because how could he be poisoned if he didn’t take pearcing damage. I said that I see where he is coming from and I get it but the extra damage is essentially away to add sneak attack with some fun flavor and that the damage was still apart of the damage on a hit for the the monster I was using (Forge Fitzwilliam, heavily flavored and given better dex, a legendary resistance and some equipment that was never used). This went briefly back and forth but ultimately I stood firm and the poison damage stood. It was ultimately fine because next the warforged forge cleric Kool Aid Maned through a wall with the ranger in tow. The party knocked the killer prone stunned him then stomped him into an unconscious mess on the floor. The monk even delivered the final blow ending a session on a high where everyone had fun but my ruling on the poison still haunts me. Should I have been lenient because the party was missing equipment? Was I just wrong in my ruling? Should I have let the rule of cool stand over my want for dramatic tention in that moment? I fear that I may be wrong and that I should be punished justly by the highest court in the land, so I ask, what is the courts ruling on deflect missiles and poison damage.

Burrito Fart

I should be dead? I beseech thee, most devout souls of dice Christ: I should be dead many times over. I play a multi classed warlock, whose abilities and spells are so unbelievably unoptimized it’s a wonder I haven’t died a thousand times. I created this character with fun in mind, and she is incredibly fun to play. my party as well as DM have all reached out many times to thank me for bringing more of a role play element to our game. I love my table. The issue I bring forth is that I believe I should have died MANY times due to my characters chaotic nature. I always run with whatever is the most fun thing to do and as a result I teleport or plainshift myself into solo adventures all the time, I’ve taken to taking other characters with me on these adventures so they can experience the joy of just going with whatever happens. My plainshift ability is a home brew thing my dm came up with that will put me into more of a random place than a traditional one because it’s a gift from my warlock patron (this is important information). Most recently as a “fun” thing I decided to pull off a heist, I used a scroll of soul jar, swapping places with a shop keep, there were runes on the doorway that would dispel magic, so I thought it a great idea to use the shop keep to plainshift away since you keep your own abilities when you swap bodies. Immediately after shifting away, I read the rest of magic jar, I was too far from my body and had no way back, thus myself AND the shopkeep died. I was totally okay with this outcome, it was surprising and I definitely made a mistake, wasn’t at all planning to just die. HOWEVER; my party loves me so much that they role played out giving a portion of one of the characters souls to my patron to revive me. 0 consequences came my way, I feel like I cheated the story by just coming back. I dunno, what do you think dice Christ would say?

Schafe

To the honourable supreme crits Axford, Tanner and Murphy and the ever loyal and lowly bailiff Jim. I bring forth the case of the inconsistent sense of adventure regarding cursed books. My party is great we play semi regularly and they've levelled up a load and are getting into developing their characters in interesting ways. The Warlock player has recently talked about exploring changing patron or finding a narrative reason to reclass as the party adventure errs towards a more heroic tone. To this end I nudged him to look at some of the obviously cursed books the wizard player took from a dark being's bookshelf earlier in the campaign (mostly travelogues, romance advice and autobiographical treatsies written by the aforementioned dark being). The books were cursed, the wizard got a nosebleed trying to read one, the warlock then pickpocketted that book because it could be used for mischief so has a book. Anyway come the downtime when the warlock started studying the book I had the book start conversing with the warlock, promising answers and powers and the like whilst also causing environmental stuff like a deathly scream or blood to spill from the pages for colour. The Wizard then decided the book was too evil to be allowed to exist and tried throwing magic around to destroy the book as it was being read. Luckily another player at the table interceded as I was trying to explain that this will be PvP and initative would be rolled and there wouldn't be a surprise round for the firebolt and a compromise was made where upon the warlock would be supervised when reading which is fine as the warlock the next scene snuck away to study in secret. I was wrongfooted, the wizard had been very lassiez faire about picking up items that could be cursed as they'd work out how to study them later so this was unexpected. Should I have just come clean with the reason for this narrative taking place, this is collaborative storytelling so it isn't metagaming? Should I think of a new less contentious hook to achieve the exploration in patron drama the warlock player has explicitly asked for? Is it wrong for me to give the peacemaker player extra magic items for being the clutch member of the party? I await any punishment you deem fit for falling down this wayward path.

Toland Kister

May it please the court and new poppa bailiff, I bring to the you the case of ending combat via narration and grease. My younger brother and I are into many nerdy things, DND included, but we had never played a session together. A few weekends ago, I was visiting home on a weekend that coincided with my brothers weekly session that he DMs. Because I would only be joining for one session, I rolled up a level 3 battlemaster fighter with a focus on supporting the other players in the session by selecting maneuvers that allowed me to move enemies and allies about the field and keep the action focus on the longtime players in the campaign while still allowing me to get some bonks in. I discussed my build with my brother to check that this would work for his DM style and how he runs his combat, to which I received an excited "Totally"! The first combat comes around and we are facing off against a gang of orcs and goblins on Avernus style motorcycles, eight enemies in total across five bikes. On the turn prior to mine, six enemies remained on three bikes, and I was eager to make a pushing attack to knock one off. One of the other players familiars casted grease, which apparently encompasses a 60 foot radius (a little sus on that one) that was able to hit all three remaining bikes. Without rolling any saves, he narrated that all three of the bikes crash an burn with their riders alongside them. Bummer, but sometimes shit happens and I figured this was maybe more in line with my bros style. Cut to the second combat, we are assaulting a cultist hideout and set a fire on the far side of the encampment to cause a distraction while we tried to retrieve some relics. As the other three players took their turns, cultists got sniped by our ranger, my brothers DMPC level 4 half orc zealot barbarian was ripped in twain by our paladins chainsword, and our tinker had worked to add some bombs to the mix. As my turn came up, I asked my brother if there was a cluster of troops anywhere on the walls, hoping to get in on the action and get some bonks in. I was informed that the 18 as yet unaccounted for cultists had all died from a mix of fire and smoke inhalation and the session ended after that as my brother and his players started to pull out their Magic decks. I beseech you, I know there are as many DMing styles as their are DMs, but am I correct in sensing a bit of a pattern here?

SirensSingSongs

May it please the court and the burp-challenged-bailiff, I present the case of stealth-turned-performance. I am currently DMing a homebrew astrology-themed campaign in which the 12 (core) classes correspond to the 12 astrological signs. My PC's had just had a rather flawless prison break in which they broke out a key NPC. After successfully escaping prison grounds they were confused as to why the NPC did not believe them that they were magical touched-by-the-stars-themselves adventurers and decided to head BACK into enemy territory in an attempt to prove it to this grumpy NPC. I made them roll stealth checks as a group and they absolutely bombed out (all sub-10 rolls), I rolled an 8 on a d10 and began to narrate that 8 guards were looking at them suspiciously and had begun approaching their group. I expected them to attempt to maybe fight, run, or attempt to hide again, but the druid of the party asked if she could roll performance instead. I was confused and asked, "You want to roll performance right now as the guards approach?" She said yes and the artificer in the party started to set off fireworks to help the performance roll. They rolled a 24 to which I said "Great, you set off fireworks and dance incredibly well and even more guards recognize you from the wanted posters in this area and you are arrested." They were upset and felt I was "cutting to a cutscene" rather than allowing them to fight the guards. I explained a mechanic of these guards would have been to call reinforcements and with a performance in which they literally set off fireworks- their location would be known from quite a distance and they would be overwhelmed regardless. I do wonder though if I should have even allowed a performance roll in hindsight or if I should have rewarded it simply because it was a 20+ roll? I throw myself at the mercy of the court and await your judgment.

Tino Bambino

May it please the crit and new father baliff Amir. I present to you the case of the not so secret campaign. I played dnd with a group of my friends however as the years went on i found myself not having fun mostly due to the DM (Chad). i found him uninterested in role-play, so i bowed out of his campaign. I also tried to play a few one shots with Chad as a fellow player. However even as a player i found Chad inconsiderate. Specifically talking during my friend’s and my own introduction and micro managing our hit points during combat. I started a new campaign with a couple of my friends. We all had great chemistry. However, I overheard one of my players hiding this campaign from Chad. I told them that i’m the DM and Chad is not entitled to our campaign. There is no need to keep it a secret because i get to decide who i DM for. Am I justified in my behavior? P.s. I have not confronted Chad on his behavior but i have no qualms doing so if he asked why he was excluded.

Penderpeen

To the honorable justices Murphy, Axeford, and Tanner and the dip spit sipping bailiff Josh, I present the case of the Defeated Dukeling My long time DND group recently began a high roleplay campaign which focuses on court politics. In our session 0, we decided that I would play the territories prince in a land where magic was all but forbidden. We built a level 3 bloodhunter (order of the profane soul) with the idea that, after my father dies, I become cursed by a fae pact tied to my family. The other players were high members of the court who were my father assistants. I was concerned about the possibility of main character syndrome, but my DM said it would be fine. Little did I know how fine it would be. In the first ten minutes of playing my character, my DM had a drunk statted as a level 5 battlemaster knock me out in a single turn of combat. My character awoke being nursed back to health before witnessing the death of his father, having assassins pursue him through the sewer, being knocked out again in said sewers, and being interrogated by the other party members. Needless to say, I was humbled and my cursed blood hunter turned into a little piss boy who wanted to go home. We played through this, and the session actually ended up being a blast. However, I ask the court - Am I wrong to feel that the wombo combo done to my dukeling was unneccesary? I lay myself at the mercy of the dipsipping deacons.

Shayla Dang

To the honorable Supreme crit justices and their lowly but lovely bailiff jake. I present to you the case of the Trauma Dump PC. I am running an all-new in-person campaign with players I gathered online. Before adding them to the game, I knew none of these people. However, I got to chat with each of them privately before our session zero and got a sense of everyone's personalities before meeting in person. I was really happy with my selections as 5/6 players seemed really cool. However, one of the PCs seemed way more interested in trauma dumping onto me about their recent break up than talking about their PC. I politely tried to guide the conversation back to dnd, as I do not know this person well and have a history of people trying to trauma dump on me to create friendship. However, any question not directed at the break-up was barely answered and the conversation died quickly after that. Fast forward to the present we meet up for our session zero and start talking about our characters. The PC above never gave me anything about their character except that they were a halfing. (Because they wanted to be a hobbit since the person who broke their heart loved The Hobbit) The PC opens with "My character is a little like me just so you guys know." So imagine my surprise when the PC starts describing their character, and it almost word for word matched the trauma dump they had spoken about to me online. This made me incredibly uncomfortable as I personally see dnd as a place to escape and although there may be some moments of real-life catharsis it personally felt too 1 to 1 for me. I am the only one who knows that the PC story is a direct reflection of the person since that conversation was DMs. I am not sure what to do now, to be honest. Should I have pried more into the character prior to the session? Should I just suck it up and allow this person at the table? Or should I kick them out before the game even starts? I humbly accept any advice and any verdict the court gives.

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?

Catherine Coates

May it please the three esteemed justices of the court and “Jake.” I present to you the case of the hopeless romantic player and the reluctant DM. A few weeks ago after our second session of the campaign that I DM for, one of my players, who plays a naive, sheltered tiefling, came to me about wanting to pursue a romantic relationship for her character. She specifically said she wanted a “romantic, boy-next-door type who knew how to treat her sweetly.” I initially just brushed off her request. However, we were watching Pride and Prejudice together and, during the romantic hand flex scene, my friend loudly sighed and said she couldn’t wait for her character to meet her own Mr. Darcy. I expressed surprise that she sounded so assured that this was going to happen. She was incredulous in return and reminded me of her previous request for a “romantic, boy-next-door type who treats her sweetly.” I let her know that I am happy to have her character explore romantic options at the table, but her character will have to put in the work to organically develop those relationships with the NPCs, and she shouldn’t expect that I can just present her with her dream guy. My fellow DM friend disagreed with my decision and said they didn’t see the harm in giving my player her dream guy if it would have made her happy and had no effect on the story, and that I took away my player’s agency. Now I worry that I took away my player’s happiness over something that might have been relatively minor at the end of the day. So justices, I plead for your judgement. Was I right to temper my player’s expectations or should I just give her her Mr. Darcy?

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.

Meghan

To the honorable crit justices and the just as honorable (but lowly in title) bailiff I present the case of are creation bard just loony toons? We’re getting high level (lvl 18 for reference) in a campaign I DM for. My lovely PC Lulu is a creation bard (a clown with a pension for high shenanigans play) but I also run a pretty rules light game with a lot of homebrew. Recently we were in combat and my player wanted to use performance of creation to make a massive anvil above a main enemy and have it fall on their heads. Now at 14th level this item can be huge. Their argument being if an anvil the size of a grand piano fell on top of them it would do massive damage and pin them to the ground if not outright kill them. I ruled that the enemy would get a dexterity save and if they failed they’d take falling damage from the height of the item. They were disappointed in the amount of damage it did and haven’t used that ability again. So I leave my ruling out for you all to judge. Should I have let this anvil truly crush their enemy or is the ruling I picked the best outcome for the situation. How best do you come to alignment on damage/outcomes for abilities when it’s not listed specifically in the book?

Patty Crimmins

Jake, after listening to you absolutely cream the gang during the Spelling Bee segments, I think it's more than obvious that you are ready to DM something. I want to encourage you to contribute something to the podcast that we are all silently hungry for. To step up to a position that you are more than qualified for. Please take us on an adventure in your mind!

