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Cases Please! (Patreon)

Published:
2023-08-25 19:05:14
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Beautiful Bailiff Jake here to let you know the Supreme Crit is convening this very eve. Please submit your brief (I beg!) case on this thread and we will try you justly.

Comments

Spencer

To the unforgettable Supreme Crit Justices, [long pause (❤️ you Jake)] I come here to present the case of the spitefully self-destructive dwarf sharpshooter. I DM for a campaign that’s been going on for over 4 years. One of my players plays a dwarf ranger named Korv, a soft-spoken cowboy and coldblooded killer. After he picked the sharpshooter feat (-5 to hit, +10 to damage) he basically told me that he’s never going to attack without it being activated. Of course, as the game goes on, enemies have gotten harder with higher ACs. Time and time again, he will go his full turn making two attacks, shooting wide both times, and quickly ending his turn. I figured this was a risk he was willing to make. But on one fateful battle, he made the discovery of how ranged attacks apply to prone creatures: while melee attacks have advantage, ranged attacks have *disadvantage.* He was furious when this came into play, stating it made no sense and that a prone creature would be just as easy to hit, especially since he has sharpshooter. I told him “them’s the rules.” But now, whenever a creature falls prone, he goes out of his way to target it, knowing that between disadvantage and sharpshooter, he’s bound to miss. The other players and I have confronted him on this suboptimal decision, and he claims he will keep doing it until I “change the rules” on prone creatures. I did so for huge and gargantuan creatures, but apparently that’s not enough for him to stop targeting large and smaller prone enemies. Justices, am I wrong for not capitulating to my player’s demands? Or should I let him continue to fail by his own hands, even at the detriment of the other players?

ChromaticMars

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

Waddle Bawddle

Hello lovely justices and bailiff Cake Boss. I come to you with the case of the Stolen Character Moment. I was DMing a campaign for three of my friends. One session, they sieged a city that was once ruled by a PC’s family with the exiled prince. They successfully captured the guy who had taken over the city, the PC’s half brother. The prince gave PC 1 the choice of what to do with him. Right as PC 1 was going to decide, another PC stepped in a beheaded the half bro. Everyone tried to stop him including the other player, but he succeeded on all his strength rolls. It’s been 3 years and none of us have forgotten this. Are we right to still never trust this player around any big choices? Thank ya sweeties

UsedCigEater

To the honorable judges and amazing/lowly bailiff depending on what mood the judges are in today. I am a long time DM and I love doing it but have a hard time doing voices and acting while being looked at. To alleviate this problem, I have made a double high dm screen which is just a DM screen with another DM screen bolted to the top so that I can’t see the players and they can’t see me. I have been using this method for almost 20 years and have DMed for a couple dozen groups in that time. Every group I have ever DMed for have given me some level of razzing for this. Are they right to razz me or should I buck up and get over my inability to perform while being looked at? PS. I’m only fully behind the screen while acting and talking to the table. If I need to talk directly to a player out of character, I stand up and peek over the screen Wilson from Home Improvement style. PSS. I have a terrible poker face, so it makes it easier to lie.

ChocolatePI

I have here a dice christ confessional. Our dm set up a heist situation where we had to sneak steal some important books out of a library. The whole thing was very complex and took 2 entire sessions. At the very end of it, we were almost clear when we were stopped by some guards. I rolled a persuasion check to convince them that we belonged, but got a nat 1. I didn't want to be at fault and ruin this long heist for everyone, so I said it was a nat 20. I've felt quilts about this since, but now our party has important information rather than sitting in a cell. I prostate myself to the court seeking guidance.

Drew P

To the radiant justices of the Supreme Crit, and also that grimy rat boy they let in to read the cases for some reason, I submit to you a case on everyone’s favorite DnD buzzword: Metagaming I recently started a new campaign with some relatively casual friends. In an early session, our barbarian engaged in an arm wrestling tournament at a tavern in an attempt to win the party the favor of the local big buff bar boy. As any self-respecting barbarian is wont to do, our brawny barb flew into a rage at the start of the tournament in order to gain advantage on all her athletic checks. She won the first round, and we all swarmed to congratulate her. However, issues came about when our cleric said, and I quote, “In the hubbub I throw a punch at the barbarian, trying to deal as little damage as possible.” To anyone listening who is confused (as I’m sure that fool of a bailiff is), a barbarian must either take or deal damage each round to stay in their rage. The cleric was hoping to extend the barbarian’s rage into the next tournament round with some light friendly fire. The DM, however, chastised the cleric for Metagaming and did not allow this action, giving the cleric “A Warning” (his words). In my desperately humble opinion, this DM has a history of pulling the Metagaming trigger too quick, as he had previously asked us to roll arcana checks to see if we understood what our teammates’ spells did. So I ask the illustrious court! Was this truly an excessive act of Metagamery?? Would the characters, who had been traveling together for weeks at this time, not know how our comrades’ abilities worked? Would the perceptive cleric not learn that his beefy barbarian bud is most formidable when she is getting whaled on?? I prostrate myself, eager and trembling, before the iron justice of the court. PS: Congrats on the kid or whatever

Kyle Duggan

UPDATE To the Honorable Justices Axford, Tanner, and Murphy, and Bailiff Jake, who I now like because he chose my submission, I present a followup case in the developing Website Puzzle Solver/"Was that fun for you?" saga. After the events of the last case, where I solved a cipher with the help of a website, our DM presented us with an additional puzzle. Since we meet remotely (pause for Caldwell to make a "remote location" joke) over Roll20, she put a new, much more complicated cipher on the splash page that is shown on our campaign hub between sessions. The key to solving the cipher changed every few letters, meaning it was very difficult and time-consuming to decode. I set some time aside to figure it out and discovered it was a hint, revealing that a dragon we were soon to encounter could be destroyed instantly by telling it a terrible knock knock joke. The message also contained a well-deserved and good-natured "Fuck you, Kyle D." No one else bothered solving it, so I kept the hint to myself to maintain the surprise. The party was spending a lot of time exploring, and the DM mentioned that if we had been paying attention, we had already been given the solution to our mission. Thinking she was dropping a hint about the splash page puzzle and was encouraging us to hurry up, I insisted the party go to the area where we would most likely encounter the dragon even though everyone else still wanted to poke around in our current surroundings. Sure enough, we found the dragon exactly where I thought it would be. Our session ended with me approaching it and telling a bad knock knock joke and the party being baffled by my sudden change in motivation. The party spent the two weeks between sessions talking anxiously about the upcoming fight and being confused and annoyed with my character's bizarre behavior. When the next session began, I was ready for my hero moment. Then our DM had us roll initiative. The battle began in earnest. The dragon even attacked me. I figured she had forgotten my joke from the previous session, so I told a new one on my turn — to no effect. Confused, I messaged her separately. She messaged back, "Would killing the dragon with a joke be fun for you?" to which I replied, "Yes." When I tried a third knock knock joke during my next turn, she said out loud that she wasn't going to play chicken with me and that there is a statute of limitations on splash page riddles. We ended up winning a close fight, but my behavior was absolutely absurd without the context of the clue. My character is typically careful and intelligent, and several players wondered aloud about my seemingly out-of-left-field choices. I didn't say anything further to the group, since I didn't want to call out the DM. Plus, I'm pretty sure they would have told me that we won, so I should stop being a baby and get over it. My DM later messaged me apologizing if the combat was frustrating for me and explaining that she had assumed that we had abandoned the puzzle. She said she wanted to create a combat encounter that was engaging for everyone. I understand that perspective and I don't think she was intentionally taunting me. Still, I can't help but wonder if this was a fair judgement on my DM's part. I had been looking forward to this moment for weeks. Was my DM wrong to pull the rug out from under me in order to have a cooler boss battle, or do hints have an expiration date? Also, do my friends hate me? I humbly await your ruling. P.S. Hypothetically, out of pure curiosity, would it affect your ruling at all if I had again used a website to help me solve the splash page puzzle?

saavikams

hello honorable justices tanner, murphy, axford and i guess the bailiff too. i present to you the case of the cube dicked rouge. it was our first combat of the campaign and our rouge was failing miserably (rolled a 1, a 2, and another 1). naturally they were disappointed by getting to do absolutely nothing in combat while my paladin and our bard beat up the baddie so they decided to find new entertainment. completely unsanctioned they announced they were going to “roll for dick size” they rolled a nat 20. now they won’t stop mentioning their 20 inch penis claiming that it is canon because they rolled for it and got a nat 20. they mention it every session even now claiming that it is 20 inches on every side and they have a cube dick. should this unsanctioned roll be considered canon to the campaign?

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?

Sawyer Rappa

to the juiciest of judges and the vivacious bailiff: the party i dm for was arrested in a war-torn town, the factions made up of werewolves and grungs vs sprites & bullywugs. they befriended two of the werewolf guards (armin and armon) and promptly became invested in their torrid love triangle with a third werewolf named kyle, who canonically looks like matthew gray gubler. it's now two years later and the party managed to get out of town before a full-on war broke out. however, in a recent session, our monk/barbarian (who joined the party after the above event) who is from the war-torn area narrated in a dream sequence of the ensuing battle, in which he fucking punched armin, armon, and kyle to death in one fell punch. the party is asking how to make this action against the geneva conventions, thank you

Through the Dimensions

hail and well met, honorable and diligent supreme crit justices and the baliff who picks the cases and therefore is very awesome. 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.

Mason N.

May it please the Grand Court of Crit and the guy who is taking care of Tucker's kid, 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.

dat_rogue_baddie

To the divine and ever fair and just supreme crit justices murphy, axford, and tanner and the modest bailiff john? i think? 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?

Mike

Fumbling the Nat 20. To the holiest of holy Justices and the strapping (or strapless depending on who you ask) Baliff Jake. 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 Hoard of the Dragon Queen. 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. 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?

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.

Axyl and Olympia

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

Shel B Kennas fav SG is welly’s number one felly

Hello cool cat collective of judges and a golden retriever of a bailiff. I present the case of the gold for xp and the stingy DM. we are on a gold for XP system in 5e AND we have to meet a cleric that knows the ritual spell to level us up whenever he deems fit. We can only go up 1 level at a time and he can also take our magical items if we don’t have the $ to level up. I have a supreme potion of healing worth 25,000 gold. Recently I encountered a magical artificer shop and I was going to sell the potion to buy cool items for the party and have enough reserves to split so we could level up He refused but said I could trade the potion for essentially 8500 gp worth of magical items which is shorting me out of a lot of gold and XP opportunity AND told me I’ll never be able to sell or trade it for value bc “it’s too much gold”. We currently average 10-15 gp per session and haven’t leveled up since June (and that was level 3) I ask… am I being too game breaking being Oliver Twist asking for more or is my DM being a really stingy Scrooge?

Dippity_Dip

To the Justices - beloved as the dawning sun amid the churning sea - and Jerk, I offer my case of the anti-80s rescue. A while ago I was invited to a Curse of Strahd campaign which had started a few months prior; I joined and played my first session as a bard whose instrument was a synthesizer. One of the encounters we had was rescuing a fellow player from a group of cultists; I pulled out my synth and started playing as a distraction, but the DM thought it was hilarious and with a good performance check, we were able to defeat the cultists with a group 80s soft rock ballad. The issue comes in with the Bloodhunter at the table who, despite all our attempts to involve him, refused to be included. His character instead walked away from the group and went into the woods, talking down to our characters when he came back. Even after the cultists were defeated, he remained mad at the rest of us for being silly and was really passive aggressive out of game when we talked about it. I thought we had a really good time at the table and was happy with the session, but I couldn’t help feeling bad about my friend who seemingly just wanted to play a serious campaign. Should we have toned down the sillyness, or should that player have loosened up a bit? I leave it to the mercy of the court

Austin

May it please the elegant and venerable Crit Justices and Baliff Papa 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.