Izzy R

Hey Jack, I have a question for your superiors. A few years ago during the pandemic my friends and I were playing a game dmed by my best friend. Every once in a while I would make some kind of meta joke (ie: saying “Aw man, on a scale of 1-20 I think that investigating I just did was a 3” when id roll poorly on a skill check) and every time my best friend would look at me and say “roll a d4 of damage”. I feel this was strange and unwarranted especially since we had never had a conversation about not making those kinds of jokes and I’d never been asked to do anything like roll constitution prior to taking damage. In all fairness, I did also make these jokes quite frequently. My question to your superiors, Jack, should I have protested this rule? Or was it my friends right as the dm to have me roll damage for making jokes about things my character wouldn’t know about?

Ellie V

To the most honorable judges and the proud new pawpaw, I present the case of a the non-consenting backstory. My previous group and I (we do not play together anymore; I took Murph's advice and got new friends) were playing Curse of Strahd where I (female) was playing as a grave cleric for the first time. I wrote a pretty typical fantasy backstory, she ran away from home leaving a fiance behind, blah blah and ended up in Barovia. We played for over two years and toward the end of the campaign my friend (male) that I've had since high school, revealed that the soul of my character's fiance was stuck in his character's body by her deity to "keep her safe against Strahd". The DM (male friend's wife) seemed fine with this huge reveal, admitting that they'd conspired together to do "something big" that I was not apart of, but as our characters basically rekindled their relationship (flirting and light pda absolutley nothing sexual) while fighting the undead she seemed to get more and more agitated that her husband's character kept "being too cute" with mine. I cannot stress enough that I WAS NOT INCLUDED IN DECIDING THAT MY CHARACTER'S FIANCE'S SOUL WAS PUT IN MY FRIEND'S CHARACTER'S BODY and mentioned to the DM that if it made her uncomfortable I can just stop and we can retcon that it didn't happen but the DM kept insisting that we should play it out. Since the campaign ended, she kept making comments about how I wanted to steal her husband or steal her life as a joke and publicly on social media when my friend and I would hang out together, which was never an issue before our campaign. I ended up having to distance myself from her narcissism, ultimately losing my best friend over something I really couldn't control. So I leave it to the most honorable judges, did I deserve the be treated like a homewrecker over D&D? I leave it in your very capable hands.

Olivia and Jarod have two lvls of exhaustion

To the illustrious judges and newly fathered bailiff, I present the case of the runaway ranger. One of the players in a campaign I'm playing has been nothing but overly suspicious of everyone we meet and seemed determined to create a people's revolution with the npc's who weren't as enthusiastic. Their character (sindari)and my character went late to see the drunk npc she had been talking to earlier about revolution. I let my cat alert the rest of the party to our shenanigans. It actually got heated between characters, but I rolled high on persuasion and we headed back to the tavern only for their character to stun us and run away and basically leave the campaign. I feel bad that I tattled on them and made the tensions in the group get so heated. Is it my fault for our ranger running away?

Joshua Kramer

Dear Crit Justices and especially Jake! This is the story of the world's worst foot locker. My party and I were trying to find a way to open a foot locker that our DM had described as made of metal, with no apparent lid or lock. Our resident bard had been shrunk by a potion, and since she knew dimension door, she proposed that she would teleport into the locker while small, and worst-case, just dimension door back out. As soon as she teleported in, we were asked to leave the room while the DM described our bard's findings. It was not good. What we learned later was that the bard had teleported in and apparently lost her first turn "because she was so shocked," to be wedged in next to the body of a goliath entombed inside - so I guess the foot locker was more like a large coffin. Then, still alive, the DM rolled behind the screen to see if the shrinking potion wore off, and it did, returning her to full size and causing a ton of "I'm stuck in a foot locker" damage. The next turn she had one last chance to escape, so she cast dimension door, but the DM told her she had no air for the verbal components and so, once again, he rolled behind the screen to see if the spell would fail. It did! So, she took another round of damage, which was all it took to kill her. When we finally got the chest open, we were greeted by a Shining-esque flood of blood and guts, and our bard was finally allowed to sadly inform us that she had already been dead for several minutes. I ask the court: Did our bard deserve her fate for such a wacky plan? Or was she cheated by the on-the-fly rulings and hidden rolls?

Dylan Miller

To the honorable and Devine bailiff and “those dudes behind the desk” I present the blender issue Ended campaign but wondered how you all would handle this. I had an earth genasi in the party, a hexblade warlock, and a Dragonborn rogue I let have wings Very soon my pcs found that they could put kobolds in holes if they rolled high enough on a homebrew earth control ability I have my pc (d8 for how many feet they can control including depth of however many feet, intended for small walls and such) they immediately started just throwing their main enemies of the first arc of the campaign into holes and just attacking from above and whenever I said the enemy was low they would just have the hexblade warlock jump in spinning and they nicknamed it the blender, I couldn’t find a way to get them to not try to use it AND not be upset that they couldn’t use it for that fight, eventually making sessions feel stale and repetitive making the group fizzle out So please let me know how you all would handle your pcs making all of your enemies into smoothies…

Garrett Myers

I’d like to bring a case before the zeal and fiery retribution that only the the Deacons (and Deaconess) of Dice Christ can harbor! Ive had a campaign running for almost a year now (with less sessions than ideal, but hey) and I have a problem: I suspect that one of my players is CHEATING HIS ROLLS!!! (Gasp!) This player is a friend of a friend at our small 4 PC game and honestly he hasn’t rolled below at 24 on any type of check that was of any import. He has a way of rolling: covering his die and then reading the total before whisking it away, nary to be seen by another. Like, y’all, it’s insane. Two of the 4 other PCs at my table think he’s cheating, it’s SO comically insane (also he freaks out if you try and touch his dice), It’s so bad that those same two weary PCs have “less fun” because any check results in this cheating Charlie blowing everyone out of the water. Like, “roll with disadvantage = 24.” FML. I’m bringing the campaign to a close early (the cheating Chester being one of the reasons), but what do I do in the meantime to exact the subversive holy vengeance on this dubious dice roller? Also he plays a wizard that never talks, so his RP is dogshit too… I prostrate myself to Their Glory. In Dice Christs Name and Spirit.

Garrett Myers

Ps to Jake - nice job finally locking down Jill. All it took was you to make the worst decision of your life to box Tucker out of the slot. Pps - JK, you’re the best. Kids are great, I’ve got 3 boys <3

Kristina LaPointe

I... I'm upset because my last weeks session this exactly happened to me. Kristina how do we avoid this? 😭

Daniel B

To the honourable justices and the equally honourable bailiff, I bring you the case of the undersold risk of death. I play in a game with my 3 siblings. My older brother is the DM and largely written his own campaign which is a cross of Silent Hill type horror and Game of Thrones politics. Over a year ago, at the onset of the campaign he told us anywhere outside of city walls at night is dangerous and full of horrors. That first year of the campaign there was a major focus on my character, a paladin, trying to free his NPC comrade, Sir Aiden, an experienced fighter, from prison before he was executed. Our party pulled off a lot of challenges and we successfully freed him! Shortly after, our party was planning to travel to a nearby town to rendezvous with a army to join a battle but without warning our party, without Sir Aiden, was pulled into shadowfell where my sister's character was cursed and aged 30 years. We told we had 24 hours to remove the curse or it would be permanent and only a powerful cleric in a city could remove the curse. When we got out of shadowfell we woke up in the early morning outside the city walls, surrounded by allied soldiers and Sir Aiden. (Confused? So were we) The battle would start soon and Sir Aiden was determined to go with or without us. It was just a 5 miles to the next town down a major road and lot of allied soldiers moving that way as well. Given the urgency to remove the curse from my sister the party decided to split from Sir Aiden and go back into the city to find a cleric. Once the curse was removed I asked if we could make our way to meet with Sir Aiden and my brother DM said "yeah... If he made it there alive." He then said that he told us at the start of the campaign that anywhere outside of the walls are dangerous. I protested and said he described the journey as low risk and didn't elude at all about a risk to Sir Aiden. He was unmoved and said "it will come down to the rolls". I ask the honourable justices, was I wrong to forget the warning given over a year prior or was my brother wrong to fail to elude to the risk our beloved Sir Aiden would be in by taking a morning 5 mile stroll down a road? Does Sir Aiden deserve an off screen death after a year of trials to save his life? I humbly await your verdict. P.S. it has been over 6 months since this happened and we still don't know if Sir Aiden lives! Your judgement could help tip the scales and help save Sir Aiden!

Matthew R

The case of the solo DM #nointro2023 I’m in a campaign and my DM has added their DMPC to our party of 5. Ever since the DM joined with their PC, it feels like the rest of us are extras in a campaign centered around the DMPC. Somehow they always get the kill, succeed on skill checks and saves, and the like. We’ve talked to the DM about this but they’ve said it’s simply the dice rolling well for the DMPC and we should try to do more while playing if we feel left out. Should I make new friends or should the party talk with the DM again and hope for the best?

Elijah Rasmusson

To the decisively solid interactive literature-ist mind of Justice Murphey, the ever creative and exuberant Justice Caldwell Tanner, the mischievous and insightful Justice Emily Axeford, and of course the savvy entrepreneur with phenomenal facial hair Justice Jake Herwits. (I heard Emily say it in the last one, it's canon now and not just in Boston.) Case: Cheap Magic & Expensive Bottles I think this case works perfectly with your hit new reality show sweeping the nation. I’ll hit you with the material components to the spell first and then my case. Spell Check Components: cantrip “A melee weapon worth at least 1 silver piece” (Hint: It does Thunder damage.) Answer: Booming Blade (Case Summary) TLDR; Playing in an Elderscrolls campaign, I want to combo Booming Blade with Shadow Blade. DM stops it saying a spell that has been cast holds no value to meet the criteria of the 1 silver piece. Later we run into a DMPC that casts that same spell with an improvised weapon: a broken bottle. DM lets their character cast the spell with a broken bottle because it was “An expensive bottle.” I make what might be considered a snide comment about it the following session and get booted from the campaign and blocked by my ‘friends’. More Case Details: (If needed) I played in a campaign where I was a frequent guest star to a campaign though I wasn't on regularly enough to consider myself one of the players. Set in the Elderscrolls universe I played a Khaj'iit (Tabaxi) warlock (genie patron). Wasn't very optimized but I rolled it as a traveling Bee keeper that would use my bee smoker (shadow blade) and cloak of bees (cloak of flies) to dispense the justice of my nominally heroic character. This Campaign was hosted by my best friend’s boyfriend. Whom I was informed was a stickler for lore, but ultimately newish to being a DM. Dm makes some what I would call mistakes in the lore like putting clerics to a god that shouldn’t exist yet in their world, doesn’t matter to me I don’t bring it up. The incident happens when I’ve managed to get shadow blade a 2nd level spell out and want to combo it with Booming Blade. The DM stops me and says I don’t have the material component to cast it as my weapon is a spell and not worth 1 silver piece. I advocate that shouldn’t it be worth a spell scroll of that same level, to which he retorts that since it's been cast it loses its value, i.e. there is no value to a spell scroll that you’ve cast. I relent and months pass in the campaign. Eventually our group is tasked with finding a monster expert a la Witcher, and we track them down to a tavern and confront them. We fail our persuasion check to get them to aid us so I opt for intimidation (I have advantage on those with my bees out) which also fails leading to a tavern brawl. Great Value Geralt beats us in initiative and goes to use some improvised weapon on me, smashing a bottle and going for a stab; however, they also cast booming blade on me at 11th level so that chasing after him would incur some lightning damage. I balk, citing the earlier ruling, DM doubles down and says it meets the criteria because it was a very expensive bottle. Irelent and he gets away. The next session, I comment on the expensive bottle saying we should pick some shards of broken glass up out of an alley because they might be worth 1 silver piece a pop. I seem to have hit a nerve. It gets into some argument about whenever a weapon is drawn you have to use it or someone has to get hurt, which I don’t agree with. Gets to the point the Dm is berating me for thinking that you can sheath your weapon without murdering someone. To which I comment about their DMPC trying to kill me with broken glass & magic and running away. He kicked me out of discord and even my friend blocked me. I await the ruling and for Murph to tell me I need new friends. (Accepting applications)

Muqtadaa Miandara

hello I would love to know more about your custom HP system, I found Kids on Brooms a bit too simple for my table

ACK

To the humble working bailiff and the decadent bourgeois judges. Playing what was planned to be a short campaign in the system "Shadow of the Demon Lord", (ended up being only one very enjoyable session) I was playing a sugar addicted Yerath, described as looking like "human-sized cockroaches". The campaign was remote via Roll20, so our DM asked us to provide character portraits. It was here that my problem arose. Inspired by the appearance of my PC, I provided a picture of a real life cockroach. My DM objected, insisting I provide a more fantasyesque alternative. I meekly complied, finding a cute little portrait of a bug person holding a book, but I still think wistfully of what could have been. Oh overbearing judges and wise bailiff, I ask you, was my DM correct to ask me to behive, or was he wrong to bug me? Regards, ACK

Justin McCarthy

To the honorable Justices Brian “the sultan of salt” Murphy, Emily “the wife worm” Axford, Caldwell “the duncle/tanney” Tanner, and bowling for soup’s biggest fan the lowly bailiff Jake Hurwitz, I present to you the case of the great orphan shortage. My party and I have been engaged in a bog standard 5e campaign for quite a few years now. During the pandemic our party came across a village and we decided to solicit the services of a hireling in the form of a young orphan named Chinsey. Voiced in the style of a Victorian street urchin and possessing gilear stats Chinsey played no practical effect in the campaign, he existed purely for comedic effect whom we could dunk on. As the sessions rolled on we got a bit loose with Chinsey’s safety and sadly he fell to an arrow fired by our own ranger on a nat 1 attack roll. After a brief moment of devastation we came to the glorious revelation that we could just hire another orphan hireling every time the prior orphan was “exhausted.” This worked for a time, but now our DM won’t provide us with anymore orphan npc’s. We travel from village to village, great cities are searched in vain for it would seem that there are no more orphans left in the world. Is our DM right to leave us bereft of a low status companion whom we take to the raspberry patch without consequence. I beseech thee Justices and lowly bailiff to do the right thing and let us kill more orphans.