Denali Smith

Dear honorable Justices Tanner, Axford, and Murphy (plus Jake) I present to you the case. One of my players watches Critical Roll and references all the rules (including homebrew) instead of the actual source books however I play with source books and my own homebrew how would one gently explain that these aren’t official rules.

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 wildly 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.

Brandon Carnley

Hello honorable justices Murphy, Axford, and Tanner, as well as the Amir’s friend. My party has been playing for a little over 2 years. We are currently on our second campaign. During our first campaign we had a member of the party that would constantly use his thunder wave spell and hit his teammates. Mainly me. I was knocked out by his thunder wave 3 times during the first campaign. Moving forward to campaign 2. He has continued to use his spells to harm his team and then when he goes down later on he will complain when no one wants to help him. Should I just accept this as something that happens in the game or should I use my Paladin and Divine Smite this turd to give him a taste of his own medicine?

Wings of Silver

May it please the luminous Jake and the other guys I guess, I present the case of the chaotic noble. I was playing a character I called Lawrence Lerlous Von Einswald and I wanted him to be the most stereotypical noble possible. Annoying English accent and all that. At one point towards the end of our campaign, I had to leave the group as I was going on holiday to New Zealand. I didn't want Lawrence to just become an NPC controlled by the DM so I took the opportunity to leave on my own terms by abandoning the party at a critical fight, almost getting them killed. I had good backstory reasons for leaving, was I wrong for caring too much about my character? I humbly await the justice of the court.

Dave 3D Art

May it please the court, and the honourable bailiff Jicholas. I present to you the case of the Overpowered ring of invisibility. I play as a reborn swarmkeeper ranger (flavoured as a living scarecrow). My DM is extremely generous with magic items. With a belt of storm giant strength, boots of elven kind, and a ring of invisibility I am an axe throwing killing machine. There's no real drama with the build but we do kind of debate on how it works. As far as I can tell I only ever use the ring as written in the rules, using actions in combat to activate the ring and/or only activating it between encounters. It keeps me from getting hit, and lets me take good shots. I will admit that sometimes I look at my damage output, and wish that I held back to make the fight longer. So does it sound like a bit OP of the build or should I just hold back. Thank you Jicholas.

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 my 1s, 20s, and all numbers between to the court’s eternal, final judgement.

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.

Nick Neverman

Good morrow Judges & Ever present, pesky bailiff Jack. I started a campaign for my best friend, cousin and brother in law. My cousin is very “creative” with character concepts and we had to have three chats before we could agree. His first character was inspired by the main character of Up, except his sword was a polymorphed ancient dragon that urged him to commit a myriad of crimes. I said sure but was not ok with the sword having a full 12d6 breath weapon at level 3. This was apparently too much tweaking so he went back to the chalkboard. He then came to me with a character idea of a golem piloted by two squirrels who can only communicate using Batman & avenger quotes…. His plan was to have 20 pages of quotes and only communicate through them. Also there’s zero magic involved, the squirrels are just absurdly smart, but also just regular squirrels who can’t speak. I suggested we rework it to be an awakened squirrel that could fully communicate and had found/repaired a mech that he could customize & upgrade throughout the campaign. He also said this wasn’t in the spirit of his original idea and we had to move to a third. We finally came to an agreement on the third character after an hour discord call and some mechanical tweaks, but he was still upset that I was trying to “stifle his creativity.” Justices and Jack, was in the wrong to try & work through these or should I have just let him run with his absurd ideas?

Allen LaFollette

Forgive me Dice Christ for I have sinned, it has been 69 days since my last confession. While in an intense battle aboard a spelljammer I ignored the will of Dice Christ. Our sorcerer, who had been unconscious twice this fight, had just been healed by our cleric and was floating through space away from the ship. He used his immovable rod to launch himself back towards the boat and within fire bolt range of the enemy. However he was unable to hit even with advantage for the cool factor. I allowed the players behind my screen and told them that this succeeded because the enemy only had 2 hp and it was too dang cool not to end on. My players still talk about how cool this moment was but I still feel the need to seek Dice Christ's forgiveness. How shall I atone for my misdeeds?

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

Skyler Morford

Please hear my dice sins, high court members and Jake as well I guess, I have unknowingly sinned with to many Natural 20’s! I play Griffena Starlight a Tabaxi wild magic sorceress who has to good of luck, allow me to explain. During our last session I started off with a natural 20 on perception check, I thought I had wasted a 20 so early now all of my rolls would be bad, but I was wrong!!! After one or two minutes I rolled another natural 20 on a very important attack roll, sweet I thought, but then it happens again and again and again. In total I rolled that dice 18 times and 7 of those rolls were natural 20’s. It got to the point where I stopped using that dice half way through the session because I felt bad, especially because I play on zoom and use physical dice so I didn’t want people to think I was cheating! This dice has been rolling fairly for the last few months but last session it just went off the rails with these 20’s. Please I’m I blessed with the power of Dice Christ, or have I been cursed to look bad in front of my zoom friends by the Dice Devil!!!!

Derek Johnson

To the esteemed Church Axford, Tanner, Murph and um- oh look a bird. Anyway, I bring to you perhaps a common confession, but with potentially uncommon consequences (mentioned at the very end). I have DMed for my group for several years now. They’re the best group I could ask for, but I feel I may have let them down due to my early sins. When we started playing, most of us were new and we learned a lot by going by rule of cool and listening to NADDPOD. However, due to foolish ignorant creative excitement, I tried homebrewing most of the encounters rather than using preexisting stat blocks. So as you can assume, I fudged many rolls and even health amounts to make sure things didn’t drag nor feel too low stakes. I have since learned the error of my ways by our second campaign, especially as my party has gifted me several books to reference, and have not fudged since. However, I have the Murph curse of always rolling low (both as player and DM, once rolling a 6 for 3 stats for a new character) and in an encounter against a god that me and my party were greatly looking forward to that I was DMing, I rolled so low so many times that combat was over in 3 turns and they three shot the god (he had low hp, but other aspects were supposed to prevent him being hit in the first place, but party rolled high and I low). Though my party said they did enjoy the encounter I designed, I felt disappointed and fear my sins of the past have tainted what should have been a more epic battle against a god. So I ask, what can I do to absolve my transgressions, or do you think this battle has done that already? PS: What makes matters worse is that all but one of my party listen to this podcast and will hear of my betrayal to dice christ, should this be chosen to be aired.

Adam Baker

May it please the high crit and the Balif who is $13 richer if this is being read to the court. I come with the case of the Nearly Deadly Piano. I have a crime with potentially multiple victims and perpetrators but I will remain succinct. I DMd a one shot where players were forced to use improvise weapons and fight back some intruders with items around the players’ cabin (e.g home alone) . I had a player choose to be a bard and during my prep I didn’t consider to give him an improvised instrument, thinking it’d be unfair to the other players if he got his equipment but they didn’t. The only instrument in the place was a grand piano on wheels. I told the bard that he could use the paino as an improvised instrument and could move it around at half speed. The player proceeded to sing and drive the piano (i.e. Thousand Miles) off of the back porch of the cabin onto an enemy below. The bard jumping off before the fall. The question is of damage and a roboDM. Another player pulled up chatGPT and asked it what the damage would be. The answer was 5d6 for a 500lb piano, I decided to make it 7d6. The enemy STILL didn’t die. I felt bad because I may have ruined the bards largest contribution to the game. Was I wrong to roll for damage at all and not make it an insta kill? Was I wrong to take the bard’s instrument in the first place even though it allowed for the coolest moment of the game? I await your judgement

Jake de Medeiros

Justices and… whatever the other guy does, I bring you a case. I play at a game store in Montreal, and recently our party (all people I’ve never met) broke into a castle to save a hostage. The hostage was being held at knifepoint, and as the DM started narrating what the man holding the knife said to us, he was speaking Spanish. None of us at the table speak Spanish, and we had been playing entirely in French before this, and so we were confused for a second but ultimately our assassin rogue used the opportunity to get a sneak attack crit and kill the man holding the knife. Almost instantly, the “hostage” revealed vampire fangs and attacked us. The guy playing the rogue was super mad at the DM saying that all of us spoke “common” and that Spanish was not a language in the game, the DM said that it was fair game that the vampires hostage wouldn’t speak a language we knew and was being puppeteered by the vampire to trick us. Is literally speaking a different language than your players fair? Ultimately I think it was kind of fun but I understand both sides here. Thanks

Sneakers O’Krool

may it please the court and bébé juanitos. i am playing an assassin rogue who like to steal from the rich and give back to the poor, and the party’s cleric tells me that “you have to stop stealing or i will turn you in.” naturally my character is betrayed and is upset and is considering either running away or turning on the cleric, but doesn’t want to upset the rest of the party, which he gets along with. so far nothing has happened and i don’t want to upset the other player. should i quell the rage of the backstabbing or should i act on the hunch i feel. i am at the mercy of your ruling.

Hayley Carter

May it inspire the wit of those who worship the crit and the jester who always rolls lesser, My girlfriend and I recently joined a new DND party. I've had some playing experiencing and she basically has none. Because of this, I kept an eye on her character sheet throughout the game and reminded her when to add proficiency and what not. The first session was great, but I could tell one player didn't seem to vibe with the group. The next session, anytime I would lean over to help her, he told me I was metagaming and that if she didn't know what to add she should roll and intelligence saving throwing to remember. My girlfriend was flustered, so I stepped in and told him that he wasn't the DM and needed to chill. He has since quit the group. Was he right that she needs to fly the nest so soon to be a legit player, or am I good to help her in building her nest? Sincerely, Eras Schwift

Eric Pennington

Howdy howdy honorable justices and the Baliff (Insert random name). I bring to you the case of the cut-off Druid. I DM a game for my best friends from college and in their very first night playing together, our Dragonborn paladin was trying to convince some goblins that Bahamut is a great religion and also trying to sell the goblins some Adderall (he put into the campaign without asking and I thought it was hilarious) and as he is rolling great on his charisma and persuasion checks. The half-orc Druid from the shadows cast an entangle and as soon as initiative started and the Dragonborn went down. The rest of the party ran away ! I narrated the Dragonborn’s death after three failed death saves and the player was very upset that his first DnD character went out like that. So I ask oh honorable justices should have I stopped the Druid or had something else happen ?

Star_Drek

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

Mary Rezin

For the Church of Dice Christ, I come to confess a crime I am about to commit. One of my players, a gunslinger fighter, has requested to be killed off, we've discussed this and I have agreed, and it's been decided to kill her off during a giant sand worm attack as they travel through the desert a la shadow of the colossus sand worm. However, as level 15 adventurers it is VERY difficult to kill any of them, as I have tried my hardest before and they all managed to survive (the cleric, 2 rangers and druid can all heal) So I come to confess I will be probably end up lying about rolls, and unfairly targeting this player. I stand ready to do any penance nessecary.

WIlliam DeMartino

May it please the jubilant Justices and a subtle nod at the AI who has surely replaced jake at this point: I DM a longtime roll20 campaign set in a homebrew setting. The party’s Circle of the Moon Druid, Xavier, was a new player who originally struggling with the mechanics of Wildshape. I made them a table of acceptable beasts, with links to the stat blocks. After a month long break we came back and the Druid immediately asked if he could Wildshape into a ghost, and when I said no he asked to become a dragon. I ruled against him, but in the subsequent combat his character died due to some tragic rolls and I feel a bit conflicted. Was I wrong to say no to this wild ask of a wildshape? Or did was it poetic justice that he’s now a ghost?

Harrison March

To the proud supreme crit and their gentle baby bailiff, I bring the case of the suggestible DM. I DM a 5e campaign for some friends. Currently they are mucking about in a swamp in the shadowfell, and before they arrived I hinted at how dangerous the place would be outside of pockets of civilization. They ran into a young black dragon reskinned with a mushroom theme (thank you murph), and early in the battle the warlock casted Suggestion, instructing the dragon to “fly us to Denny’s and leave us alone.” The dragon failed its save and obliged. Denny is a friendly goblin who is trying to start a bed and breakfast. Later, they needed a favor from an alchemist in town. He said he would do the favor in exchange for them killing the dragon Fungoxus and bringing back 10 dragon scales. Again, Suggestion was used to great effect: “How does 3 dragon scales sound?” (The group already had these 3 from a smaller previous encounter.) He failed his save and agreed that actually sounded totally fair. The players are having fun and are joking about making it their new mission to never let this dragon die. My question: is Suggestion broken, or am I interpreting it wrong? I await your suggestions. P.S. hate the show. Thanks

Calvin Silver

Excellent judges and excellent/execrable bailiff (depending on the mood of The Court): During my first campaign dming a few years ago, I had a player who wished for their character (named Delight) to worship Cthulhu. Given that Cthulhu is a chaotic evil being and this was not a chaotic evil campaign (nor was the character chaotic evil!!), I was not keen on it. But as a first time dm, I didn’t want to disappoint my players, so I allowed it. However, I forced the player to bargain with Cthulhu in order to receive powers from him as a warlock. To get powers, Delight would have to sacrifice someone close to them. The player did not take kindly to this and accused me of attempting to railroad them away from their chosen deity. I think that I played it fairly, but was I in the wrong? I humbly await the judgement of The Court. (PS the player is now my ex and the entire friendship group has since dramatically dissolved if this makes it any better/worse)

Henry Targett

Dear honourable judges and the dirty little cake. I present the case of the now it all palidin. I am playing a wild magic barbarian in a new campaign. And every time i use an ability the paladin googles it and then tells me how it works, and tells the dm if i am doing it wrong. Is this crossing a line or am I just quick to rage (barbarian joke).

Denver Studebaker

This is a dice christ confessional, honorable messengers of dice Christ’s will. Years ago I DM’d online for a group, they liked to do certain checks privately especially when it came to social situations, each player would roll a persuasion in a channel only the player and I could see. When they did this though with opposing ideas I would ignore the rolls and take the pitch I preferred. It’s been 3 years and I’ve grown as a DM and I can’t stop cringing at my horrible behavior. Could dice christ find it in his heart to forgive me?

DonutHoo

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

Steebs

Intro-Free 2023 so I'll just get right to it. I will soon be embarking on a new campaign with my friend as DM. He is an experienced DM and when we were doing character creation he mentioned that he might want to introduce some homebrew rules to shake this campaign up a bit. Ok with me, except for one that is giving me pause. He said that he often feels like combat can drag on a bit too long, so he's considering cutting everyone's HP in half, PCs and monsters alike. We're starting at level one, so I feel like my character is just going to die immediately? From one hit? I expressed some concern about this, but he said he wasn't even sure he was going to do it, so the conversation ended there. Justices, am I right in thinking this is an ill-conceived rule, and should I continue trying to dissuade my DM from going down this path of destruction? Or should I give this homebrew a chance?

Justice Bwr

To the high council of the almighty judges, and that stinky little goblin Jake. I recently ran a campaign for my friends over the summer, it was a short and sweet session that was mostly goofs and gags. We played in the town of Hill-thong, ate totally not suggestive food at the C*m bucket, and investigates a Mattress firm that was an obvious front for the mafia. The problem was that my players were very inexperienced and most have adhd or are just crazy so they never learned their characters. In order to incentivize them I gave them quizzes over their own abilities and features in order to make them learn. After a couple sessions they finally started getting them right and leveling up, but was my forced quiz-based-level-up-system too harsh for my goofball friends? PS we all had lots of fun and eventually beat the final boss, Bigfoot, a noir woman named Vanessa Titsandlegs, and an 8-year-old.

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.

ChuckT98

The case of the Dueling Patrons May it please the court and the mediocre bailiff, I bring the case of the fiend warlock vs the celestial warlock. During my groups previous campaign, there were two of us playing warlocks pledged to two different patrons. I was pledged to a fiend patron and my friend was pledged a celestial patron. However, neither of us were aware of the others patron and didn’t know that the patrons were working against each other. At one point, my character found a magical item that my patron wanted me to deliver to a volcano and wouldn’t give any other details. My friends patron told him that I was trying to use the artifact to start a demon invasion that could end the world. My friends character confronted me about the artifact and tried to steal it and then threatened to kill me if I didn’t hand it over to him. He did this without ever telling me about the demon invasion or explaining why he wanted the artifact. My character had just met his and I didn’t want to upset my patron so tried to escape. Unfortunately, his character was a min-maxed unearthed arcana build that had way more damage output than i did, so I was knocked out quickly. I failed all of my death saving throws as our healer was off taking their long rest. The DM ended the session there and no one seemed particularly happy with the way things went down. Who was in the wrong here? Did my friend and I commit too hard to playing our characters? Did the DM set us up for failure by playing us off each other? I await your humbling decision with earnest. P.S. my next character was a light domain cleric who got along much better with the trigger happy celestial warlock.

Dave 3D Art

Admittedly the Sharpshooter feat is what keeps the axe throwing viable.

Lawyer for Possums

To the Honorable Judges and the high bailiff Baked, I submit a case about stakes. It was my first time playing DnD and after some discussions with the DM about characters ended up deciding to play an air Genasi rogue putpocket, leaving random items in pockets instead of taking anything, named Juniper, who was part of a circus filled with atypical and shady creatures, like a changeling who sold snake oil steroids by shapeshifting from a goblin to an orc. Everything was well until the actual Campaign started, where we were introduced and summoned by a god and immediately told that our level 1 party were the chosen champions to save the world. Immediately I was put off by this as it felt like such an unbelievable situation for my character to buy into, but it continued on to where our first mission occurred, in the home Kingdom of one of our party members. Only the DM altered that player’s intended wishes for said kingdom and turned it into one that hated all non-human races and had the god give every non-human character magic stones that made them look like regular humans. I felt like this almost immediately invalidated half the reasons to make the character in the way I did and the campaign ended up being cancelled a few weeks later. Am I wrong in believing that the DM should have been more open about the intents of the campaign so that I could have created a character that would have better fit into the presented plot?

Corey Ruef

To the honorable judges, and the valid that happens to be standing in the room. I was in a group that did the Don’t Say Vecna one-shot. The party was hired specifically for the fight and had been told before the fight who we were fighting, so our characters new almost exactly what they were getting into. I was playing a Fighter/Paladin multiclass. Our DM told us to go crazy on magic items, and that there was no limit on what we can have. I found a sword that did did 2d6+8 and an additional 2d10 against undead or fiends. I triple confirmed with him that it’s ok, and I even told him I wouldn’t have another weapon because it was so overpowered. He said it was ok each time, even before I offered to give up my weapon. We ended up whomping him fully, and I wasn’t able to even use the sword due to bad rolls. Afterwards, the DM told me that if I had hit Vecna with the sword he would have had Vecna take the sword and drop it into lava with no roll. I told him it was shitty to do that without a roll, and he said I shouldn’t have found a sword that was so powerful. My question: was I wrong to be salty since I did find such a powerful weapon, or was he wrong for not even giving me the option to save my one and only weapon. I humbly wait for your judgment. Also, the DM ended up creating issues with all the players down the line so we are already no longer friends

Jose Mercado Ortiz

To the honorable Justices and Jill and Tucker’s babysitter: Should monks be allowed to MOVE? Our forever-dm was taking a break between campaigns so another player decided to do a one-shot for the group. For this one-shot, I rolled up a level 3 monk character inspired by that Eldermourne act with Lou. In the first combat of that session, I attacked one of the bandits with my action (just one attack) and then I spent a ki point to do a Flurry of Blows with my bonus action. Turns out, my first attack from the Flurry of Blows killed that bandit (because another party member had already attacked them) so I decided to move to the next target and punch them with my last attack from the Flurry of Blows. To my surprise, the player-now-dm said “No, if you move, you lose the attack.” Turns out, the description of the ability Flurry of Blows says “Immediately after taking the attack action…”, which he interpreted as meaning “You have to do both attacks after the attack action. You cannot take a Move action or any other type of action in between Flurry of Blows.” I said “Ok” and ended my turn, but our forever-dm spoke up and called him an “idiot who can’t read for shit”. Is this the correct interpretation of the rules? Or should my monk have been allowed to take a couple of steps before launching another fist?

Peter Mundell

I am here to plead for forgiveness and share my story of Dice Christ. My family approached me and asked if I would run a one-shot for them. My parents and sister-in-law know nothing about DnD and my brother has watched some Critical Role, but they all know how much I love the game and wanted to share in on that. So I happily said yes, and I decided to run A Wild Sheep Chase, which was my first ever game. During the first encounter, I kept rolling nat 20’s. And they kept rolling nat 1’s. Scared of causing a TPK, I began rolling my attacks with disadvantage even though they should have been with advantage. Eventually, they beat the guy after I continually fudged many rolls. I felt guilty, but it was clear they were having a good time. When they approached the wizard’s lair, though, the druid cast Pass Without Trace on the group. Making stealth rolls of 25+, they all bypassed the bear guards sleeping outside the lair. The rogue rolled a nat 20 to lockpick the door. They then locked the door behind them so the guards couldn’t get in. With high stealth and a 22 athletics check, they snuck up behind the wizard and tied him up before initiative could even start. It is clear that for my transgressions, Dice Christ blessed my group with rolls so high they managed to bypass the entire final encounter. With this story, I swear to never turn my back on Dice Christ again, and thank him for helping my family absolutely whomp me so hard that I couldn’t even fight them. They look forward to playing again.

Sam Ross

(Maybe omit my name just in case) Oh Dice Christ, I come to you not with a confession, but a genuine request for spiritual guidance. I was recently hired by a local school district to be a DM for the new after school tabletop program, a real government job with a real paycheck attached to it. I wish to use my good fortune to create the most good possible, by not only making compelling adventures for the students, but also to impart moral lessons and subtly guide their development to grow into full on anarcho socialists that support mutual aid and distrust capitalism and authority. How can I make sure my adventures impart these lessons while not immediately being fired? Thank you for your wisdom, RNGesus.

Alex Jones

May it please the court and the good justice Axford, the bad justice murphy and the blue hole justice tanner. Along with the handsome and robust bailiff Jake. A Final Blast'em grandma update In the final session we ever got to play, Grandma was riding her Tree Ent(warhorse) into battle against the manifest destiny high elf king. She crit on 3 straight attack rolls and ended up killing the king significantly earlier than expected. I feel I was wronged by the justices(Murphy and Tanner) who made my grandma into my own personal mature monster who wrecked all Evildoers in her path. She passed last year but her chaos during games will stay with me forever. Thank you for hearing my case and all the joy you bring others during their most trying times.