Nexacon

To the honorable Crit Justices and the (adjective to be determined by Murfs mood) bailiff Jim, I bring you the case of the Short Tempered Forge Cleric. I was campaigning one of my first ever homebrew games with a religious lite Harry Potter esque story. I asked the players to make characters of the cleric class and to each choose a different domain. I placed them in the setting of a monastery that took them in, for one reason or another, that taught them how to be religious healers, casters, craftspeople and warriors. As we started session one, I gave a more general overview of the gods and goddesses of the pantheon they were worshipping and our Dragonborn forge cleric piped up in the middle of it and bluntly stated “So we don’t even get to pick our own god?” To which I explained how most polytheist religions work and that he had chosen the forge god I had given him info for weeks ago. He went quiet for a bit and the session continued. I had them do a bit of mock trial combat as a class to start off the session with a bit of action which went fine. After combat, our player stated that he wanted to keep his weapon. I told him that while it is appropriate to have weapons at the field and forge, the characters were children and not allowed to have weapons on the grounds of monastery in other areas. I did offer for him to roll a stealth check if he wanted to try to hide it which he failed and got lightly reprimanded by a nun. After getting extremely dejected, I told him he could try again later which he did and was caught with under 10 rolls and for stealth twice more. I didn’t punish him any of those times because his character was a kid and forge cleric. Later a different character would succeed with an 18 stealth to go out past curfew and we quickly took a bathroom break. When I came back I found that he had gossiped to the other players that I was being unfair of how he had to roll 3 times for stealth and failed when a different player only had to roll once. I was then asked by my table to be more consistent with my checks. I ask the court, is there something I should have done differently or should I “get better friends”? I throw myself at your mercy.

Ilana Galpert

Ladies and Gentlemen of the court and Jakey the water boy, I beseech thee! I could really use your help! I'm starting a campaign for my friends TONIGHT. We previously played with our "forever DM" friend but had to stop the campaign for several reasons--one being he'd become super punishing and do things we actively requested he not do. I've DMed for my friends before, but this is different. I'm afraid of following up a really terrible DMing experience. Normally, my friends/players really enjoy arguing to get their way, which I don't mind because for us that kind of back and forth is part of the fun. But because of what happened now I'm afraid to say no to them! I don't want to become another disaster DM, but this game is in a low magic world and everyone is supposed to be human...I'm trying to let them do what they want without breaking the rules of the world, but it feels impossible. What do I do?

Aaron Adey

To the honourable justices Axeford, Tanner and Murphy and the lowly bailiff Joke LowWitz. I bring to you the case of the Altered Past Paladin. I have been playing in a spelljammer campaign for around 6 months and during that time I have had 2 characters die and am currently on my third. While introducing my character my DM changed my backstory from a paladin who searched the stars for eldritch horrors to a slave being owned by some lighthouse owner. I adjusted my character's personality accordingly and made them distrustful of the party as the party made a deal with the lighthouse owner to "buy" my character. As soon as my character was bought she made a jump to try and steal the dingy the party came in on to try and free herself. The DM sent me a private message saying to stop antagonising the party and to work with them. When I continued to play the way I did we were attacked by a space shark that almost committed a TPK. Was I in the right adjusting my role-play to suit this new backstory my DM had made for me or should I have backed down and just played as my standard backstory I leave this case in the hands of the honourable justices.

Scarlett B

To the honourable Lady Axford, the honourable Lords Murphy and Tanner, and mr g.hurzwit. If it pleases the court, I present the case of Otiluke's Resilient death trap. My party and I were helping an NPC escape from political instability in her kingdom. We were set upon by assassins on the road, who tried to kill her as we fled in our cart. I cast Otiluke's Resilient Sphere on the NPC, protecting her from harm. My DM argued that, since Otiluke's Resilient Sphere specifies that "nothing – not physical objects, energy, or other spell effects – can pass through the barrier, in or out, though a creature in the sphere can breathe there" (Crawford et al., D&D Players Handbook, 2014, p, 264.) that the NPC could only breathe the oxygen that was in the sphere when it was created, after which it would run out, since no new oxygen could pass through the sphere and the NPC would start suffocating. I respectfully called bullshit, but the DM insisted he was correct. This was some time ago but I still maintain that I was right, Justices, I beseech you for a fair ruling (preferably one where you agree with me).

William Shill

To the hostess Axford and the three tied contestants, Murphy, Tanner, herwitz in the show thats sweeping the nation, maybe? I bring you the case of the nevermore players I ran a campaign during covid and lasted about two years, but during the last six months of the campaign two of my players were either late, diddnt show, or never payed attention to anything that was going on. So in a last ditch effort, I confronted them with an end of Arc baddy, i had some combat and some role play combined but they still diddnt pay attention so, I ended it. Shut down a two year long campaign, I ask you should I have stuck withit? Or was I right to end things as they were, unfinished, I am at the mercy of the court, GameShow, and preiests of dice christ

Jarred Wiehe

To the honorable Supreme Crit Justices and the buff-lif Jake, I present the case of the unending status conditions. My player is DMing his first campaign, and I love and support him, but in the first boss fight he home brewed a status condition effect for his Evil Noble villain: on hit, players make an Intelligence saving throw or take a permenant minus to all attacks, ability checks and saving throws equal to the amount failed by. For instance, my fighter failed by 11 so took a -11 for the rest of the fight. We're level 4. The players won, and, in a debrief, the other players and I asked for a clarification on the boss's mechanics. When the new DM (my sweet baby boi) explained how he wanted status effects that would last all combat, the other players and I pointed out that even ancient dragons have a to save check on frightened conditions and subsequent immunities to status effects if saved. The DM (a beautiful new infant) replied, "I hear your concerns. I do not share the same concerns." Humbly, is our new DM coming from the womb cursed and violent and an aberration in the light of Dice Christ? If so, what mechanics would you suggest that broth satiates his blood lust while gives players a fighting chance?

Endsong

To the honourable justices , My friend is working on a Gathering game, to let me have my first experience at the Gathering Of The Juggalos without having to actually go. He's designed some pretty cool stuff, but one mechanic is beyond nonsense. To decide mosh pits, he wants to roll 100 d6s, average out the results against each players own d6 roll, and decide the mosh pits difficulty level with the result. I haven't run that many games, but I know enough to know this is a terrible idea. If I am wrong, I throw myself at the courts mercy. If I'm right, and I feel like I am because THERE IS A MATH EQUATION TO GO WITH IT, I'd love the courts suggestion on a better system to decide a mosh pits difficulty. Thank you, Dane

Lyra Costell

To the honorable justices and hopefully someone else who’s cool, I bring forth my case. My friend group has been incredibly busy lately, so I’ve become the only DM remaining. It’s not optimal, but I can still play so I can’t complain. For a low-stakes adventure, I’ve decided to have the party be a group of mercenaries who take many jobs, those being one shots, so we can all experience lots of cool things we usually wouldn’t get to try. However, it feels like there’s not a lot of focus in sessions, so much so that it our most recent session, while the party is trying to solve a murder mystery at a carnival, every 15 minutes or so, someone says ‘I’m exhausted’, ‘I’m zoning out’ or ‘I can barely pay attention right now’. This went on for hours, until eventually I got aggravated enough to end the session prematurely. I told them that while it’s unfortunate, I literally can’t do anything about it, and if you want to leave because they’re tired then that’s fine, but just saying it repeatedly just makes me feel like I’m doing a bad job. They said that I’m making a big deal out of nothing, so there’s some tension here. Honorable justices, am I being too harsh, or was I right to be aggravated? P.S.: this is having affects on play too. we play with a battle map, and there are many times where people have to ask me what’s been happening in combat, which slows down things considerably, especially because everyone is a spellcaster.

Jeremy

To the honorable Justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner and the looooowly bailiff Daddy Jake, I bring you the case of the Ape Shit Spell Squabble. I DM for a group of good friends and my husband. My husband’s character is a Dragonborn Druid who decided to wild shape into an Ape during an important encounter with a group of cultists. A cultist attempted to cast “hold person”, but my husband argued heatedly that the Hold Person spell specifies “humanoid”, while the Ape stat block doesn’t specifically say “humanoid”. My argument was an Ape is ABSOLUTELY a humanoid! The group quickly chose his side. Nevertheless, I had to give in to their demands in order to deescalate the situation. Meanwhile, the Ape continued to wreck havoc on the cultists and slaughtered them without any remorse. It’s still a touchy subject that now comes up frequently in any argument in our marriage. “You’re mad I didn’t do the dishes? Well an Ape IS a HUMANOID!” And so on…. So I ask you, did my husband neglect our vows to have and to HOLD, or was I in the wrong for better or worse? I throw myself at the mercy of the DND Divorce Court.

Erik Gospodarski

It's something I came up with a basis for years ago before there was any D&D equivalent Harry Potter system, but it differs from any other current system as well. Other than all the character customization stuff, the biggest difference is the leveling system is split into two parts, Wizarding Level (which goes up to 20) and Class Level (which essentially has you level up in the different classes like charms, DADA, Transfiguration etc. In a way similar to a skill tree). I am still deep in the process of putting out a truly playable finished first draft of my players handbook equivalent, but I have some testing drafts that I've used for the handbook when I was trying to figure out what worked and what didn't with my ideas. The combat is also different, trying to give it a more wizarding duel feel where both duelers roll either attack rolls or defense rolls with modifiers and smaller dice, acting as a sort of dynamic AC.

Kaitlyn S

To the honorable justices and that other guy. I bring you the case of the unsolvable disadvantage. I am a PC I’m a very travel heavy, race around the world kind of campaign. Every day the DM has us roll on a random encounter table to fill the travel days. One night we had a visitor at our campsite who (after a bunch of paranoid checks) seemed harmless enough. He told us a campfire story and at the end of it the whole party had to roll intelligence saves. Those of us who failed (3 out of 6 of us) were spooked by the story and our DM told us that although our characters don’t know this we’re under a curse that will give us disadvantage on EVERYTHING should we go to certain places that we will undoubtably go to during our race. He told us we don’t feel different and can’t do any checks to figure out we are under this effect. Our characters will just notice something’s wrong when we go to one of these places and suck at everything. He said the solution to the problem is pretty simple, but reiterated that our characters have no clue anything is wrong. So all us players are just waiting for the other shoe to drop all while not able to look for a solution without breaking the narrative. Justices, I humbly ask you, is this whack? Should our DM have given our characters an opportunity to know something is wrong? Or is our DM justified in the name of future story telling? I throw myself before your judgement.

Swordmaster of Ginaz

To the honourable justices Axford, Murphy and Tanner, as well as Bay Leaf Hurwitz, I present the case of the Obscured Origin. I'm DMing for my friends who are sorta new to D&D (played random one shots over the years) and I finally conscripted them into my homebrew world of Godsea, where two mighty empires on opposing continents wage war across the ocean and the innumerable isles between them, inspired by the adventures and conflicts of the Mediterranean in the 16th century. They've engaged with the story and the lore which I'm so grateful and thrilled for, but my issue comes from a moment after a battle against a goblin galley which the PCs had just defeated. I narrated the enemy sailors asking for quarter and the PCs provided until one of them suddenly pointed at a goblin and said "This one kidnapped my parents!" Suddenly this player started interrogating this one unfortunate goblin asking where they and their accomplices had taken said parents etc., all the while I'm staring dumbfounded as this is the first time I've heard about this at any point in the campaign. As I uhhed and ahhed, the PC said "It was a Trinket I rolled at the beginning, of a tiny sketch portrait of a goblin, which I rolled for and thought would be cool if it was why my parents left me". I said "Oh, I didn't know that part" and was still kind of reeling from the carpet being pulled from me when they added "well I guess you're not a fan of my story" icily. When I tried to explain myself, the others said I should have just gone with it. The rest of the session was brief and very...uncomfortable. They now want to hunt down these kidnappers instead of the story I had in mind. I'm no Murph or Brennan but I have never experienced that level of surprise from my PCs and wondered how I could best approach that in the future? Thank you

TayJulia

Dear honorable Justices and the bailiff of slightly less renown, if it so pleases you, I would put before you the case of the Slaughtered 17 Year Old. I joined a new party starting at a local game club/store and it’s been a great time for the most part. Us players in the party vary in age between 20s and 40s but one of our players is 17, and he’s still learning and eager to play. we had managed to talk our way out of two battles our dm had planned, as we were heavily into the role playing and just talked ourselves out of some tricky spots with some well rolled persuasion/deception checks. At our most recent session, our dm made it impossible for us to dodge a fight, as one of our pcs is sworn enemies with the attacking NPC. They were in a 1v1 style duel while the rest of us fought with his minions. And our dm said he made this battle harder than usual since we had escaped so many fights he had planned. But then our DM had that main npc notice our 17 year old players character. for reference he plays a talking rabbit Barbarian—picture a violent halfling sized bunny. That npc disengaged with his sworn enemy pc and started attacking the bunny. We tried our best to help and heal him but he went down twice- even as a raging barbarian. I thought it was clear that our 17 year old player was getting frustrated and upset by the constant assault. At one point he asked our dm not to kill him. this was our first battle with him playing with us since he joined up with our party. Eventually, the bunny DIED died, and we had to pause our session as the store was closing. Our dm just kept saying how he made the fight super hard and he had told us to try and buy diamonds in our last shopping montage. He also said he was sorry to our 17 year old for killing his character, but his main evil npc “noticed the bunny and thought it would be cool to kill it” So I ask you, honorable justices—was our dm in the wrong to kill the newbie 17 year olds character that way? Was he right and having his npc act in character? Could us other pcs have done something more?

Bensprout

I place myself at the mercy of the court's powerful justices and the inedible, but important bay leaf. I present you the case of Vigilante v Griefer. At a summer gig I was working, I found myself in a game with TEN other players in person, and another one who was joining online. Fast forward through intro after intro, we're all on some pirate ships headed to whatever shiny bauble we were after. I was not having the best time, because of how many players (mostly strangers) were in the game, though as I was desperate to play, I trodded along. Another player then announced to the room that he was going to cast firebolt at the mast of the ship we were on. I, surprised, asked him, "are you trying to kill us?" he replied, "yes" The DM told him to roll to attack, so I used my reaction to jump infront of it and cast absorb elements. I then asked him once more, "Are you going to continue?" he responded "yes." So, I used my full action, and bonus action polearm master to attack (with the added 1d6 from absorb elements.) First attack, nat 20. Second attack, hit. He dropped to 0, and that was that. He then jumped up from his chair, and stomped off. Was I right to take matters into my own hands? I humbly await your judgement.

Bee ?

to the honorable priests axford, murphy, and tanner, and the other guy i guess? i throw myself at the mercy of dice christ to confess my sins against my players. a specifc player, actually: my ex. when i was a wee baby dungeon master and started my first campaign, i was in a longterm relationship. my partner at the time shared my excitement in starting D&D for the first time, so i allowed him into the campaign. we broke up about four months later, and while i will spare the details as to keep this confession brief, it was brutal on my end. because of my distraught state, our next D&D session wasn't for another month, and he was decidedly uninvited. i sent my players on a fetch quest deep into the magical woods, and at the clearing they ended up in i asked for a perception check. the noise of squidward-like footsteps was clocked by my players and everyone made a stealth check. i was rolling for my ex's character, and he failed the stealth check. what followed this was a haunting, gory scene of his character's brains being eaten by a mind flayer. The players at the table all cheered, but I couldn't help feeling guilty for straight up murdering him instead of just saying his character ran off for some reason. whatever penance is decided in the name of the almighty dice christ, i will take in stride.

Doctor Doctor

To the revered Justices Axford, Tanner, Murphy, and "Tony, the Unconvincing Voice behind Hardwon"... Before this honorable Dungeon Court, I humbly submit the curious case of the Dairy Marauders and the potent side parm: I’m a fairly new Dungeon Master, I endeavored to create a world painted with shades of grit and larceny. In an attempt to hone their pilfering prowess, my players elected to relieve a cheese emporium of its wares. A pungent bouquet of victory cheese was theirs to savor when they absconded, successful in their dairy theft. However when the party's diversionary tactic involved lobbing their ill-gotten gains at unsuspecting city guards and a fortuitous nat 20 deception roll, a player queried whether a surprise face-full of fetid fromage might inflict psychological damage on the unsuspecting guard – the argument being that an unexpected face full of smelly cheese might mess with the guard's mental state. Thinking this a fun way to add some antics, I agreed, only to roll a pitiful nat 1 for the guard's constitution save. The story reason was clear, the guard had an intolerance to lactose, and thus fled in utter terror of airborne cheese. My problem now, the adventuring party has developed a taste for cheese warfare, using their curd-covered arsenal in every confrontation. One encounter proved fatal for one PC, who failed all 3 death saves while his bard companion refused to do anything but chuck cheese wedges. I tried adding a Devine intervention to save the dying character as this seemed unfair to me, but the player ultimately opted to abandon the campaign, feeling decidedly cheesed off. My appeal to this esteemed Dungeon Court: Can I forcibly strip my players of their lactose-laden weaponry, or must I allow them to persist in the whey of the warrior? I await your verdict with bated breath, ~Fermented Campaign Conductor

Rachael Lovely

To the Honorable Crit Justices and Bailiff ???, I present the case of the Stolen Con. In my new campaign with my friends our first mission together was as a party was to steal an experimental spell jamming ship from a research group. The ship that we were stealing was named after the ship in a popular romance novel via a public vote in the city. When we were planning I jokingly suggested that we pretend to be the characters from the novel. Much to my surprise, my friends all jumped on the idea and we decided to go right into planning it. As each of our PCs picked out a matching character from the novel my changeling bard was going to play the romantic lead from the novel. That is until my best friend suggested that it would be a really funny bit to make our wizard play the romantic lead because her character is very shy. Quickly everyone else thought that was too funny to pass up and I went along with it. Eventually I played the meathead grit who it didn’t make sense to talk to anyone. We, very successfully (a 30 was rolled on a persuasion check), stole experimental government property with the public at the launch in favor of us and onto many more adventures. I still I feel like my knees were cut out from under me by my friend when she stole my con from me for a bit. Should I feel slighted for having my moment stolen or should I just be happy that my friends went along with my crazy plan in the first place? I humbly await your verdict, Jamie-Anne (they/them)

Alexandra Ferguson

May it please the court, and the known horse-loving Bailiff, I bring a contentious case of (fictional) horse cruelty vs (real) DM cruelty. Our table tends to play jerk characters but be good players, and if the DM asks us to do something, we’ll find an in-game reason to do so. The one exception was when he asked us to buy horses for travel, since he was finding the slow pace a grind. We laughed, and asked if he would give them plot armour? Previously, we’d each owned at least half a dozen horses, who would invariably die mid-journey to random encounters. Every time, his reasons for attacking the horses made sense - hungry owl bears looking for meat, hobgoblins looking to reduce our manoeuvrability, area of effect spells that auto fried them… the list goes on. Eventually, we just stopped buying horses because it was expensive and felt mean! Our DM said no, he’d continue to play by the best tactics of the monsters, so we shrugged, and suggested he get used to slow travel then. In desperation, he even offered us a quest for endless free horses deal in-game, but we still didn’t want to keep having our horses die, even if they were free, so we didn’t take it. Should our DM quit horsing around, or do the players need to get off their high horses?

Maia

To the anachronistic court and their agile lackey, i bring you the case of the Ash-covered encounter. I recently dmed a one shot where the pcs started with no memories and had to assassinate a target. Their target was a teenaged dwarphan, and i set up a dance battle that i planned (and hinted) to have completed their mission without killing the dwarphan… and then one of the pcs, named Cinder, waited until night and vaporized the dwarphan and all her friends in cold blood. I was shocked and just moved on, but since then i found i couldn’t stop feeling bad about the encounter. Is the fault in myself or Cinder? I tenderly await the judgement of the court.

Darth Jeeling

To the beautiful judges locked in their ivory courtchurch, and to the bailiff who debases himself in the muck of the world to bring them their cases: I recently invited four friends to join me for a game in the Ryutama system, but upon showing up, one of them told me he was tired and just wanted to watch. We compromised by having him play a dog—but the party immediately elected him to the "Leader" role, responsible for making key decisions. This is a little difficult since his character can't talk and his player spent half the session napping. Session 1 was a lowkey introduction to the world and game system, but session 2 is going to add some more serious stakes and decisions. How do I DM for a party led by a narcoleptic canine?

NursingWounds

To the immaculate, infallible judges and the grotesque and pitiful bailiff, I bring you the case of Jack AllTrade. I have DM-ed a campaign for 3 years now which has grown to a level 20 campaign with 3 very responsible players (generally). One night while we were playing, the players complained that they had not had a new ally in their party in a long time, and they felt their characters had become isolated from the world. So, I made them a DMPC to help lift their spirits - Jack AllTrade. When they first met Jack, they were thrilled he had joined them as he had saved one of their lives with a cool potion he had made. They discovered he was an artificer. Then in combat, he raged and they discovered he was also a barbarian. Long story short, after many events unfolded, they found out he had one or two levels in almost every class and was the living embodiment of the term "Jack of All Trades". My players told me I was sabotaging them because he would be virtually useless in combat and that this was spite on my part! I told them I gave him good armor and a good weapon to make up for his faults, but they keep insisting I give them a different NPC because he cannot cast a spell above second level. Should I cave to the demands of my ungrateful players or have I committed the sin of anarchy by being the only goof at a table full of hardcore players?

Doctor Ransom

To the honorable Crit justices Murphy, Axey, and Tanney, and the 5th level upcast from lowly Bailiff Jake, I offer you the case of the Metagaming DM. I'm a brand new DM that's been running the Lost Mine of Phandelver starter campaign with a few close friends and my partner as the PC's. This being most of their first times ever playing D&D, there's quite a lot of hand-holding and teaching going on, which is just as much fun as it can be frustrating. In one particular session where the party was about to battle a group of orcs and had an opportunity for a surprise round, my partner who's playing a Tabaxi Sorcerer, decided to use Misty Step to teleport from hiding to directly in front of an enemy to attack with his dagger. His attack roll failed horribly and I saw fit to teach him that as a sorcerer he had many awesome ranged spells that he could've cast instead that would've had the chance to do much more harm than a 1d4+3 dagger. He immediately felt bad and I knew then that I'd made a grave mistake trying to metagame over a new players choice of attack. I only wanted him to do some cool sorcerer shit but may have embarrassed him in front of the other players. I seek absolution from the court yet I await whatever punishment they deem most prudent to this most unholy of trespasses. P.S. We are all still playing together and my partner has since learned how to do some cool sorcerer shit. Thankfully we didn't break up either.

Brendan Rooney

Dice Christ Confessional: Please lend me your ears. I come seeking the holy trinity and their herald Jake. I was visited by Dice Christ and I need help divining their omens. I was DMing for a group of friends and was running the climatic finale of the campaign. The party were up against a black dracolich in its lair. A very spicy encounter for their level. One of my players, the warlock Sakarab (good luck with that one Jake, sorry!) wasn’t as mechanically optimised as the rest of the party and had played a more supportive role for most of the campaign. In the final round of combat in the campaign, Sakarab on 1hp, walked up to the dracolich and used a homebrewed magic staff to smite them. He left the dracolich on 2HP. I believed in the story that the dice told in the moment but I waiver. Did I rob the party of the best timeline?

Jack Dineen

To the most esteemed, gracious, and, dare I say beautiful justices, and the other guy (what was his name again? Jim? Jeff?), I present the following case of the forcibly unbalanced party. Some time ago, I was playing in a campaign with a party consisting of Half-Elf Bard (myself), an Elf cleric, a Dragonborn Paladin, a Tiefling blood hunter, and a gnome rogue. Over the course of the campaign, we had come to rely on the paladin's bear mount (simply named The Bear™) in combat, with it and the Paladin fulfilling the role of tanks. We had all gotten used to this, and considered The Bear™ an integral member of our party. Cut to the final battle, and our DM put us in a chamber and told us that it was "dimensionally locked," so we would be unable to summon any creatures within. I was personally a little annoyed, as I had just taken Conjure Minor Elementals for my bard's Magical Secrets and used the spell to great effect against a dragon a few sessions prior, but accepted that even with me taking on the responsibility of controlling the summoned creatures, the spell still probably created a headache for the DM, so I didn't question it. Then, the DM narrated that The Bear™ suddenly disappeared. We were all stunned by this, but did not question it. What followed was by far the most difficult battle of the entire campaign, which ended up becoming a 3-hour slog, due in larger part to the fact that many of our party's practiced tactics involved The Bear™. We survived, but we still left the room feeling like we had just taken a 3-hour long standardized test. Looking back on the encounter later on, I realized that the DM had highly implied that the BBEG wasn't even from our plane of existence, which made the explanation of the "dimensionally locked" chamber seem really dodgy. I ask you, did our DM do us dirty by sending us into that fight down a party member, or was it a reasonable ruling to make? I throw myself to the mercy of the court. And of course, I offer my congratulations to Jeff on the birth of his child.