Dan Healey

To the Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Crits and it's clergy. This is more of me Testifying to the power of Dice Christ. I'm currently DMing for the first time over discord for my 6 friends and they just had their first boss fight. The heavy hitter was an Alleybasher Ogre from the Tome of Beasts, but the party is level 2, so I figured they could handle it. Well half the party decide to split up to look for an escape and very quickly the Ogre dropped 2 of the remaining players unconscious. The next round it was the Ogre, still looking pretty beefy, versus the halflings fighter who had taken some hits. With his first attack, the Ogre rolled a nat 20. In that moment, I thought about fudging the roll, but everyone saw my face so I put my faith in the dice and rolled damage, which was minimal, but the fighter was in single digit HP. Second attack, I thought about skipping, hoping that in the chaos of battle, maybe they forgot about it but no, they remembered and I let the dice go knowing full well, that this might be a death sentence for the party. Once again, I put my faith into Dice Christ to show me the way and I rolled a Nat 1. The Ogre was killed the next turn and the 2 downed players were able to be brought back up. I am now a true believer in the mercy of Dice Christ and might have to start my missionary work. In the name of the Help Action, Advantage and the Natural 20, Amen

Chrys

Hello beautiful and esteemed Justices plus Jake-odore. Am I wrong for ending my dnd party(friend group) before they finished the campaign but after level 20? Many many people passed through my table but I had three to 5 consistent people to play with for 4 years. Started a Saltmarsh into Planar travel between the gods, Faerun and Greyhawk stuff all mashed together. Never had any complaints and quelled a lot of in fighting. Apparently too much. ONE OF MY PLAYERS LIED ABOUT THEIR VACCINATIONS SO WE WOULD NOT FIND OUT THEY WERE ANTIVAX. ANOTHER ATTACKED A PERSON THEY WERE IN A RELATIONSHIP WITH. 2 were a couple that always fought so it was just piling on. I essentially broke up with all of my friends I had then. Followed Murph’s advice and now I’m pretty much a friendless/tableless DM with an amazing rp partner in my wife when we feel like it but a lot less playtime now. Almost had a full 5 year campaign akin to One Piece/Injustice fights and many godly encounters, but all to waste. Should I be to blame for what my players did to my table and essentially my life? P.S The antivax and violent person were dealt with as soon as it was found out.

Charlie Gillespie

The the magnanimous Justices and the Baliff Cake. I come to you with, The case of a tragic but very wrong death. Me a 4th level blade singer Eladrin were in a battle with a phase spider. I just happened to kill them in one turn. My DM was a little miffed, but no big deal and we moved on. We quickly came upon a new enemy. One that I hadn’t ever heard of or even remember the name it was a type of bug. It’s the bugs turn and it attacks me and hits so I had to roll a con save. Nat 1. The DM announced sorry but you’re dead. I couldn’t even be raised because they had to burn my body and flee because of the eggs it laid? I was furious. So I asked the DM to read the stat block while the rest are fighting. He refused and went for a smoke. Looked it up on my phone and it did not have a 1 save fail and die mechanic. I never said anything and just rolled a new character. Should I have brought it up to my DM (who is also my bf) or let it go to save the peace? I await your decision.

Jack Nolan

Hello most righteous judges and the my name twin bailiff Jack. I come to you with the case of the accidental PC death. A few years ago I was a new DM running a Percy Jackson inspired campaign with home-brewed subclasses flavored as godly heritages. During one of our first few sessions while the players were at camp they were attacked by a wild pack of griffins. Being a new DM and not really understanding how balancing combat works, I quickly began to realize that this was heading towards a TPK. One of my players was down and had 1 failed death save. I told her that Chiron, the camp director was coming to heal them on his next turn but it was her turn first. I said “All you have to do is not roll a 1.” Of course she rolled a 1. With the players being level 3 and no one having revivify the PC was dead. I allowed the son of hades to basically roll a divine intervention to attempt to bring them back and had Chiron try and bring them back but with failed rolls on both the players accepted the pc death. It brought them closer together and the new PC was quickly adopted to the group the next session. The problem is this. After, the PC told me that if they had another character death they would quit the game, and the other players quickly followed suit. Of course I don’t want to kill my PCs but without the threat of PC death in combat the stakes are completely gone. Was I right to let the PC die after all these attempts to bring them back, or should I have gone against the wishes of Dice Christ and allowed their character to live on? I throw myself at the mercy of the court.

Romlette

To the valid water-hating-Justice Axford and only her, I present the case of the Pouting Player. My high level group has been playing for over a year, and they’re all great. I am playing a ‘face-of-the-party’ rogue prince, who became such due to his high charisma and general patience and ‘therapist’ nature. However, I always take extra care to make sure I don’t dominate rp and that other characters get a chance. There was an interrogation scene in which our Barbarian used a heart of a god inside him, in which the scene was very clearly mostly his with support others. However, our Tabaxi wizard kept trying to cut in on the interrogation, and was clearly frustrated when the ideas they put forth weren’t helpful (Charm person versus an anti magic cell, etc). As they couldn’t find an area to cut in, they clearly started to get frustrated with huffing, groaning, slouching in their chair, and completely tuning out etc. This player does this often when they get frustrated, often throwing mini tantrums and completely removing themselves attention wise or physical wise for 30 minutes to an hour. Our DM will often try to pull them back in by offering chances for them to use magic or to explain how they help, but they just say ‘they’re fine’ and don’t engage. About 45 minutes after their tantrum started, we found ourselves in a room full of arguing council people. Everyone looked to me, and I was really excited because my moment had finally come to do what my character was good at - Due to reliable talent, he can only get a minimum 23 persuasion. opened my mouth and was ready to go into my flourish to get the attention before the wizard interrupted me with a “Do you mind if I take this one?” I felt cornered and a bit bad that they had been pouting the whole time and were now trying to insert themselves, so I gave a very tentative ‘yes.’ The wizard ended up yelling, which the council just yelled back. I will say after a bit of waiting, the rogue and barbarian did team up by virtue of standing on each others shoulders to be 14 feet tall and two nat 20s on a persuasion check, so I wasn’t totally robbed - But I humble await your answers, should I have stood my ground and taken my rp moment? Or was I right to let our tantrum player try and wiggle back into role-play?

Mad Dungeon Mama

I come before the Holy order of Dice Christ with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, begging for forgiveness. I mostly play DND online with discord using Avraea, dice rolling bot that connects to DND beyond character sheets, very cool. However...I have found a loophole. I created another server... Added Avrae to the server... And will change my selected spells, equipment, and other daily variables to suit the current game. An update in any server affects all servers. Did I need haste to get out of a tight spot? Did I want to attune to a different item to have better DC's? Do I need a different damage type? Swap. Update. Whomp! But the power of Dice Christ compels me to repent! Please, tell me how I must attone for these sins!

MyMomSaysImHot

To the honorable justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner presiding, and the lowly bailiff Cake Today I present to you the case of the self-destructive character intro, and the consequences thereafter. Many moons ago one of our party members (let’s call him Bruce) was getting bored of his current character and wanted to play a new one. He decided a great way to introduce his new character would be to have that new character (Bruce 2) enter from behind and kill his old character (Bruce 1) in front of the party. Naturally one of our other party members argued that our characters couldn’t let this slide, watching our friend die in front of us and had to retaliate. The rest of the party then initiated PVP and began to kill Bruce 2 as revenge for killing Bruce 1. It was a 5v1 and Bruce 2 was dead almost instantly and Bruce (the player) was evidently upset that we had slain his new character. It’s been a long time since this and everyone is still friends and Bruce’s new character Bruce 3 lived a long time but Justices, I ask you this: Were we wrong for avenging Bruce 1? I humbly await your judgement

Miranda B, Crick DVM

Hi judges and Chris. I have no case, I just wanted to say hello. I do have an egregious dice Christ confession though. As a newer player in 2020, I played in an online game on roll20 with some of my friends. I wanted to be super dialed in during combat and follow along as closely as possible. Not knowing any better… I looked up the stat blocks for the monsters we were fighting. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with it until our DM paused after one of my turns and says “I think someone is cheating.” I went ghost white and never looked up another stat block again. Being a DM now, that has made things extremely difficult (/j). Oh most glorious congregation, please absolve me of my sins.

Stuffandsuchrqg

Hello honorable justices and Jake who is my favorite and I can't really commit to this bit sorry!! I bring to you the case of the cannibalism conundrum. I'm playing in a Pathfinder group with a goblin cleric (me), a ratfolk rogue, and a pixie barbarian. As we were escaping from a thieves guild, our pursuers followed us to a closing stone door and stuck their hand in the gap. Our ratfolk rogue proceeded to bite the hand off making them retreat their hand and allowing the door to shut. He then proceeded to EAT the finger as it was in his mouth already. My cleric was horrified and called him a cannibal. He argued that since it was a human and that he was a ratfolk it was fine. I argued that we all talk, live together, marry, and share a society with humans so that's like a person eating a person aka cannibalism. Though my fellow players and I found the whole situation hilarious IRL, it has caused a bit of drama between the characters since my cleric now questions the morals of our rogue. Should I have just made my cleric think nothing of it or is it cannibalism?? I humbly await your judgement. (If I may add another point, imagine if an elf did this to a human. Cannibalism right???)

K. Diane

To the honorable justices and baliff, My husband is an after school teacher who has managed to indoctrinate an entire classroom of elementary schoolers into the world of D&D. He has spent the last year and change running a campaign for them and this school year, the same group of kids have begun to DM on different scheduled days for each other. One kid’s campaign is a little too familiar…note for note the major plot points of the original teacher-led campaign. Any words of advice on how to encourage the student to branch out or make the story his own without crushing his newfound love of DMing? (Kid is only 9, so consider that in your sentencing 😅) Ps we’re coming to your live show in LA and are very excited!

Your Good Buddy Brandon

To the right honorable Justices and their pet the bailiff, I present a case of redo's, resentment, and zombie healthcare. My first time DMing I asked my players to be sure of their choices when leveling up as one of my players (we'll call him Beau) had a habit of changing his mind and several times asked our previous DM to "re-spec" his character. Go figure, a few weeks in Beau asks me to allow some edits to take a level of rogue. I acquiesced but informed him that in story he would die and be resurected with his new skills. He agreed, and was struck down the following session by and honest-to-Dice Christ nat 20. Here's the issue, the party's trigger happy Necromancer zombified Beau's corpse before the NPC Cleric I sent along could Gentle Repose him to prevent this, so now the healing guild's 1,000gp Ressurection spell won't work as it can't bring back undead. The only options are Reincarnate for 1,000gp (which Beau is against as it would almost certainly change his race) or True Ressurection for 25,000gp. Upon hearing this Beau became upset, stomped outside to hit his vape a few times and fumed silently for the remainder of the session while the rest of the party ended up giving basically all the money they had to cover the spell -- but he DID resurrect with his remade character. I fear I was too harsh, should I have just ignored that some spells don't work on undead, was I wrong to preemptively punish this behavior I knew was coming? I throw myself upon the mercy of the court.

PawPaw’s Overalls

To the Juicy Justices and Bland Baliff, I present the case of the annoying DM Husband NPC. I’m in a relatively long running in person game ran by a good friend of mine. This has started to change as the DM’s Husband has begun to sit in on our games and voice or play as one of the DM’s NPCs of monsters. I have zero issue with this, and it’s led to some fun moments. However, things have taken a turn recently when he has started making NPCs that are directly combative to the party, specifically me. His most recent character was a high level rouge who had several magical items that took him to 30AC, meaning I really couldn’t even fight him back during combat, resulting in me going unconscious twice during the battle. He literally was only going after me, and didn’t even “arrive” to the battle until I was somewhat separated from the party on the back line (I’m playing an evocation wizard). About half way through the battle, I asked if he could at least roll to see who he attacked in our party because it felt like he was only targeting me. He agreed, but after rolling behind his wife’s DM screen, and getting “another 4” to attack me for a 3rd straight time, I stood up to look over the screen and saw a 6 facing up on the die. I got extremely frustrated and just dropped it as the DM finally made him stop when she realized he was faking the rolls, but I’m just not sure it’s worth it to continue playing in this campaign. So I ask, should I quit this campaign? Raise a bigger issue with my friend (the DM)? Or how should I proceed? Thanks for everything!

Andrew Whitford

To the honorable supreme crit justices and Bailey, My friends and I got into dnd about three years ago, and we’ve been playing biweekly ever since. In that time, my one friend (let’s call him Max) has become an insane min maxer, easily doing a butt ton of damage in a single round. On the other hand, my other friend (let’s call him Minnie) still has no clue how to play the game and often forgets he even has multiple attacks. This makes balancing encounters insanely hard - Max needs mega monsters to stay challenged yet anything too hard absolutely destroys Minnie. Should I continue to develop mid-level battles to keep Minnie alive, or should I start throwing some real challenges out, potentially killing off Minnie in the process? P.s., this whole case is a lie and I hate the show

Johny Dude-Kay

Once again, I present to you, the inscrutable judges Axford, Murphy, and Deep Blue Hole, and the also the Lowly Bailiff who's name is both up for debate and unimportant, "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 PS: Jake is the best and I am so sorry for being so mean

Elana

Forgive me Podcasters for I have goofed, the campaign I'm running has the party doing a set of 3 tasks for a powerful wizard so he'll let them see an all knowing Gith and ask her questions about anything they need to know, sort of inspired by the watchman trials but amped up for a level 15 party. The last of these tasks was to steal a specific item from a dragon-like monsters horde. After one round, the fey wanderer ranger throws a suggestion spell on it to just give them the item, I roll my save and get a nat 19 and the artificer/wizard hits me with a silvery barbs and I get a shout out to the 2 crew. It wasn't until I was running that encounter through my head at work the next day that I remembered I had legendary resistances, I've never had a campaign go to a high enough level that I had to keep those kinds of abilities in mind. Ultimately it was a fun session and the players all feel good about how they got through all three of the trials, but I do worry about future encounters not being a challenge due to my lack of experience.

Jack H

To the most badass justices and the wittle baiwiff wif his wittle badge. 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 better answer should’ve been accepted.

Derek Smith

To my dearest, most beloved friends* whom serve the highest court I present the case of the dinner dilemma. Whilst my brother and his betrothed were visiting, I was attempting to teach them how D&D works and how dice decide what the outcome is. As it was approaching dinner time, our party was stuck between two options: Red Robin or Texas Roadhouse (there is no Applebees or Ruby Tuesday, please forgive me but our options were limited). Three of us wanted Texas Road House, but my brothers fiancé desired the honey mustard that can only be found at Red Robin. In the spirit of helping them understand the game we left it up to the dice. 1-5 Texas Road House, 6-20 Red Robin (wanted to give the fiancé a good chance at success). We rolled…a natural 4. I then explained sometimes a generous DM will grant advantage and how that worked and allowed a second roll…shout out to the two crew… she then proclaimed “I don’t like this game” and we ended up at Red Robin anyway. Judges, were we wrong to forsake the dice in order to please our guest? Or should we have stuck by the dices decision despite the fact that this was technically not a D&D game. I humbly await your judgement and just punishment. *Friends includes Honorable Judges Murphy, Axford, and Tanner and should no way be misconstrued as to include the lowly lowly bailiff James

MyrMonkshood

To the Supreme crit justice kids and their papa Jed, I bring you the case of the jail break. I'm in a campaign DMed by my brother. Our party was in the middle of releasing some Kuo-toa prisoners for an underwater city rebellion when a mage tried to stop us. He had some powerful Spirit Guardians surrounding him and a 5-inch tall PC needed to pass the jail keys to another PC who was within the radius of the guardians spell. Thus came about a discussion of whether you can pass (not toss) someone an item without entering the radius of the spell - simply when your hand passes into the radius. The DM ended up having them roll some dex checks for a safe hand off. No drama in this case, but an interesting question about entering a spells range.. PS I dont play dnd, I've never listened to nadpodd, and assume it's a show about rad pod racing.

DoodStoopid

To those who have never known what it’s like to be wrong, and that guy John who keeps apologizing for his input, I present the case of the stolen reaction attack. My party had been traveling for weeks through the wilderness and finally came across a town we could rest in. They let us stay in the main hall of their church and sleep on the pews because I guess nobody had a futon or something. Here we are, minding our business, when a pack of werewolves ambushes the town and quite literally burst through the stained glass windows of the church. Our DM is pretty well known for running some challenging, but fair, combat, and all our characters were already worn out from so much traveling. It comes to our Rogue’s turn, who is primarily a ranged fighter. They use their action to disengage to try to pop one of these dogs with their crossbow and the DM interjects. He says they have a reaction to make an attack against a creature that leaves their range. The Rogue argued that that’s why they disengaged, to avoid the opportunity attack. But the DM pushed back, saying this was a special reaction that on a hit did an additional effect that reduces a creature’s speed to zero, topping it off by saying it was a “Opportunity-Like Attack.” Me and the other player jumped in to defend our Rogue but the DM stands by his ruling and downs our already injured Rogue. Our party was okay at the end of the day, and it was still a lot of fun, we still razz our DM about “opportunity-like attacks” nearly every session. But do we need to seek compensation for their misdeeds or was our DM justified to spank our sleepy butts?

Kyle Bale

To the stately judges and scruffy bailiff, In a recent campaign, I had a wizard university and a player that needed to pass an exam. Instead of a boring regular test, I had him try and pass a quiz show in the style of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire". I even set up a quiz page using an online tool (link available upon request, most of it is not campaign specific). The problem I had was they stumbled during an early question and I let them off the hook with a history check role. I also think that by sending them the link (we played online), they may have been cheating to get the correct answers - was planning on honor's system. After they passed that answer, they ended up getting way further in the quiz than I thought they would and made a stupid amount of gold. Did I make a mess up and not let them fail when I should have? I feel like if things don't have stakes I am doing a disservice as a DM? Did I do the right thing?

Merlin Walraven

Hello honorable justices and bailiff of middling if not questionable honor. I present to you today the case of the disrespectful player. About two years ago, I joined a campaign run by my friend's husband that he DM'd. I have a lot of experience with D&D but have experienced being a bit of a forever DM, so I was happy to be a part of a campaign where I didn't have to be in charge of everything. After playing for a while, I realized I didn't really jive with the DM's style. Nothing in the world ever had consequences and the PCs were never given time nor space to interact with each other, so the only things that happened were bits between the DM and his best friend and fights with cool monsters he thought up. (I maintain that he runs really fun encounters and has fun monster/fight ideas.) The DM was experiencing some burnout with a weekly schedule and some of the other players expressed interest in more roleplay heavy campaigns so I offered to run a quick little monster of the week mini campaign on off weeks. I ran three sessions and throughout all of them, the DM for the other campaign was completely disengaged and playing Zelda on his Switch. I ultimately decided that the group probably wasn't for me and left the table, but stayed in contact with a few of the players, including the DM's sister. After the end of the campaign I quit, the DM's sister offered to be the DM for the next campaign to give the DM a chance to actually play because, and I didn't know this before, he'd never actually played D&D before DMing. Their new DM is so amazing and I love getting to hear about the campaign from her, especially hearing the lovely first time DM stuff she's experiencing--stuff like how her players are finding really cool ways of putting pieces together and solving mysteries even when she isn't shoving answers in her face. The only problem is that every time I hear about their campaign, the old DM is actively disengaged from the campaign, not interacting with the other players nor the DM, on his phone or switch, or straight up complaining about how much time the other players spend on engaging with the story and the world around them. Even in combat, which the old DM once said was his favorite part of the game, he's on his phone until his turn and then the new DM has to give him the whole rundown again once he's paying attention. The new DM has offered him breaks and fidgets or even less disruptive things to keep his focus like coloring sheets or ways he can stay engaged by helping her keep up with how much damage the enemies have taken, but all for nothing. He even texted her about how much he hates the other players' characters. Because I have a lot of DM experience and the new DM is in a campaign I started after I quit the initial campaign, the new DM has asked for advice with a lot of how to run a campaign and now how to handle a player that seems so disengaged, but to me it's at a point where I just want to tell her that she should probably ask him to leave the table if he's not having fun. The new DM doesn't want to do that, partly because he was the one who started the group and partly because he's her brother and she would never be able to live it down. So I ask you judges, what can a new DM do when an old DM is being actively disrespectful at the table?

DT5537

To the Honorable Judges, and the extremely handsome bailiff who's name escapes me, I bring you the case of the forcibly swapped race. My party recently swapped from 5e to Pathfinder 2e, by popular vote, and thus we had to translate our characters from 5e to PF2E. I am playing a Bardbarian, so this translated nicely as PF2E has a muse for the bard that is a warrior. So far so good. The problem is this, I WAS a dragonborn in 5e, and there is no nice translation for them in PF2E. I suggested the Battlezoo Ancestries: Dragons, as it was the closest thing to a bipedal dragon man. (Let it be known that my Dragonborn was tall and dumb, this is important). Alas, the DM said that I wasn't a literal dragon in 5e, so I would have to settle for being a LIZZARDFOLK with the draconic scion heritage! In his world, Lizardfolk are small, fast, and deceitful! My sweet baby boy Dremmesh is thick of ass and thick of skull, and would never lie to someone on purpose but the DM insists that THAT is how I should be playing him now. And so, honorable judges and handsome bailiff, am I wrong to be upset, or should I bend to God's will? PS, the DM and I are great friends outside of just Roleplaying, and we discussed this in person and came to a conclusion, but I continue to be pedantic and seek validation for my woes, joking as they are.

Gianni Pappas

Dice Christ Confession: I the proud owner of TGI Mondays and here to confess my sins during a one shot. I was running a one shot for some players I had never played with before. One player who I did know didn’t show but everyone was having a great time and they loved my game show of death. All was good until the final battle with a beholder. This was my first time using legendary actions and it was rough. I did adjust the HP and remove 2 of his legendary actions to account for the missing player. However the fighter who was a forever DM and he had the worst rolls. He was petrified for most of the fight and after 3 rounds of combat I added a mechanic last minute to reach into the treasure pile they were fighting in as a bonus action to grab items and the second item I had was a potion of greater restoration to help the fighter. I flubbed the rolls to give it to them and a couple rolls to hit. Overall they did end up working with him to get out of the contract that sent them there but I must confess my sins and prostrate to the church. Thank you and everyone one has half off double loaded potato skins for absolving my sins. (Expires 2/24 valid only in Chicago locations)

Braxton Robinson

To the most essential judges and that dude John? James? Honestly it couldn't matter any less. My case that I submit at your feet has a confession tied to it. This was my first time playing dnd at a college run workshop where you build a character and then play a small one-shot. During this one-shot my Macaw Aarakocra Bard cast vicouis mockery on a hag that we were facing. The dm(who was a last minute volunteer) said the hag did not speak common and so the spell could not work. I being a new dnd player looked up the stat block on dnd beyond of the hag and sheepishly told the table the hag speaks common so my spell should work. It kinda got swept under the table(mostly because I didn't want to make a scene) and we went on with the game. So I ask was I wronged with not being able to cast a bard spell or does meta gaming ruin the fun for everyone. I await your judgment.