Garzey's Wing

To the immaculate Supreme Justices, and Murph's best little good boy Jake. I am a first time DM in a party of all first time players. Part of one of my player's character's back stories is that his wife and daughter are being held captive by a shadow organization, and thus he is unwillingly in their pocket. This shadow organization gave him a sending stone so they could communicate with him. However he is unaware that the sending stone also has a scrying spell on it so they can listen to everything. As a subtle wink I also gave this player a wand of detect magic, so that he could use it on the stone and find the scrying spell (sending and scrying are different schools of magic, so they would light up with 2 different colors when detect magic was used.) The player never did this, and months of in game time later the party arrived in a new city and were given a house to stay in as well as pendants to signify that they were honored guests in the town. Suspicious that the house might be bugged, the player used the wand of detect magic. I narrated that "everything around you that is magic lights up as per the spell. What are you looking for?" To which they all replied "I'm checking the pendants and the house to look for bugs" I told them "there is no magic in either, do you want to check anything else?" And they said "no." Later when it was revealed that the stone had scrying on it the party all erupted in objections, saying they should have seen that when they used the wand back in the house. I told them that I asked them what ALL they wanted to check, and they didn't say anything about their own things. I argued that it's silly to expect me to read through a list of every magic item the party has on them every time they use the wand. They argued that it should have at least been a perception check. I humbly await your ruling and will accept any and ALL punishments thrown on me, for I am but a humble first time DM. (P.S. I got the Paw Paw dice set and it's the most magical thing I've ever seen =)

William Wharton

To the infallible Supreme Justices and the noble and righteous Bailiff, I write to you with a matter of grave importance. I play in a long standing heavily home-brewed pathfinder 1st edition game. A number of years ago, we were playing in an Avengers Endgame style all character campaign. All of our characters from different timelines in the same world had been gathered together and leveled up to 11 to defeat an evil god king from taking over the world. We had split up into different teams to complete various objectives. One group of 5 was sent to protect a wizard who lived in a flying castle house 1 mile above the ocean (I played this wizard, among other characters). Having got to the flying castle, we found ourselves attacked by 4 death knights riding adult dragons (overkill much). They were attacking us from outside the castle. These dragons were dangerous and I knew that certain doom would befall us if I did not even the playing field. When all 4 death knights entered the castle, I decided to disengage the castle's flying enchantment, turning what was a stationary fight into a free-fall fight and separating the death knights from their dragons. We had 5 rounds until we hit the water and my goal was to re-engage the flying enchantment at the last second and trick the dragons into hitting the water full on and their riders into hitting the floor. It's important here to note that at this point, our game had not ever put a cap on falling damage. Pathfinder has the same 20d6 rule as 5e, but we had never obeyed that up until this point. By my calculations the dragons, keeping pace with the falling house and their riders inside would take 528d6 of falling damage if they failed to pull up in time. Now, no plan survives contact with the enemy. But I truly never dreamed that this plan would go so horribly. The Death knights and their dragons killed my wizard, destroyed our castle and left us all in mid air with two rounds until we hit the ocean. However, my party kept them locked in combat until the very last round, when the party escaped using a feather fall spell. My DM then narrated as all four dragons dove gracefully into the water with their riders, all while taking no actions to slow their descent or even making rolls to take less damage. They hit the ocean at terminal velocity from 1 mile up and took no falling damage. What ensued was a veritable battle with our DM as we argued whether or not the dragons should take the falling damage. He argued that since the dragons could fly, the damage didn't matter to them. We argued that even the most graceful, acrobatic dive could not save an animal bigger than a whale from an impact with the ocean at terminal velocity. It nearly tore our group asunder. In the end our DM agreed to established a 20d6 falling damage cap, as well as kill two Death knights and 1 dragon with the fall. Our group has since recovered from this but years later I still feel as though the party was robbed of 8 kills. Supreme Justices I throw my self at your feet begging for the mercy of the court, did I indeed suffer injustice or was I a fool?

Adam Carter

To the most honorable Supreme Crit Justices and the hard working John, I present the case of the non-dying PCs. My group of friends have been playing together for some time now, but I have only been with them for a few years. We were playing in what was billed as a gritty survival campaign and I had my first character death. My long range character was somehow caught up in a melee situation while we were trying to retreat from a fight we should have never been part of. I was kind of excited to roll a new character as I have never played multiple in the same campaign, until the DM narrated a short scene that ended with a demi-god type character we have been working for bringing me back to life. Deaths aren't uncommon in our campaigns, and nothing like this had ever happened until this campaign. Later on every character in the party died and was brought back the same way with no big explanation as to why we were. Am I in the wrong for wanting my character to have died and rolled a new one, or am I to be punished for bringing a frivolous case to the court? I humbly await your judgement.

Jake Andrews

To the beautiful and delicious Supreme Justices and the Special Guest Bailiff Jake, I lay at your feet the case of The Lay-down Player. I was running our second campaign so we were going on 4 years of playing at the table with this group, we managed to play weekly and I felt super grateful. However as time went on one of my players, who played the parties Rouge, started arriving to sessions progressively sleepier and sleepier. He'd pound huge cans of energy drinks or stay on his phone to stay awake but he started dozing off anyways. I kept running my sessions but it became more and more distracting to have the player directly to my right falling asleep or laying on his arms. I talked to him about it and he said he was just tired from work so I decided to have some empathy. However, after a few more sessions it got worse. He started getting up from his chair, pushing it in, and laying on the floor directly next to me to take a 30 minute nap per session. No blanket, no pillow, just my sleepy player and the floor. I asked him if he wanted to take little breaks or move to the couch so he could nap but he insisted (to the point of getting mad) that we keep playing. We'd even be in combat and he'd sleep through his turn, causing me to have to play his character that round. Ultimately we let it slide and he just napped for a few months of weekly sessions. Justices I ask; should I have been more stern and forced a nap break or was I right to let my adult friend sleep on the floor next to me while I DM'd? I humbly accept your decision.

Miranda B, Crick DVM

Most honorable Crit Justices and Tucker, good to have you back, buddy. I present to you the case of Jonathan. I ran a campaign for my girlfriend’s family. Her cousin, who I love very dearly, wanted to play a blood hunter drow named Jonathan. We start the game and immediately Jonathan murders the first quest-giver the party encounters. At the end of the session the player tells me that he doesn’t want to play a blood hunter anymore and asks me if I can kill Jonathan. I told him he could just switch classes, but he says he doesn’t want to play Jonathan at all anymore. So I agree. The SECOND SESSION rolls around and Jonathan goes nuts trying to kill a bunch of random people in the tavern and then drinks like 10 beers. I rolled damage for alcohol poisoning and it knocked him out. He proceeded to roll a natural one on his death saves and another failure after that. That was the end of Jonathan. The player introduced his new character in the next session and it went well from there, but I just have to ask, as a new DM, how could I have handled this differently? Or if anything, I just wanted to share the story of Jonathan with you.

Brock (edited)

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2026-09-05 07:00 to the Supreme Crit and Dan Gure…no…Pat Cas…no uhh Streeter Si…..Dave Rose…?? (*fade off)I bring the case of My Own Caricature! Im sorry this is long. I play with a group of newer friends. My DM and i learned early on that we have very contrasting ideas of religion, weve gotten into a couple debates all of which have been very calm, and incredibly friendly usually ending in a hug. It was all very copasetic or so i thought! We have just started a new campaign with the BBEG being a Thiala-type character leading an evil church (its very cool) My only beef with it is that he also created a Galad-esque character but wayyyy more pathetic, often shitting and pissing his pants, once we had a fight where he could heal himself by sucking off this weird magic slug with a “long human dick”. It would be pretty funny, Except he gave the character MY IRL NAME AND DESCRIPTION. The party has killed this character 4 separate time but he keeps coming back. Ive spoke to the DM 1on1 asking him whats up and apologized if i ever hurt his feelings. He keeps saying that hes fine and he just likes the character and although i was his inspiration its more of a parody! Ive been trying to get on board but its hard not to take things a little personal when your DM keeps eye contact with you and gives a full in depth description about how you suck off an animal. Ive talked to my party and they just seem annoyed that it doesn’t matter how many times they kill this guy he just doesn’t die. I ask yall am i weird for being uncomfortable with this? I feel like this is insane and no one else seems to think so, should I roll with the punches or do I Murph it up and find new friends?
2023-07-20 16:15 to the Supreme Crit and Dan Gure…no…Pat Cas…no uhh Streeter Si…..Dave Rose…?? (*fade off) I bring the case of My Own Caricature! Im sorry this is long. I play with a group of newer friends. My DM and i learned early on that we have very contrasting ideas of religion, weve gotten into a couple debates all of which have been very calm, and incredibly friendly usually ending in a hug. It was all very copasetic or so i thought! We have just started a new campaign with the BBEG being a Thiala-type character leading an evil church (its very cool) My only beef with it is that he also created a Galad-esque character but wayyyy more pathetic, often shitting and pissing his pants, once we had a fight where he could heal himself by sucking off this weird magic slug with a “long human dick”. It would be pretty funny, Except he gave the character MY IRL NAME AND DESCRIPTION. The party has killed this character 4 separate time but he keeps coming back. Ive spoke to the DM 1on1 asking him whats up and apologized if i ever hurt his feelings. He keeps saying that hes fine and he just likes the character and although i was his inspiration its more of a parody! Ive been trying to get on board but its hard not to take things a little personal when your DM keeps eye contact with you and gives a full in depth description about how you suck off an animal. Ive talked to my party and they just seem annoyed that it doesn’t matter how many times they kill this guy he just doesn’t die. I ask yall am i weird for being uncomfortable with this? I feel like this is insane and no one else seems to think so, should I roll with the punches or do I Murph it up and find new friends?

to the Supreme Crit and Dan Gure…no…Pat Cas…no uhh Streeter Si…..Dave Rose…?? (*fade off) I bring the case of My Own Caricature! Im sorry this is long. I play with a group of newer friends. My DM and i learned early on that we have very contrasting ideas of religion, weve gotten into a couple debates all of which have been very calm, and incredibly friendly usually ending in a hug. It was all very copasetic or so i thought! We have just started a new campaign with the BBEG being a Thiala-type character leading an evil church (its very cool) My only beef with it is that he also created a Galad-esque character but wayyyy more pathetic, often shitting and pissing his pants, once we had a fight where he could heal himself by sucking off this weird magic slug with a “long human dick”. It would be pretty funny, Except he gave the character MY IRL NAME AND DESCRIPTION. The party has killed this character 4 separate time but he keeps coming back. Ive spoke to the DM 1on1 asking him whats up and apologized if i ever hurt his feelings. He keeps saying that hes fine and he just likes the character and although i was his inspiration its more of a parody! Ive been trying to get on board but its hard not to take things a little personal when your DM keeps eye contact with you and gives a full in depth description about how you suck off an animal. Ive talked to my party and they just seem annoyed that it doesn’t matter how many times they kill this guy he just doesn’t die. I ask yall am i weird for being uncomfortable with this? I feel like this is insane and no one else seems to think so, should I roll with the punches or do I Murph it up and find new friends?

Riley Wesson

Honorable Crit Justices and bailiff Jerk... sorry typo, I meant Jeff. I present to you the case of the pie plan gone awry. My friends and I are currently playing through The Curse of Strahd campaign and were going to face a group of Hags at a windmill to try and retrieve an important item. We knew these hags were giving parents in Barovia magically drugged pies in exchange for their children, so after some planning we decided the best course of action was to get the jump on and fight the hags, my firbolg druid friend and I (an 8 year old kobold peace cleric) being a distraction acting as a mother looking to trade her adopted child for pies while our tabaxi rogue and human paladin snuck in the window upstairs for what I deemed "A pincer maneuver." Things were going swimmingly, my druid friend and I playing our part to a tee, waiting for our friends to come down the stairs and get the jump on this hag, when all of a sudden our rogue went back out the window and decided to come through the door themselves, also posing as someone looking for pies, and our paladin sat around doing nothing upstairs, claiming "I wasn't sure what the plan was, we should've been more clear." to which I replied, "What part of 'pincer maneuver' don't you understand??" What resulted was a slip-shod fight that we could've TPK'd from, but our DM twisted it in a fun way for us to make deals with the hags in exchange for getting the item, but I must ask: Was I unclear in my explanation? Does the term "pincer maneuver" mean anything other than attacking from two sides? Who is in the wrong in this case? I humbly await your judgement.

Jonathan Bartley

To the Honorable Justices, and the son of Jack’s Mom’s Cookies. I present to you the case of the formidable cargo pants. I dm a homebrew campaign with a group of three friends. At the end of the first mini-arc of the campaign (my first time dming), I had the players meet face to face with the BBEG, Melthusa, the chaotic half-god of Time. One of the players, a Ratfolk named Sid, possessed a stone from their backstory that, unknowing to them, held immeasurable power. In the grand fight, I had Melthusa use a home brewed “accio stone!” spell to summon the stone to her, and begin ripping a portal through the space-time continuum that would lead back nearly ten thousand years ago so she may wreak greater havoc on the world! Suddenly! A frown! Sid’s player professed that they had specifically said that they put the stone in their underwear inside of their cargo pants and that cargo pants “were really really tough” and that the stone would have stayed there or pulled Sid towards the BBEG. To avoid having the BBEG make checks to fiddle with the ratfolk’s trousers, I overruled as is my right as a DM of the lower courts. The party has since had to follow the BBEG into the portal, and is fighting to right the wrongs of a history they once knew as they traverse the seas of time. All has gone well, and all smiles at the board, but on quiet nights, a grumble can still be heard about Sid’s lace-thin cargo pants. Was I wrong to rule my homebrew against Sid’s 90’s fashion? I humbly prostrate myself before. All judgements to be taken out in full. Ps a friend of mine just told me Jakes mom was their math teacher? guidance counselor? in high school! He said those cookies were BOOOOOMB,COM!

vinicius fernandes

To the very real and fleshy judges Axford, Tanner, and Murphy and to the AI generated bailiff Jake.exe, I bring you the case of the contested kill stealing. My party likes to keep track of who gets the most kills in my campaign with the paladin having over 200 kills and the cleric having less than 20. My party was in the Feywild fighting a hag made out of a hundred hands and a blighted unicorn. During the fight, the cleric surrounded the hag with a wall of fire. When it became the paladin's turn, he decided to pick up the nearly dead unicorn and chuck it at the hag. I allowed it as an improvised weapon. Since he chucked it 30 feet at the hag, I ruled that it would be similar to fall damage, so 3d10 bludgeoning damage for each of them. This did not kill the unicorn, but it did fall in the fire from the wall of fire. At the start of the unicorn's turn, it took the fire damage and perished. The paladin argued that it should've been his kill since he placed it there, but I gave the kill to the cleric because he caused the wall of fire to appear. The paladin now claims that his kill was stolen. Was I wrong to give the kill to the cleric instead of to the paladin? I await your wisdom.