Maya S

To the overwhelmingly angelic justices and the villainous yet disturbingly attractive bailiff Jake, may it please the crit, I bring to you the case of the captured prince. A few years back, I was running a short campaign for my family- my father, mother, and my two younger brothers. My dad was playing a goliath barbarian, his first character since second edition. The party was hired to find a missing prince that had been kidnapped by a gang of thieves, and when they broke into the gang's headquarters to find him it didn't take long for them to track down the prince. Immediately my dad started interrogating him- not a bad idea, but the way he went about it was more than a little aggressive. Up to and including threatening him with torture. Apparently he didn't believe that this dude was the prince they were looking for, even though my mom succeeded an investigation check. I broke character to tell him that he was threatening a high-ranking noble with torture, but he said it was what his character would do. When the party left the gang's HQ, the prince called for the guards to arrest the.. My dad was incredibly upset, refused to fight back because there were too many (ten or fifteen guards, they were level five), and when I said he'd have a chance to break out of prison he brought up the fact he was an eight foot tall goliath with no stealth skills. The campaign ended after that session, though there was no lasting damage to our relationship and he's still a normal guy in real life, Murph. So I ask you, was I wrong to punish these acts of chicanery? Should I had let him go about with these clear acts of treason? Or should the entire nation have declared war on this single Barbarian? I was sixteen.

Tristan Belzer

I come to thee as vessels of Dice Christ and humbly seek forgiveness. When I was but a humble new DM finishing my first arc with my party, I unintentionally spared the life of my BBEG, the nemesis of my Druid PC. A blow from the cleric should have felled the villain, but since the Druid was next in initiative, I instead opted to leave the BBEG at 1 hp. On the druids turn, facing down an enemy with 1 hp, he took two attacks with his wild-shape…. and missed twice. The BBEG was next up, so I narrated as he ran away, giving the Druid an attack of opportunity. Nat One. Since this moment it has been the parties main focus to track down and kill the BBEG, radically changing the Druids character arc in the process. In the last session, many moons later, the party finally came face to face again, but the BBEG slipped away again, this time fully by the book. Yet still, my sins from the past live on in the form of what is essentially my parties Gallad, serving as a constant reminder of the time I strayed from Dice Christ.

Jackson Schrickel

May it please the towering pillars of justice that are the Supreme Crit, as well as the oft maligned or beloved Bailiff Jjkae. I come forth with my quandary. Me and a group of my close friends are currently playing an SW5E game that is very reliant on upgrading weapons and gathering resources. A few sessions ago, as we were escaping an enemy stronghold, my character, who had stayed behind to release the locks on the ship we were taking, had to be picked up via harpoon to escape the approaching enemies. As I was being lifted off the ground, our DM asked me to make a dex save. I rolled middling, and he told me that my blaster fell out of my hand and I had no way of retrieving it. I had spent a significant amount of money on that gun, from buying it to upgrading, so I was initially annoyed. But, the session was otherwise really fun, and I got a new blaster the next session, so I shrugged it off. However, in our most recent session, one of my party mates attempted to use a zip line that he had purchased to attach himself to an enemy escaping via jetpack. He hit and was carried along with him into the sky. On the next players turn, he attacked the enemy. However, when he hit the enemies AC, the DM said that, instead of hitting the enemy, it only hit the zip line, destroying it and dropping our ally several feet to the ground. He then told the player that, if he wanted to fix his zip line, he'd have to fully buy a new one, which was not inexpensive. In the end, we captured the enemy, but both myself and my party mate have talked about how our DM arbitrarily decides that the things we have spent a lot of in game money on get destroyed. I ask you, merciful and cruel Supreme Crit, is my DM drunk with power, or are me and my fellow party member simply whiny little babies? I await your judgement.

Matthew Rudland Barfoot

Dear Supreme Judges and the bailiff Owen. I have the case of the DM's omniscience. Recently, whilst playing Wild Beyond The Witchlight, our DM (new DM) played an encounter with the three hags (BBEG). We played on a map with 10ft tiles, and playing defensively, my druid/monk cast 'Pass without trace' and then hid/disengaged to flank the hags and get to the objective. My DM stated the Hags could see me as they had true sight and denied my action, saying they could see anything. I queried this, saying pass without trace should still work, and their presence must be ranged (60ft); I was 80ft away. He denied this, saying he doesn't like the tiles being 10 feet and feels more comfortable with 5 feet and making me 40 feet away. After a table argument, he agreed to let me roll, and instead of rolling contested stealth/perception, I moved against my spell save DC. I lost. The Hags ultimately saw me and wasted my mo.e, The next player decided to hide, and the DM said, "They are distracted by OP." You hide successfully. Am I right to be salty? And please may you tell me if my DM needs to be punished and seek appropriate consequences. Thank you, Owen.

SoupLightning

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 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?

Iz

To the venerable crit justices and memorable Jacques A friend of mine, who is new to dnd, was playing a one shot at GenCon. It was advertised as “for absolute beginners” but they were playing level 15 premade characters. My friend was a rogue vampire. He loves role play so he asked to suck the blood of an enemy corpse after a battle. The DM said that was not allowed because it’s too gross. All other attempts at RP by other players were also shut down. It seems like the DM had it out for him because when they got to the final boss, a dragon, the DM made a crushing blow on the rogue then narrated how he splattered into a pile of viscera. There were no death saving throws or opportunities to dodge. Just dead in the first round of combat. When my friend said he needed to leave, the DM insisted that he remain at the table for another 2 hours until the session ended! The rest of the players really weren’t feeling it either and ended up asking to throw rocks at the dragon until it went away. I ask, was my friend deserving of his punishment or was the DM too harsh? - Egens

Chris Coulier

Hello esteemed justices 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 15 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?

Wincent Świerkowski

High justices and bailiff of unspecified quality, my case happened quite literally today so I'm still a bit furious. Me (the DM) and my three friends were about to start a pathfinder campaign in a few weeks and because we are all new to the system, coming from D&D, I decided to host a little trial encounter over discord. Everyone was still learning their abilities, so it was mostly talk about mechanics, but we had fun fighting the Giant Flea I chose to pit against them. The flea puns were exquisite. Unfortunately, after two rounds our Fighter went down. Literally almost immediately the Cleric healed him up to full (those are level one characters after all), but the Fighter, who was the only one of us that have played the system before, practically made us all stop as he complained that it meant the encounter was unbalanced and I made it too hard. Now, according to the handbook it was about between moderate and severe - and also, they won like a round later. Unfortunately that didn't end there, because after I asked him to write down all the modifiers on his sheet, which he refused, saying he can calculate them on the flea, we started arguing about it again. Apparently, I was unfair to him, because the Flea was attacking only him before he went down, as the other two characters were out of range and it has -5 to INT. Was I wrong here? The fight escalated to the point I had to ban him from the discord server.

Tori Lynn

Dear diary... I mean judges and bailiff. This has been sitting with me for years, since my second session with my now long-time RPG group. The DM allowed us to buy "back alley potions and drugs". To justify the lower cost, I needed to roll before using the health potion to see if it was actually poison. I rolled poorly and accidently killed an NPC with it, which was very upsetting. Another player, who had purchased items from the same person, used them the same session, and did not need to roll to see if the product was poison. When I asked the DM why, he just said it was because he didn't need to. I thought it might be a story thing, so I let it go, but it never came up again and we inished the campaign. It also became & running joke over the next 3 years that I killed the innocent NPC. It created flavor, but I was never happy that was the direction my character went in. Should the other player have had to roll, or was I at least owed an explanation as to why?

Robby Boyd

To the crooked justices Axford and the other guys, and to the humble Balif Justin. I present the case of the Komodo Dragon riding Tomato Frog (my wife) I recently was Dming a campaign where the PCs all were different animals in a corrupt circus. (My wife chose to be a Wild Mage Barbarian Tomato Frog). After the party had caused an illusory fire in the petting zoo area as a distraction to attempt an escape, she helped open the tanks in the reptile portion of the circus. Immediately after letting out the komodo dragon (the main attraction) she looked at me with a mischievous grin on her face and said "I want to make him my bitch now." I tried to explain to her, with the rest of the party, that the only way a tiny unassuming Frog could intimidate a komodo dragon into being their bitch would be with a nat 20 intimidation check. After some fun back and forth she ended up persuading the komodo dragon to team up with her through successful persuasion checks. Then for the rest of that session, she rode atop the komodo dragons head pretending to be his small red hat. Should I have just let her roll for an intimidation check and let her succeed with something like a 15 or was I justified in imposing some resemblance of real world logic into this table top game of imagination? I await your judgement.

Plas

To the illustrious and esteemed judges Axford, Murphy, and Tanner...oh and Bailiff Junk too I think? I present to you the Case of the PC Possession and PVP Debacle I was running a one-shot for a handful of my friends, and as a little bit of context, one of my players built a PC whose whole backstory was about not knowing his place in the world. That'll become relevant later. To GROSSLY oversimplify the story, the party was attempting to save a major Castle Town from being frozen in time at the hands of the Timekeeper, an eternal diety who resided in a large tower, hidden in a pocket plane far above the cloudline. After scaling the tower, the party realized that the Timekeeper was only a spirit orb, and required a host body. The current host was the Castle Town's hero of old, who disappeared without a trace over 2 centuries ago. The party engaged the BBEG in glorious combat, and after a few turns the BBEG began trying to shift hosts from the hero of old to one of the PCs. My BBEG chose the PC who didn't know his place in the world, and after a few turns of offering him a life's purpose as his host, and a few "personality" rolls, the PC ended up willingly submitting to the BBEG. After that the party was split, and the newly-possessed PC fought alongside the hero of old against the rest of the party. In the end it didn't matter very much and I got whomped to kingdom come, but after the session the other PCs told me that I made a horrible decision, I should've never attempted to brainwash the other PCs, and that it was a very bad DM move, etc. They ended up getting so mad at me that once they left we've practically never spoken again. So Judges, I beseech thee -- was I wrong to possess a PC and have them ally with the BBEG even after they willingly chose to submit, or did the other players get butthurt and blow everything way out of proportion? I humbly await your unequivocally perfect judgement. P.S. Sike actually never played D&D before P.P.S. hate the show it sucks

Mason McCauley

Dear Lawful-Good Justices and Neutral-Evil Bailiff Jarnathan, I present to you: The Case of the Not So Evil PC. I usually DM but have a long running on and off campaign with some friends from college where I am a player. Setting is sort of Steampunk Rome meets 1001 Nights with greater elementals serving as gods. The quest is to conquer dungeons inside towers that have magically appeared in the world and gain power and riches. My character is a Lawful-Evil Conquest Paladin, wielding an executioner’s greatsword, whose oath is to revive his dead king (who is a crown melted into a skull carried on his belt) and help him reclaim his old kingdom (and maybe take over the world if there’s time). I made it clear to the DM that if he seemed too evil I’d happily let him die or become an npc and roll a new character. I also implied during in and out of game conversations that I’d be perfectly fine with my king being resurrected as a Lich Dragon. The problem comes when the DM introduces an npc that happens to be the long lost prince of my king. The npc is a homebrew class and friends with the pirate who usurped my kingdom. He then resurrected my king and revealed that he is getting a crew of heroes together to fight against the evil kingdoms in the world. To this, I was forced to shrug and say “sure I’ll just be good now” to continue the story. Is it okay for me to be upset that my king, who could have been an cool undead magic dragon, is now just some alive dude and my fun evil character has been forced to conform to the story the DM wants to tell? Or should I suck it up and rewrite my alignment as Railroaded-Good?