Zisel

I was once a player in a campaign where we had like a solid two months between two particular game sessions. (This is an important detail.) In the prior session, we had acquired a gem from the feywild that would allow us to "cure" a community of were-folk who we'd made friends with. (The people wanted to be cured, I promise! It was the plot point.) The gem was a special gift from an archfey that could "lock" a person in the form they were currently in when the gem touched them (effectively "curing" werewolf shifts). Then, there was like two months where we couldn't play. When we played again, we started the session with coming out of the feywild, and we (the players/party) said "we take the gem and go around curing the were-folk". As we did, our were-tiger NPC friend (who we'd met first and introduced us to the plight of the were-folk) came back from guard duty in her hybrid, half-tiger form. And we were like "we take the gem to her and cure her, too." The DM asked, "You touch them gem to her?" And we were like "uh... _yeah_??" And then the DM described how she realized she was now stuck in her half-tiger form _forever_ because of us, and she was devastated but trying not to show it. We the players were shocked and like "no, no, we wanted to _cure_ her!" And there was a big argument because we, as the players, had forgotten the specifics of the gem after two months, but we argued that for our characters it had only been like 2 minutes, and they would have remembered and wouldn't have done that. But the DM would not be swayed and just said we should've kept better notes, then. Who was right? Please, bailiff and judges, once and for all please relieve me of this torment I have carried for years. (Even if I must be the one executed!)

tacticalgrandma

Making a random monk so powerful and a big enough presence in the world and plot is asking your dm to reshape their entire campaign around you. & that’s assuming you had the grace to let your character become an npc. Playing a “bbeg” (which, since you don’t have an actual end boss stat block, would just be a bg) would mean 1) pvp, which is so not everyone’s bag 2) your dm having to prepare 2 sessions, one for the party & one just for you. Your dm said they don’t want this, & since this would be a huge onus on them, that’s the end of it.

Libbi Longworth

This is a dice Christ confession... May it please the glorious vessels of dice Christ's will, and of course the bangin' bailiff Joe?? I play a tiefling wild magic sorcerer with a silly Australian accent and one session, one of our players wasn't able to come, so our DM made up a fun side quest for the rest of us players. We went to a fair where we could do a series of competitions and the prize was 500 gold piece coupon we could use in our neighbourhood shops. Before the session my DM and I had discussed that I had still never rolled on the wild magic surge table so we adjusted so that I could roll on The wild magic surge table to regain my ability tides of chaos so I could use the ability more than once a day. I promise my DM that I would not abuse this power and guess what happened? The first time I used it I got a shield but the second time I used it I rolled a surge where you change races and the race I rolled to change to was a Kenku who famously can't talk. To put it lightly I had a full breakdown and cried as a player and as the character. I knew this was my own fault and that I shouldn't have abused my powers and I had promised the DM that I wouldn't. She let me stew in it for at least an hour until I had recovered and started to think of ways that I could get turned back into a tiefling like paying some kind of wizard or just rolling a shit ton on the wild magic surge table and hoping to get one that would change me into a different race? However after an hour my DM graciously said the wild magic surge wore off and turned me back into a tiefling. I am very grateful but i kind of feel like i should have been left to suffer for my recklessness. Should i accept my DM's gracious pity or should i have been stuck with the consequences of my actions?

Don Kianian

Appreciate the reply! This is a multi-year campaign where we’ve gotten to level 11 - lots of home brew and custom storylines - and our DM is FANTASTIC about weaving backstory, role play elements, and taking our personal preferences into account. The only reason I even thought this was a possibility was because he and I have had many long conversations about my character’s mindset, arc, and direction. Burbo has been going through a LOT of stuff, and it’s shaken his beliefs to a degree. Maybe BBEG was a bad term to use, I just meant an antagonistic force that the other players could either work to bring back to the light or take him out completely. To be clear, he never said “no” just that “he wasn’t sure” so I haven’t pushed it further. I was just trying to see if the Justices had any thoughts on this type of character progression.

tacticalgrandma

Maybe the higher level artificer could run into their own questline, which limits their ability to run errands for the party?

Samuel Jasek

So back when this podcast started up I personally got super into dnd and wanted to run a campaign for my friends. For various reasons I have been unsuccessful in starting up a campaign and on the one off chance I did manage to Rangel people together no one really showed any interest in learning the game mechanics or wanting to develop a character despite my attempts that I’ve learned from Murph, Emily and Brennan. But that is a story for a another day. Unfortunately this would stir my best friends dad into wanting to relive his glory days of dnd to “DM a campaign” For us. So naturally this led to him railroading everyone into a DND 1e campaign. And this gets me into my actual predicament… no matter how many times I address my concerns about how clunky 1e is, how I want everyone to experience the wider scope of 5e, and you know how I generally feel about being pushed aside despite being the one who spearheaded the friends group interest in dnd and how I feel about losing my chance to DM for my friends. my friends dad just totally belittles me and calls me names pussy and the f slur. I’m wondering if I should just go along with playing that 1e campaign or if it’s time for me to put my DM guide book on the shelf and retire that desire of DMing?

Deadstar1146

Not really telling on anyone or myself just need to know all your honest opinions but May it please the court, and honorable bailiff Jack. Would you let a player use a dash action and Misty step, I was dming a game for my brothers and friend and my brother wanted to dash and Misty step to a shadowy figure. I told him that he could use the dash action or use Misty step but not both but he told me that Misty step is a bonus action and that should count I was still hesitant on letting it happen but I let him do it. Did I do the right thing or should I have stopped him and made him choose his actions. I await your judgment and the opinion of Bailiff Jack

Kristina The Sorceress

Honestly, I know I’m not a judge or even a lowly bailiff, but I — a stranger — can tell you that you deserve better. Just how your friends may have not been interested in dnd, you are allowed to not be interested in your friend’s dad 1e session. ESPECIALLY if he is calling you slurs. You do not deserve that, no one does. You are a person who should be treated with respect. DND is about having fun with people who make you happy. I know you want to play with your friends, and I’m sorry it didn’t work out :/ BUT! Don’t give up. There may be other people in your area and there are even plenty of online sessions! Don’t retire that desire to DM! From one DM to another — the world needs more goodhearted DMs! :)

Kristina The Sorceress

I’m sorry if I’m overstepping, I just read your comment and couldn’t help but say something. If I am overstepping, please disregard the comments. DND is supposed to fun for everyone — you included!

Dominic Stacey

You did the right thing, he onlycast 1 spell that turn and used his other 2 actions to move which is allowed a monk can use all 3 actions to move if they use a ki point. A spell slot isn't that different

Mich Blackie (edited)

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2026-09-05 07:00 Honourable justices and the handsome and tall bailiff Hurwitz (love you Micha!!) I bring the case of the D&D ghosting. A few months ago a friend set me up with friend. We hit it off and he seemed nice and smart. After talking for a few weeks the subject of D&D came up. He said he was an experienced player, and since the friend that introduced us had been wanting to try D&D we organised a simple one shot that I would DM. Well, he played a lawful evil tiefling warlock, who first act was to terrorise an innocent NPC who was selling souvenir crystals into leaving town, then got pissed that her crystals weren’t worth much after all his “effort”. He refused to enter any room by the front door, opting instead to “find a back way” and told the NPC that hired them that if he didn’t get his money he would burn his house down. Our mutual friend didn’t have fun and asked me afterwards “is that normal?” Justices, was I right to ghost this dude after that night? My friends who don’t play D&D think I’m overreacting but I think how someone plays TTRPGs says a lot about them. Was Dice Christ was warning me to get out, or did I blow a potential relationship over something trivial? I humbly await your verdict.
2023-07-21 04:56 Honourable justices and the handsome and tall bailiff Hurwitz (love you Micha!!) I bring the case of the D&D ghosting. A few months ago a friend set me up with friend. We hit it off and he seemed nice and smart. After talking for a few weeks the subject of D&D came up. He said he was an experienced player, and since the friend that introduced us had been wanting to try D&D we organised a simple one shot that I would DM. Well, he played a lawful evil tiefling warlock, who first act was to terrorise an innocent NPC who was selling souvenir crystals into leaving town, then got pissed that her crystals weren’t worth much after all his “effort”. He refused to enter any room by the front door, opting instead to “find a back way” and told the NPC that hired them that if he didn’t get his money he would burn his house down, which he did. Our mutual friend didn’t have fun and asked me afterwards “is that normal?” Justices, was I right to ghost this dude after that night? My friends who don’t play D&D think I’m overreacting but I think how someone plays TTRPGs says a lot about them. Was Dice Christ was warning me to get out, or did I blow a potential relationship over something trivial? I humbly await your verdict.

Honourable justices and the handsome and tall bailiff Hurwitz (love you Micha!!) I bring the case of the D&D ghosting. A few months ago a friend set me up with friend. We hit it off and he seemed nice and smart. After talking for a few weeks the subject of D&D came up. He said he was an experienced player, and since the friend that introduced us had been wanting to try D&D we organised a simple one shot that I would DM. Well, he played a lawful evil tiefling warlock, who first act was to terrorise an innocent NPC who was selling souvenir crystals into leaving town, then got pissed that her crystals weren’t worth much after all his “effort”. He refused to enter any room by the front door, opting instead to “find a back way” and told the NPC that hired them that if he didn’t get his money he would burn his house down, which he did. Our mutual friend didn’t have fun and asked me afterwards “is that normal?” Justices, was I right to ghost this dude after that night? My friends who don’t play D&D think I’m overreacting but I think how someone plays TTRPGs says a lot about them. Was Dice Christ was warning me to get out, or did I blow a potential relationship over something trivial? I humbly await your verdict.

Natural Dragon

Why did you even reply to my post? Don’t tell me it’s to long. It’s my story. They don’t have to choose it but I don’t need your sass.

emjemme

To the honorable justices Axeford, Murphy, and Tanner and bailiff boy Jake. May it please the court, I bring the case of the spell-less wizard. I recently finished a three year campaign and I am feeling disappointed. At character creation all three players, including myself, pitched bard characters. The DM decided the newest of us players should have their choice. I was the last player to do character creation and having the bard role filled, I asked the DM what we needed in party composition. I asked if we needed another healer to support our bard as a new player but he said it should be fine and I could play whatever I wanted. I chose to build an enchantment wizard. As a wizard whenever we arrived in a new location I immediately asked about libraries and magic shops. Everywhere we went would have neither of these, or the shops were described as “out of my price range.” After about 10 sessions we arrived in the capital city and I thought this was my chance. Again, I was told I did not have access to any locations with spells. A few sessions later, we were in an old house which was maintained by a ghostly illusion. I had 30 minutes to copy a spell (enchantment cantrip) before the illusion disappeared. Finally, about 20 session into the campaign, we met a wizard with a full library. I was so excited that I could finally learn some more spells. That was until I asked the DM about the books. The DM told me that the entire library was transcribed into a code written by the wizard himself. After a multi session side quest, the wizard gifted my character a page of encoded text. I could attempt to decode the text with successful arcana checks which would decrease in DC based on my success. He did not tell me the DC but said I could make one check per day. Dutifully I made the check every evening in game. After several 17+ arcana checks, I was told I brought the DC down “a little.” For the next two years I made checks. Even with my impressive arcana checks, I made very little progress on the code. This remained my only option for learning new spells. Around 5 sessions before the end of the campaign, we returned to the biggest city. This time I had access to the government library. The asked the DM if I could study spells and he told me I could learn six spells. This was the last opportunity I had to learn spells. In the epilogue, the DM told me I partially decoded the page I received from the wizard two years prior. Am I wrong to feel like I got nerfed by the DM? PS. After I gained Instinctive Charm at 6th level, the DM never hit me with another attack. We reached level 10 by the end of the campaign.

Stale bread on salad, aka Crouton!

To the beloved bailiff and honorable judges (especially Murph). I'm a forever dm for three groups and in one I have a problem player. His PC is a tiefling rogue named Rigby in reference to regular show (and yes he does the voice for him). Rogues get a bunch of steel metal balls that he used as a difficult terrain Tom and Jerry style so the enemies would slip on them. I allowed it one time delighted thinking it was clever 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?

Carter Carter

Grand council, honorable justices (and the lowly bailiff) of the Supreme crit, I bring before you my case. I think my DM may have it out against me…. I play in a campaign with my roomate (the DM) and some of her friends. They are all fairly new to the game while I have been playing for a couple of years. It has been a really fun game so far….mostly…. My DM is constantly asking me to roll. Everytime I make a choice. BOOM! Roll! The problem is that everytime another PC attempts to do the same moves as me, there is no roll and it is an auto success. For example, last session, my party and I were running off from a group of angry drunks. I was asked to do an athletics check to run. When I, a first level sorcerer failed the DC 15 athletics check, my DM narrated me falling into a pile of shit and getting caught by the group. The other members of my party were allowed to run without checks (and without being covered in shit). Am I being overdramatic or is my DM out to get me?

LM Larson

Dearest Kevin, Lynn, Caldwell, and Penn Cooper Dice Christ Confessional here: I just co-ran a one-shot for friends I've never DM'd for (a food-based game-show challenge called Palate Pardon - initially inspired by Mawmaw's Maw - where three criminals fight for reduced sentences/freedom from a three-headed pig/goose/goat chimera judge). One of the PCs packed his Warforged with drugs, spent each round not engaging in the roleplay/setting, and presented the judges with drug-laced slop/grass meals based on the eating preferences of real-world pigs/geese/goats. After winning two of the three rounds - due to some suspiciously high rolls, they insisted on fighting the chimera, aiming for one specific judge (each judge is played by a different "DM"). It was a tonal shift. The decision to attack was so random/awkward, one PC just hid in a Rope Trick the entire time. The DM judges all agreed to fudge our roles to be lower/not partake in combat just to end things quicker since that player had sabotaged the game in a variety of ways (min-maxed PC, apathetic RP, unprovoked NPC attack, possibly fudged rolls). The PC ended up killing the chimera but ultimately died during a "Trial of Faith" the party encountered while escaping the judging kitchen. I ask for absolution from the wise magistrates/vicars for myself and my co-DMs as well as the unknowing PCs for changing our rolls to quicken the awkward combat.

LM Larson

Samuel, you can DM a 5e game for me and my friends any day of the week. We can sometimes go off the rails and become - as Murph puts it - maniacs, but at the end of the day, we don't tolerate trolls of any age. Your friend's dad is at best, a bully and at worst, homophobic.

Nathan Van Ness

To the esteemed Justices of the Crit, whose wisdom and advice are sought and valued across the globe, and the Bailiff, Jake, who I'm sure is a really great listener, This isn't a court case, per se. Tonight, I am DMing my first full-fledged campaign. It's in a homebrew world that has existed in one form or another in my mind for almost 20 years, and this is the first time I will be sharing it with others. My players range from fairly experienced to brand new. What advice could you offer to prevent myself from being shackled and roughly dragged before your esteemed selves in future sessions of this court and to help my table not stare at me in silent judgement as I panic my way through each session?

Winky's Ghost

You got done dirty. At some point you probably should have started heckling from the other room like those two old guy muppets.

Raevenote

Were they using Dash as an Action or Bonus Action? Some classes allow for using Dash as a Bonus Action (such as Rogue via Cunning Action or Monk with Step of the Wind), and in that case they would not be able to cast Misty Step, which is a spell w/casting time of 1 Bonus Action. If they used their Action to Dash, then they could use Misty Step for their BA, but it means they cannot attack or do any other Action.

zediekiel

To the Supreme Crit Justices and the recently en-Dad-end Bailiff, Jake, I present the case of the "Too many Tongues." I am a DM running a long running sword-and-sandles game set in ancient Greece, with the party consisting of a Cleric, Ranger, Artificer and Paladin. Instead of using the normal language selections such as Common, Draconic and Celestial, we instead use real world languages and dialects such as Greek, Latin, etc. Recently my party has begun exploring the larger world and has finally arrived in the kingdom of Upper Egypt. As we are doing more of a simulationist style campaign, some but not all of the NPC's that my party wants to talk to know Greek, with many of them speaking Coptic and Demotic dialects. While I intended to give the party the opportunity to try and learn the language while there, due to a time crunch involving the potential execution of a friendly NPC in about a months time, the party wanted to get started talking to NPC's right away. As the Cleric was the only player character who was able to cast "Tongues" and all of the players wanted to have their own individual conversations, they said it was not fair. Being 7th level, they would be burning through all of their 3rd and 4th level spell slots so the other players could go off and converse with NPC's by themselves. The other players insisted and this resulted in the Cleric stepping away from the table for a while. Upon returning I asked if maybe we should "do away with languages" if it was causing undue stress, but the players insisted that we keep the multiple languages regardless. GM's, should I have all my NPC's speaking Greek? Or is there some way to resolve this narrative discrepancy? I humbly submit myself for your judgement.

The Dreaded DM

To the distinctly impressive Justices and the Baliff who is somewhat solid most of the time! I am in need of a professional pronouncement of assholeary. I was a playtester for a TTRPG similar to Cyberpunk. I played a hacker in the first official campaign on Discord with the developer of the game as the GM. While the story and game were interesting, I liked my fellow players, the GM was very experienced and had clearly put a lot of love into this but... He narrated scenes for what felt like a really long time. It felt like the other players and I had done barely anything in a 4 hr session. After a few sessions of this, I decided to time one of his narrations to see if maybe I was just being impatient. 40 MINUTES of the GM describing ONE scene, no RP with me or the other players, just him. I noticed that the other players stayed muted the vast majority of the session unless directly called upon by the GM. It felt almost rude to interrupt him to actually play the game. I eventually had to leave the campaign for unrelated reasons but I ask the court, was I the asshole for not saying anything to the GM or should the GM maybe invest in a watch? I humbly leave us both to your mercy ⚔️

Splidao

To the esteemed Justices and John M. F. Bailiff, long may he reign. I’m currently in a ‘Tomb of Annihilation’ campaign. I stopped attending sessions recently because it’s hard for me to actually enjoy the campaign. The DM is trying their hardest to help us enjoy the campaign, but I believe that my fellow players aren’t… The players have either sat at the table playing video games on their laptop, spent the whole night hardly engrossed in the game and just texting their other friends and telling us about their conversations, or just literally naming their character in our campaign “Tom A. To, the warlock who can conjure spaghetti at a whim” Am I in the wrong for personally abandoning the party and not wanting to continue being in the campaign? I humbly ask for the judgement of the really rad justices, and the ever reliable bailiff.

Matt Nusbaum

To the honorable Supreme Crit Justices, and Micah’s brother, I present the case of The Eight Year Old’s Evil Armor. I run dnd games for kids ages 8-12 at a comic shop. I help them create characters and then run them through a short campaign. Recently, I had a kid who had never played before, but came in with his heart set on being a Helmed Horror straight out of the monster manual. I offered that he could be an animated suit of armor (reskinned war forged), which he agreed to go along with. He chose to be a sorcerer named Gremlock, and said that he was created by an evil guy in a laboratory in hell, but he rebelled against his creator and escaped. He insisted that his character be evil, but I thought this would be relatively manageable, as I figured I could use mystery and material rewards to get him to work with the party and engage with the plot hooks for his own self-interest. We began the homebrew campaign, which was about a small village being terrorized and divided by a night hag “granting” the wishes of the greedy guildmaster of the commerce guild. The first session began with the party members arriving in the village for its summer solstice festival. At first everything was going well. They were having fun at the festival and I was teasing the problems in town by having the party spot the hag’s shadow mastiff watching the town’s mayor, and having some of them briefly notice the hag’s quickling servant causing trouble. Then this kid tells me Gremlock is going to eat someone. I ask him what he means, and he says he’d like to pick up a villager and absorb them into his armor body by swallowing them. I tell him that he’s not gonna be able to do that to any living people, so Gremlock pulls out a knife and goes to stab a random townsman walking by. I warn him that he’s definitely gonna get in trouble for this, but he wants to go for it anyway, so I let him roll to hit. He does, but he doesn’t kill the guy, and people begin calling for the town militia, who come over to fight Gremlock. One party member tries to help Gremlock while the rest try to stop him. Eventually, Gremlock and his ally are knocked unconscious and taken to be locked up in the barracks, while the rest of the party is brought along for questioning. When the captain of the militia talks to the reawakened Gremlock, Gremlcok tells him that he is fundamentally designed to “corrupt the world.” He would not elaborate. At this point, I’m scrambling a little bit. I want to make sure the party can engage with the adventure I have planned, and I don’t want these kids going home and telling their parents how much fun they had “corrupting the world,” but I also don’t want to totally shut down this very enthusiastic kid. The solution I came to was sending for the town abbot, who arrived and, finding she was unable to break the curse on Gremlock (he insisted it was unbreakable), cast a geas spell on him, forcing him to protect the people of this village. Gremlock was mad at the abbot, and wants desperately to break the spell, but played along, working with the party to break out of jail when they heard that something terrible had happened at the festival (the mayor was killed by shadows who then possessed scarecrows and attacked the crowd). We ended the session there, with the party about to jump in and fight the scarecrows. Justices, I am conflicted about my decision. On the one hand, I saw it as the only way to keep this character from going full murder hobo and interfering with the rest of the players’ ability to do the adventure I had planned. On the other hand, I feel like I am railroading Gremlock, especially because I didn’t initially plan on the abbot being powerful enough to cast geas at all, he was very enthusiastic about his idea, and most of the other players were amused by Gremlock’s actions. Was I right to curse this armor, or should I have just let evil kids be evil kids? I humbly await your wise decision.

Fandom Encounters

Confessional here! I’m ending a 4-year-long Percy Jackson themed campaign this week! At the beginning everyone was told to make a teenage hero who was a child of the gods and they would each discovered who their godly parent was during the campaign. Except Matt. He started in session 2 with a 21 year old in the party of teens. We made old man jokes and creeper jokes bc the party was having fun having “crushes” on each other. Eventually…I made a plan when the Demigods met the Fates. They offered him a deal to help his sick mother: give up years of his life to gift his mom. I had him roll 3d4 fully planning to change the rules to make sure he landed between 12-18. He rolled 2 4s and a 1, so I had him choose 2 dice to offer based on how many years his mother was worth to him. It led to more fun jokes as he was now the “baby” but it was a bit shady…

CrowsNestCraft (edited)

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2026-09-05 07:00 May it please the Crit Justices and the courageous Bailiff Hurwits, I bring you the case of the helicopter parent player. I run a campaign at a beautiful castle like local library that one of my best friends wives is the librarian of. She asked me if I’d like to run a campaign there after and I decided to try to get as many local “noob” players as I could to introduce the hobby to people that may not have had the opportunity. However I felt I needed to invite my friend since his wife is the librarian and he got me into the hobby years ago. The trouble is that he brings his son to some sessions, but it’s not the problem you’d think it is. His son, 7 years old, keeps to himself and plays nicely in the kids area or is in his moms office playing his switch. However my friend is a helicopter parent to the point that he’ll hover near the door during sessions and even leave to check on his son frequently. The rest of the table is incredibly involved but during big RP moments and battles I’ll look up and he’ll be gone. He’s also cancelled a few time because his son doesn’t want to go to the library. His character is rather important to the overall plot but I feel like I’m giving him a lot of slack since we’ve been friends for a long time. A few players have commented on his behavior, if it was anyone else I would have reached out to see if they would give up there seat seeing that a few locals have reached out about joining, but the tables at capacity. I love my friend but with all of the circumstances I don’t know how to move forward if his heads not in it, I feel like if I ask him to give up his seat it will make playing at the library awkward with his wife. It’s to late to write his character out and I really like the direction everything is moving towards, the sessions he’s there alone are great but out of ten sessions he’s missed 3 and be “occupied” for 4. Should I continue to play around his absences and distractions or is there a way to approach this that won’t lose a friend and a dope playing venue? I leave it to your honors to decide. -John (@crowsnestcraft) P.S. i have successful TikTok and Insta TTRPG Miniature channels (@crowsnestcraft) if you’d like to check them out. Long time listener, your table has a chemistry I aspire towards.
2023-07-25 02:35 May it please the Crit Justices and the courageous Bailiff Hurwits, I bring you the case of the helicopter parent player. I run a campaign at a beautiful castle like local library that one of my best friends wives is the librarian of. She asked me if I’d like to run a campaign there after and I decided to try to get as many local “noob” players as I could to introduce the hobby to people that may not have had the opportunity. I felt I needed to invite my friend since his wife is the librarian and he got me into the hobby years ago. The trouble is that he brings his son to some sessions, but it’s not the problem you’d think it is. His son, 7 years old, is well behaved, keeps to himself and plays nicely in the kids area or is in his moms office playing his switch. However my friend is a helicopter parent to the point that he’ll hover near the door distracted during sessions and even leave to check on his son frequently, as a parent myself I understand the concerns but his wife and other trusted adults are there as well. The rest of the table is incredibly involved but during big RP moments and battles I’ll look up and he’ll be gone. He’s also cancelled a few time because his son doesn’t want to go to the library. His character is rather important to the overall plot but I feel like I’m giving him a lot of slack since we’ve been friends for a long time. A few players have commented on his behavior, if it was anyone else I would have reached out to see if they would give up there seat seeing that a few locals have reached out about joining,m. I love my friend but I don’t know how to move forward if his heads not in it, I feel like if I ask him to give up his seat it will make playing at the library awkward with his wife. It’s to late to write his character out and I really like the direction everything is moving towards, the sessions he’s there alone are great. Should I continue to play around his absences and distractions or is there a way to approach this that won’t lose a friend and a dope playing venue? I leave it to your honors to decide. -John (@crowsnestcraft) P.S. i have successful TikTok and Insta TTRPG Miniature channels (@crowsnestcraft) if you’d like to check them out. Long time listener, your table has a chemistry I aspire towards.