Willow Hearne

To the enchanting judges and humdrum bailiff, I bring forward a case that has yet to happen. I am dming a blade runner inspired campaign for my roommates (6 boys, one of whom is my boyfriend). There are many strong personalities in my house, and one roommate in particular I butt heads with quite often since we are both stubborn. Am I making a mistake? Am I a fool for taking on this potentially treacherous campaign? How can I handle my little rascals fairly during their adventure and avoid hurt feelings while making sure they have fun? I lay myself at your mercy and humbly accept your sentencing. PS potentially relevant further information: - this is my "second" time dming (the first being one session for my improv team years ago) - 4/6 of my players have never played before - we have lived together for about three years - our lease ends in December and my boyfriend and I are moving to Europe. we're hoping this campaign will give us a way to keep in touch

Sahara

To the honourable Justices Axford, Murphy and Tanner. Also Jake, wow, wasn't expecting to see you here! It's great to see the pod featuring smaller creators! I present to you: the case of the dungeon boo's catch 22. I have been DMing for a small group of elderly women for a couple of years now and it's been great. The first issue that we've encountered happened a few weeks ago when one of the players started talking about how excited she was to bring her new "boy toy" to a game. She was certain he'd enjoy it and it seemed like a great idea so I set an extra place at the table the following week. Turns out Maureen is dating my dad. The gals all think he's very attractive and have expressed how muchthey enjoy having "eye candy" around while they play. The main issue is that my dad actually doesn't like dnd. He's constantly making negative comments about how much time I put into making the battle maps and he's constantly on his phone whenever he's not getting snacks for "his ladies". I've asked my dad to just stop coming to the sessions because we both clearly hate it, but he refused because "it'd upset Maureen". The other players didn't like the idea either when I told them that he might not be coming back. So, my question is this: what the fuck am I supposed to do in this minefield? Should I have kust kept my mouth shut and carried on, or was I right to ask my dad to stop coming? Should he have agreed? What does any of it mean? I'm in social faux pas hell. Help me. I need to understand what I'm doing wrong.

Umair Ahsan

To the upstanding/deplorable bailiff Jake and the honorable justices: I present to you The Deck of Unavoidable Consequences. I was in a campaign with college friends a couple years ago that ended shortly after this incident. Our party was hiking through the mountains and walked into a random cave. It was apparently a trap, where we were teleported (after a failed save) to a tiny room/pocket dimension… And the ONLY way out was to pull a card from the Deck Of Many Things. Given what the deck is capable of, I searched for literally any other way out—but the DM insisted there were no other options. So I reluctantly complied. (By the way, this dungeon was filler content and had nothing to do with the ongoing plot.) Miraculously, we escaped relatively unscathed. I was 2 INT points dumber, and INT was already my dump stat… but oh well. However, my friends loved the chaos so much that they chose to go BACK INTO THE CAVE afterwards to pull more cards. Out of character, I told them I didn’t want to, but they really wanted to… And in character, I didn’t think my Goliath fighter would abandon the party—especially given her newfound stupidity. So in again we went! This time was worse: I pulled the Donjon card and was instantly transported to an extra dimensional prison in some unknown far-off location. (Also the card specifies all your stuff gets left behind, which my party members were all too happy to take for themselves.) So… I was effectively insta-killed. I ask the justices: who is to blame for the unceremonious, narratively unsatisfying removal of my sweet Goliath from the game? Me, the rest of my party, or the DM?

Spencer Clark

Greetings and salutations to Chief Justice Murphy and Associate Justices Axford and Tanner. Oh, and you ... [sniffs the air twice] why do you smell of amniotic fluid and regurgitated placenta? Nevermind. I don’t care. Just hold my hat and stand over there. I present to you the Case of the Heavy Sleeper. The group was making our way across dinosaur infested jungles and had set up camp near a river. During the night, a brontosaurus stumbled through our area en route to the water for a drink. I was asleep during that watch, but the other PCs keeping an eye out decided to attack it for XP. Everyone rolls initiative. When it was my turn, before I could speak, the DM asked me to “roll to wake up.” I rolled low and he moved past me. On the second round, when he asked me again to roll to wake up, I wondered aloud whether the combat 20 feet from our camp against a 40,000 pound creature wouldn’t automatically stir me from my slumber. “Nope. Roll.” Not sure what the DC was, but I failed four times as my party members eventually defeated this behemoth and split the XP among themselves. After the session was over, the DM told me that I would not be leveling up with the rest of the group. I asked if there would be an opportunity to make up the difference. “We’ll figure it out later” was his response. Since I had joined the group mid-campaign, he had me start one level lower than everyone else. After the sauropod shellacking, my character was two levels behind the rest of the party. I humbly ask you: was I wrong to expect my freshly-minted halfling - with passive perception of 16 - to rise without a roll? I await your wisened decision. Signed, Jan I. Tor a lawful-evil velociraptor Post Judgment Epilogue (FWIW): That campaign confirmed what type of game I wanted to be a part of. I left that group and started my own with friends and co-workers. Six years later, we have done several modules, homebrew campaigns, and one shots. Three of us take turns running weekly sessions and four of us DM for our kids. The vibe continues to be about shenanigans and stories.

Santa Grinch Hugging HumBaba and two Fairies

Cake and the equally tasty Justices In my pirate campaign i play bladesinger wizard and while exploring the smugler's scooby do style haunted house front i cast invisible on the party and i had inspiration to convince the ring leader the place was really haunted. Is it ok that we fudged the rules for rule od cool to allow us to table top this criminal or should we have abided by the rule of the spell ans changes tactics?

George TJ

To the juicy justices and the bearable baliff I bring to you the case of the Lava Jump I play a multiclass Oath of Glory Paladin/Swords bard with a high focus on strength, also taking shieldmaster so I can bonus-action shove goons. Our party was underground in a volcanic island, fighting beefed up flying mephits while jumping between pillars in a lava cavern. The issue arose when I wanted to jump 15ft between pillars while also bonus-action shoving a flying mephit prone so it can fall into the lava. I could easily jump the distance due to my high strength score and my Peerless Athlete channel divinity and I thought it was a badass move. However, it was ruled that because I was shoving a creature mid-flight, it slowed my momentum and I ended up falling towards the lava. My character lived, but not after slamming into a pillar and taking lava damage. My DM argued that even though I had high strength, it doesnt change how shoving someone mid-air kills momentum and will always cause a character to fall down. I am salty. I present my main question. Is it not possible to propel oneself forward with a shield and do a fly by shove? Is my DM right in shutting down a *too* athletic move like this? I seek judgement and will accept (possibly lava-related) punishment.

Midnight

To the honorable crit justices and that dude who was on 8-bit book club for the first time (congrats) I would like your humble opinion on the case of the Be Good Sword In university, I played my first game of dnd, and the campaign actually went pretty ok. Half the party almost died, and we made friends with the cult that killed our Dangonborns half brother and father by accident before ending them as well. One thing that is important for context, all but one member of our party were either neutral or evil alignments (yes, first game so we had to pick them) This is not where the issue lies though. At the end of the last fight, one of the CULT members dropped a glowing sword, and DM said that someone had to grab it. We let the good-alinged player pick ut up, only to have the DM tell us that ONLY someone of good alignment could pick up the sword safely and anyone else would have their character be forcibly changed in alignment to good. This didn't make sense as the cultist maniac was wielding it first. This wouldn't have been much of a problem if we had been planning to continue with these characters... Or if the person getting it wasn't the DM's girlfriend. I'll give leway and say that this was our DM's first time running a game when it came to messing up the mechanics... But the reward being something only his gfs character could weild was a little to much like every story you hear about DM's favouring their partner. So, i ask the court, do you think this was a case of favouritism? Or am i just being too harsh on a first time dm? I humbly await your judgement.

Skillful Ferret

If it would please our judges and our Beautiful Busty Bailiff please recount the tale of the Torn Tabaxi, While playing my last session (though only the 3rd session) due to leaving for a deployment the other characters in the party decided to plan to betray our mission and become an evil party. So they role played a distraction for my character who was a lawful good Paladin. I had offered to play a Lawful Evil Cleric as well, but the other players told me to play the Paladin. Thus, I had to spend the entire session pretending to be alone in another room. Then at the very end, to roleplay my character out of the session I took the artifact from our NPC priest to complete the mission without putting the others in danger. Which I thought would let the party have an excuse to quit the mission since they wanted to switch to being an evil party. I found out that during the next session they caught up to my character who had sacrificed himself using the artifact to revive a village that was destroyed (dm choice) which I thought was cool, but the remaining players decided to mutilate my character’s corpse to remove the artifact that I had apparently swallowed, in order to sell it. Was it cool for them to derail from the initial plot in such a contrary way from the character they had me pick and then rub it in even after I couldn’t play anymore?

Lauren

To the Supreme Crit justices Emily Angel Food Cake, Brian Mousse, and Caldwell Tiramisu, and bailiff Cake Hurwitz, who I hear is currently being sought out by the Food Network and for which I offer my utmost congratulations: I bring to y’all the case of the twenty-first birthday session. For some context, I recently turned twenty-one and some friends (who I play dnd with and gm for) were visiting from out-of-town. We normally meet on zoom, but when we realized we would all be in New York for my birthday, we decided to play an in-person session. My friends packed up their dice, I planned a fun session, and we resolved ourselves to playing while half the party was tipsy since we were going out beforehand. On the day we were celebrating my birthday, none of us ate for the most part, a choice we would come to regret, and I got drunker faster than I normally do. So I, several shots into the night with the audacity that only several shots of Jameson and a cute birthday outfit can give you, went, “I can definitely GM later.” Cut to five am, I’ve just regained consciousness after blacking out for a bit, I’ve thrown up three times, we’ve migrated out to my hallway for a while and made life-long enemies with my down-the-hall neighbor, and generally had a great drunk time. An hour before the sun is set to rise, we sit down to play. It was a short session, given we were all exhausted and at varying stages of intoxication, but it was a fun little session nonetheless. My question to the court is— was I right to GM at this point, or should we have called it a night? We had a good time, no one died (in game or otherwise), and then a fun little sleep over, but my party and I have discussed whether it made sense for us to play to no real conclusion. We leave it in your capable hands. PS, I miraculously managed to not get hungover the morning after. My friend attributes this to the fact that I had no alcohol left in my system, and though that’s probably it, I like to think it was the fact that I had Dice Christ looking out for me.

Jeremy

To the Honorable Justices Axford, Tanner, Murphy, and the lowly Bailiff Daddy J… I bring you the case of the Alienating Patron Party Attack: I DM for some friends and one of my friends plays a warlock/actor (think William Shatner as a Tiefling) bound to a powerful archfey. The player’s character thinks his quest is just a documentary about adventurers and the other players are co-stars. There have been several clues along the way that the patron tricked the character in exchange for becoming a famous actor. Recently his world shattered when he uncovered all of that was a ruse. (I won’t share what their true intentions are bc my players listen to this podcast so no spoilers! All they know it was for something not good but haven’t gotten any direct answers yet.) Nevertheless, here’s where things get dicey (pun intended)…my other players decided this character was mentally unstable and wanted to go investigate his patron without him knowing. Lots of failed perception and insight checks and high deception and stealth checks led to the warlock player sidelined while the rest of the players were off on small side quests at night, spying on people and investigating clues to find out more about this patron. I even tried subtle hints like “Do you want to share what you uncovered with your other party member? Do you think he might want to know about X? Etc” They always wanting to keep it secret. Eventually, it led to an all out attack on this powerful patron when they finally encountered him, in order to try and get answers. The patron got away. I mean, they’re level 5 and ATTACKING an ARCHFEY PATRON who was already running away…But I was trying to not TPK them. Incidentally, this all led to a big boiling point at the table with the sidelined player. He was feeling left out, of course. They’re off sneaking away on this side quest while he’s sitting there saying “anyone have anything to tell me?” They were finding things out that even his character didn’t know. I know the players had good intentions to “protect him”, but I felt so bad! I’ve since brought in some additional details and new hooks to save the relationships and get everyone back on track. Everything finally got brought out into the open after an intense fireside chat. Things seem resolved with everyone, but I can’t help to think, could I have done something better to encourage my players to stop playing “keep-away” with the warlock’s backstory? I throw myself at the mercy of the Court.