May it please the Crit Justices and the courageous Bailiff Hurwits, I bring you the case of the helicopter parent player. I run a campaign at a beautiful castle like local library that one of my best friends wives is the librarian of. She asked me if I’d like to run a campaign there after and I decided to try to get as many local “noob” players as I could to introduce the hobby to people that may not have had the opportunity. I felt I needed to invite my friend since his wife is the librarian and he got me into the hobby years ago. The trouble is that he brings his son to some sessions, but it’s not the problem you’d think it is. His son, 7 years old, is well behaved, keeps to himself and plays nicely in the kids area or is in his moms office playing his switch. However my friend is a helicopter parent to the point that he’ll hover near the door distracted during sessions and even leave to check on his son frequently, as a parent myself I understand the concerns but his wife and other trusted adults are there as well. The rest of the table is incredibly involved but during big RP moments and battles I’ll look up and he’ll be gone. He’s also cancelled a few time because his son doesn’t want to go to the library. His character is rather important to the overall plot but I feel like I’m giving him a lot of slack since we’ve been friends for a long time. A few players have commented on his behavior, if it was anyone else I would have reached out to see if they would give up there seat seeing that a few locals have reached out about joining,m. I love my friend but I don’t know how to move forward if his heads not in it, I feel like if I ask him to give up his seat it will make playing at the library awkward with his wife. It’s to late to write his character out and I really like the direction everything is moving towards, the sessions he’s there alone are great. Should I continue to play around his absences and distractions or is there a way to approach this that won’t lose a friend and a dope playing venue? I leave it to your honors to decide. -John (@crowsnestcraft) P.S. i have successful TikTok and Insta TTRPG Miniature channels (@crowsnestcraft) if you’d like to check them out. Long time listener, your table has a chemistry I aspire towards.

MMM MMM

may it please the crit justices and maybe the bailiff Jake I’m still on the fence about it, I, a DM had made a character sheet for a character I’ll never use, a blind fighter named Pez, I showed it to one of my players and she instantly got obsessed, and demanded I use it as an NPC in our campaign I vowed he would never appear, but she has remained hopeful and now whenever I introduce an NPC she gets visibly upset it’s not Pez, should I yield and put him in or should I stay true to my oath, I leave this in your capable hands.

Nicholas Ruble

May it please all but one member of the Crit, I come before you a humble man, and I ask for your keen legal insights on the age-old question which has gone unanswered for far too long: is it okay to "Suicide Squad" your players in a one-shot? I DM-ed for the same group of players for years. We all typically get along and seem to have the same expectations for engagement and roleplaying. However, multiple times when I've run a one-shot, my players will come into the session with characters who adamantly refuse to accept the story hook. I've tried telling them the hook in advance so that they could make characters who would want to go on the adventure, but that didn't help at all. Eventually, I started "suicide squadding" all of my one-shots, offering a reward for any player who took the hook willingly, but placing a curse that would kill the characters if they refused to go on the quest. My players say that this ruins the session by taking away their agency. But I say that, if they want to play the session but won't go along with the hook willingly, then I'm allowed to use necessary fictional lethal force. I ask this Crit: were my actions justified for the greater good, or should I have found a different way to get the players engaged? -Ever Truly Yours, Nicholas Esq. P.S. My friend and I are honest-to-goodness lawyers. We will be attending your Chicago live-show this September in suits in the front rows, where we will eagerly be awaiting your verdict, should you deem our case worthy.

Wren Ash-Piper

Honourable Sweeties, and The Bodacious Bailiff, I bring to you the case of the disconnected druid. My fiance and I started a campaign with some friends several months back with a DM who lives in Canada, so we play over Discord. We have a barbarian(myself), a bard, a sorcerer(my fiance), and a druid. However, the 4 PCs all live locally so we have regularly invited the group over to our place to play in person and connect with the DM virtually. The Druid has never shown up for any of the in person sessions and will regularly be doing other things while we play over discord. For instance, on our second session ever, he was in Home Depot running errands. On another session, he was having dinner with his parents and his phone died at the table so we lost him. On top of all this, he did not attend the session 0 we had to give everyone background into the world we would playing which was crucial since the world and the species are home brewed, so attending the session 0 was vital to knowing anything about the game we were about to play. IBecause of this, he based his character backstory all on the concept that he didn’t know where his species was from, etc. Whereas everyone else he interacts with is fully aware of his species origins. The moment in question happened at the end of our most recent session: In the interaction just prior, we had been interacting with the evil prince and the druid messaged in the chat as the tensions escalated that he was going to leave, wild shaped into a bird, and was promptly caught by an enchanted vine and remain trapped for the remainder of the scene. As we left, we attacked a group of spies that were trailing us and killed all but one to interrogate them. It ended up being a moment for me to do some role-play as the NPC had ties to my backstory. Admittedly, it took me off guard and I was stumbling through the interaction. But the druid interrupted the moment and cast flame whip to kill the NPC before we learned more about the plot at hand from the nearby evil prince. I was completely shocked as the NPC just died instantly and I felt like my moment was killed. Justices, I ask of you, was I robbed of my role play moment or was the druid in the right to kill the NPC and steal the spotlight? PS. Our bard decided before we started and without telling anyone that he wants to make it through the whole campaign without using a weapon as a weapon and initially tried to switch classes to rogue with Bard stats....

MJ

To the Most Honorable Justices and whatever adjectives we’re using for Jake today: I present to you the case of vampires v piss. My friends and I have been playing a modified Curse of Strahd which also heavily borrows from the 90’s adventure game Quest for Glory IV: Shadows of Darkness. This means that while the setting is still grim, things frequently get silly and occasionally stupid. (Not that y’all know anything about that.) When we began playing 10 months ago my players were newbies to D&D and I had to hold their hand through some puzzles and encounters until they found their footing. Since then, though, they’ve been totally bitten by the bug and have spent lots of time plotting out strategies and roleplay ideas. They also love to opt for the wildest choices imaginable just to see how I will react. Which has, finally, forced me to seek outside counsel. My level 7 players recently found themselves in an abandoned shop that has six vampire spawn sleeping in it. They knew this from having conducted recon, snuck in with a great stealth roll so they could get a surprise round, and the barbarian who hoards weapons has recently recovered a sun sword from the module that literally hungers to kill vampires (and creates sunlight and does radiant damage). They also already picked up a relic that creates sunlight and can hold vampires. One of them has a flask of holy water and some stakes because she’s grown up paranoid about vampires. So, even if there are only 3 of them, I figured they are well equipped and they stand a decent chance. So imagine my surprise when one of them asked for clarification about the damage to vampires by running water. (FYI so you don’t have to look it up: vampire spawn can’t autoregenerate HP if they start their turn in running water, and take 20 acid damage if they end their turn in running water.) The barbarian explained she wanted to be able to piss on a sleeping vampire spawn which, my player argues, should count as running water. I pointed out that piss is not water, and she pointed out there’s enough water to create the effect of a stream assuming her character was well hydrated. So I ask you, o high justices of this most respected court: which of us is right? Should I allow vampire piss-play, even though they have 73947 other and better ways to kill these bloodsuckers available? Or should I just have the vampires bite their dicks off? I look forward to your ruling on this matter. (As do they, because they all listen to the podcast now.) PS: I should note that I already had to make my own ruling (fairly high constitution + performance checks, for bladder control and ability to piss in front of people, and the spawn have advantage on bite attacks to your dick bc you whipped it out), bc I do believe in letting people fuck around and find out. BUT I really want to know what additional arguments you would make for and against this as well as your thoughts about, as was asked later, whether drinking the holy water first would have made a difference.

Sarah Schooler

To the most honorable justices and also Jake (the bailiff): I present to you the case of the DM who wanted to kill the player. We were fighting a homebrew monster, and one player was at one HP. The DM had the monster cast cone of cold, then said that the player would be dead because the text for cone of cold reads "A creature killed by this spell becomes a frozen statue until it thaws." I pointed this out, to which the party and DM agreed, then proceeded to razz my DM about getting owned by the rules. He then changed his mind about what the monster would do, because the spell wouldn't kill the player (mind you, it would have knocked him unconscious, and we had all been knocked unconscious at one point or another during this fight). I protested and told the DM that he should take the razzing and keep the action. He argued that because we sometimes change our minds about spells after a more close reading of the rules, he should be able to also, and if he had to keep his action, that should be the policy moving forward. The other players agreed with him. I let it go, and we proceeded to play the game with the monster doing something else, and ultimately won the fight. I ask of you, should the DM be treated differently than the players when getting owned by the rules? Or was I wrong to razz my DM and say that he shouldn't change his mind because he couldn't outright kill a player? Note: we are level 17, and resurrection is common in this campaign, so death isn't that big of a deal, but is still very annoying.

SoupLightning (edited)

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2026-09-05 07:00 Incensed party vs the DM's "crit cap" rule! May it please the honorable judges Axford, Tanner, the noble Bailiff Jake ... and Pebblepot Marty. My party is at level 11 we've been playing for about a year now and we just set a world record for crits and absolutely womped our DM's BBEG we crit 8 times in a the session even swapping out dice at times just to prove we werent using loaded dice. Last week we met to play again and our DM said from now on players cant crit more than 3 times in a session. We all thought he was joking and laughed it off and he didnt correct us when we obviously didnt take him seriously. Our half elf gloomstalker ranger in the party crit twice on perception and on their initiative when we got jumped by bandits and then a third time on their attack. But when Dice Christ blessed them with a fourth crit on another attack our dm said they'd reached their "crit cap" and the 4th crit would be counted as a dirty twenty instead. The ranger was infuriated and we all vehemently argued it was bullshit that we actually have a crit cap,but our DM said the games wouldnt be fun if we kept getting lucky with 20s. So i ask the court, is crit capping a just solution to our unexpected womping or is our DM being unreasonable?
2023-07-30 23:10 Incensed party vs the DM's "crit cap" rule! May it please the honorable judges Axford, Tanner, the noble Bailiff Jake ... and Pebblepot Marty. My party is at level 11 we've been playing for about a year now and we just set a world record for crits and absolutely womped our DM's BBEG we crit 8 times in the session even swapping out dice at times just to prove we werent using loaded dice. Last week we met to play again and our DM said from now on players cant crit more than 3 times in a session. We all thought he was joking and laughed it off and he didnt correct us when we obviously didnt take him seriously. Our half elf gloomstalker ranger in the party crit twice on perception and on their initiative when we got jumped by bandits and then a third time on their attack. But when Dice Christ blessed them with a fourth crit on another attack our dm said they'd reached their "crit cap" and the 4th crit would be counted as a dirty twenty instead. The ranger was infuriated and we all vehemently argued it was bullshit that we actually have a crit cap,but our DM said the games wouldnt be fun if we kept getting lucky with 20s. So i ask the court, is crit capping a just solution to our unexpected womping or is our DM being unreasonable?

Incensed party vs the DM's "crit cap" rule! May it please the honorable judges Axford, Tanner, the noble Bailiff Jake ... and Pebblepot Marty. My party is at level 11 we've been playing for about a year now and we just set a world record for crits and absolutely womped our DM's BBEG we crit 8 times in the session even swapping out dice at times just to prove we werent using loaded dice. Last week we met to play again and our DM said from now on players cant crit more than 3 times in a session. We all thought he was joking and laughed it off and he didnt correct us when we obviously didnt take him seriously. Our half elf gloomstalker ranger in the party crit twice on perception and on their initiative when we got jumped by bandits and then a third time on their attack. But when Dice Christ blessed them with a fourth crit on another attack our dm said they'd reached their "crit cap" and the 4th crit would be counted as a dirty twenty instead. The ranger was infuriated and we all vehemently argued it was bullshit that we actually have a crit cap,but our DM said the games wouldnt be fun if we kept getting lucky with 20s. So i ask the court, is crit capping a just solution to our unexpected womping or is our DM being unreasonable?

Minh Duong

To the esteemed justices (and Jake is here too), may I please present the case of the "metagaming" player. This didn't happen to me, but a friend who was live messaging me about anything important/fun that happened in the campaign so we could talk about it later. In a Baldur's Gate campaign, my friend and her party were in combat with a devil. One of the players, a rogue, was new and was wondering what they could do on their turn as they were next to an enemy and didn't want to get hit by an opportunity attack. My friend suggested that they could use their Cunning Action bonus action to disengage from the devil, The DM then replied, "No, he can't do that this turn anymore, since it's metagaming." My friend asked how it was metagaming and that she was trying to remind a new player about his abilities, to which the DM told her that it's because she told him about his abilities and now that he knows about them, he'll change what he was going to do as opposed to when he didn't know about them. I ask of you, the court: was my friend being helpful or did she accidentally cause herself and that rogue to metagame?

Stonewall

To the reputable justices and somewhat respected Bailiff, I present the case of the burning dwarf. My party and I we're playing a 3.5 edition game where our first mission was to delve into the town's graveyard to deal with a necromancer that had made his lair there. I was playing a dwarf fighter with heavy armor. a tower shield, an axe, and a bag of goodies. Upon entering the graveyard skeletons started to rise from their graves. The party decided to run from the skeletons to head into the crypt to save resources despite my character pointing out that the skeletons would most likely follow us and we would be pincered. So, after a few minutes we encountered another group of skeletons with the previous group on our heels. I decided to use my tower shield as cover and hold a 5ft. entrance way to hold off the group behind us while my party dealt with the group ahead of us. After multiple rounds of succeeding strength checks to hold the skeletons at bay and most of the skeletons ahead of us being defeated I failed a strength check and was pulled into the center of the group of skeletons behind us and put to around a 1/3rd of my health by the attacks of the skeletons. The wizard then decided to cast burning hands while I was in the midst of the skeletons setting me and my bag of alchemist fire and thunderstones on fire. In a panic I threw the bag at the wizard, not realizing I could have put it out with my action. I then proceeded to die with the skeletons due to the explosion and the rest of my party was heavily wounded and rendered deaf for hours from the thunderstones. And so I ask the court this, was it my fault for not putting out the fire and throwing it at the wizard or was it the wizards' fault for hitting me with burning hands after I had kept the party safe for multiple turns?

benjamin chelsky

what if you told him about your concerns without the looming threat of giving up his seat? addres the thescheduling issues and the missed rolwplay without bringing his parentings style into the equaion