Stick Haul

Addressing the noble judges of the Supreme Crit and the ignoble bailiff Jank, I present to you the case of the obstinate automaton. I was DMing a regular weekly game with three players: A warforged with no memory, a pyromaniacal tiefling druid, and a tabaxi version of Patty Hearst. They had found an ancient rusty lobster-shaped submarine vessel (based on the Arcane Leviathan from a tome of foes) and were attempting to operate it. I told the warforged player that entering the ship he felt at home, and the piloting controls were intuitive. I told him that when he sat in the captain’s seat, a heads-up display activated and presented him with three buttons with telltale icons: A “close hud” icon, a stack of books, and a sword. The books would give him insight into his backstory via an on-board encyclopedia, and the sword would enable him to use the Arcane Leviathan’s statblock. The warforged player opened the HUD, observed the buttons, and closed the HUD. I emphasized how intuitive the interface was, and asked for an insight roll to tell him it was also familiar, but he didn’t care. Galaderon, piloting the vessel into dangerous waters, they encountered a homebrewed deep-sea creature I called a Bugwhale chasing humble merfolk simply seeking urchins for dinner. I had intended them to fight this Bugwhale using the ship’s stat block, with the remaining party members helping to rescue the merfolk, but the Warforged opened the airlock and stepped out into the water himself, leaving the ship unpiloted. They all would have died, and quickly, if I didn’t have a pirate ship come by and harpoon the bugwhale to harvest its bug ambergris. Even galaderon, I asked the player why he didn’t press the buttons. He told me that he thought I was going to pull some evil DM trick on him and one of the buttons would be a self-destruct or something. This does sound like something I would consider doing, or joke about after sessions, but I never actually HAVE done something like that. I ask of the crit: Should i have even given him the choice to press the buttons? I have a cute little VI named EVERETT (an acronym) that will explain things to him, if he only presses those buttons. Was he right to be wary of the buttons? What the hell?

Christopher Derrick

To the supreme justices the ball and his cohort's as well as bailiff Jake. This is not a confession or justice needed. I am giving you all this message to thank you for bringing me back to the world of DND and I was finally able to get into a few one shoots at the local D&D coffee shop. Games have been fun and I even made a few new pcs one based off of Beverly of he was a rogue. So I thank you all for the laughs. Sincerely the rouge posed by gazras.

Keanu DRAMAFACE

Fuck you no intros (except Jacque HerBitch cause he’s a fuckin dad now congrats) THE CASE OF SHIELD NOT SHIELDING I play an artificer in a long running campaign. There was a cannon being fired from quite a ways away that was aimed at me. DM rolled to hit, it hit, I say I cast shield. He said I was unaware of the cannon being fired. I asked if it was a sneak attack cannon or if I had the surprised condition and didn’t know. He said no but it was fired from 300 yards away and there’s no way I’d see it coming. Am I wrong for going “oooooookay then whatever” and having a slight salt for the rest of the session?

StacetheBass

To the honorable justices Axford, Tanner, and Murphy and that guy who blurts out the cases Jack, I bring to you the case of the Poison No More BBG. I play as a Thri-kreen assassin raised by witches and am a combo eldritch knight(lvl 4)/rogue (lvl 2). We recently got into a fight with our barbarians evil dad, who came in piloting a giant space jellyfish ship. After the first few rounds, things looked dire as our ships power was knocked out by the jellyfish's roar, leaving us stranded. In a push to turn the fight in our favor, I cast Ray of sickness on the evil dad and against all odds, succeeded at poisoning him for the next round. However, when it came around to the BBGs turn, I was alarmed that he touched a necklace and duplicated himself and proceeded to attack without disadvantage. I asked what the spell was but our DM would not acknowledged it until after the session, where he said it was a spell that allowed the user to duplicate once per day and he "added in that it cured sickness and poisons." Judges and also Joshua?, am I wrong to be a bit upset that my successful poisoning ended up essentially being a wasted slot? I humbly await your judgement. P.S. My DM and I are huge fans of the show, so much so that in this campaign we have interacted with a scout master Denny who lost all his kids on a mind flayer ship and Jenz Lindell, who turned out to be the Patron of our chaotic warlock who is a sentient gelatinous cube.

Dylan Summers

To the honorable and awe-inspiring judges and the magnificent caked up bailiff John. I present the case of nasty fey wild curses. I was dming a Wild Beyond the Witchlight campaign and the hook of the story is that every player had something stolen by a hag and was cursed by the hag (chosen randomly). One of my players had her sense of direction stolen and as a curse no compass would work around her. After a handful of sessions this turned out to be a more limiting and less fun way to approach the campaign, so I prepared a way for her to undo her curse and regain her sense of direction. Unfortunately the campaign ended early for unrelated reasons, and after she came to me saying that she felt her character felt crippled and that she had planned on leaving as well. I felt awful about it and was saddened that my friend wasn't enjoying herself at my table. So I ask the courts, was I wrong to have kept my curse system in play and tried to undo it in game. Or should I have just handwaved the rule when I saw that it wasn't as fun as I thought it was going to be.

Jason Rodriguez

I humble myself before the noble judges and the ok bailiff Jacoby. I play in a group where we have another player who has attempted to metagame in a homebrew setting. For instance, we recently were faced with an Astral Dreadnought that was encroaching towards pirate allies on the material plane. My acrobat rogue/ echoknight fighter didn't have magic weapons and didn't do as much damage to the creature. I look over and the player in question had the stat block pulled up and was comparing abilities that were used and questioning the homebrewed abilities. With my ineffective attacks, I sought out the source of its arrival and vanquished the summoner which had a ring that the player caught. He tried to identify the ring and with his arcana check didn't get as much information as he wanted. The time came as I inspected it myself with my goggles that let me cast identify and with my high arcana, found out that it was loosing power and would be mundane in about a week of game time. If it were to summoned again, it might not answer to the new wielder. Giving it back to the metagamer, I told him that it recharges after 10 days similar to the horn of Valhalla and would not be usable until then. The Dm had me clarify, and didn't ask for a Deception check. Was I right to pull this move on a player who would try to use it to break the game even more, or should I have let it go and see what would happen in the future?

ForkingCookware

Supreme Crit Justices and bailiff.... I wanna say Jonk, but that can't be right. I come to you with the case of People against the DDR of Doom. I was Dming a campaign in a modern setting that had used magic to bolster and improve technology. One of my players was a father looking for his missing son and the rest of the party agreed that rescuing a child was a bit more important than their own character development. In our 5th session the party me an Npc that used to work for the gang that stole the kid and he was talking to them while hiding in an arcade. 2 of the players began playing the Dance Dance Revolution and insisted on rolling for their skill and rolled very well. They continued to do this for the entire scene and so I eventually tell them that they defeated the mighty beast that was DDR and a wizard trapped inside offered them a gift. They insisted that the gift should be to return the child to the father, and after a lengthy talk as to why the wizard couldn't do that (he would need to know where the kid was first) the father than asked for a clone of the child instead saying he was willing to settle with that. This obviously made the rest of the party lose their minds but the dad insisted it was my fault for not just letting the wizard summon his son. Should I have allowed this players wish? Or maybe not have rewarded those high dancing roles with what I thought would have been a funny joke? I hold myself at the mercy of the Crit

Taylor

To the judicious justices and the baleful bailiff I present to you the case of the frogs. In the campaign I’m playing, my character has an existing rivalry with the BBEG that the DM was doing a great job with. During one of our fights though, after I had been given some awesome powers from training with a master of questionable morality that I thought would give me the edge, my rival revealed that he had been training with some frogs and could now go “sage mode”. Something that gave him crazy strength and dex and let him keep right up with me. I got peeved and told him this was kind of out of no where and not really in world, so a little immersion breaking. The battle was good still but am I wrong for being salty?

Malcolm J Gatlin

To the Wisdom filled justices and the drool fool bailiff, may it please the crit, I bring the case called "Racially Motivated" A player of mine decided to start their own campaign, letting us have solo sessions with our characters and our back ups before session 1. After having played my main character and 2 back up sessions, she found a homebrew book called "An Elf and a Orc had a little baby" that lets you basically make custom races. This was great because my main character and a back up where a race she made up so no race in dnd really fit, same with some of the other players. So she had us vote on it and we all agreed.... cut to a week later, she asked if I changed my last back ups race yet. I said no cause the race on dnd fit perfectly with what was established not only in background but in the session we did. Turns out, that vote we did wasn't just if we could use that book, it was also to NUKE THE BASE DND RACES SO WE CAN'T PLAY THEM. I quickly called her insane and we got into a long argument, with me mostly asking "Why can't we just have both" which she would basically just say "Cause I said so". I reached out to my fellow players mid argument and we all agreed to backtrack cause of the insanity. I ask this court, are we wrong to have backtracked to less lore accurate races cause it removed the default stuff, or is my DM actually insane. P.S For Context It's a interesting book, but even with it's wordings you can't remake some of the base races with it. She said I only had a problem with it cause it nerfs one of my characters, and I'm the same guy who willingly asks to lower a stat or two to 6 just so it fits my character. AND THE HOMEBREW BUFFS MY MAIN CHARACTER. The campaign has also officially started and everyone is having fun again, but we constantly bring this blunder up outside of it.

Nicholas Rainville

To the High Bailiff Jake and the Lowly Judge Worms: I present the case of the Chaotic College Nazghul. The first D&D campaign that I ever played was a 3.5 game with a few dormmates in college. The DM had several figurines available for us to use, and I immediately took a figure that looked like some sort of Nazghul or wraith. I played as a chaotic neutral spellcaster who did not speak much, and not knowing the rules of etiquette as I know them now, I leaned into the chaotic neutral of it all. Some instances were relatively harmless; the DM would describe a basic but arcane source of light floating in the air, and my character would grab onto it out of curiosity and thus burn himself. Some were more on the murder-hobo side of things, including starting a fire at a busy trading village in order to get away with a bit of looting. Another player in the party was more on the lawful side of things, so his character could not abide mine. We got into a bit of an altercation at one point -- his character was on the glass roof of a building, trying to get inside. I started throwing rocks at the glass to (in my character's mind), help out. He got angry and wanted to attack me, but was out of range. He moved onto the side of the building (using Spider Climb) to get closer, but I took the opportunity to cast Sleep on him, causing him to drop to the ground instead. In the middle of our long rest that night, he took out a dagger and murdered my character. The DM (who seemed shocked) allowed me to roll perception, but I failed. The other players were affronted, and also tried everything they could to catch him in the act, but Dice Christ had other ideas. My body was dumped in the woods, and the other characters had no idea what happened. (But all of the other players had to deal with the cognitive dissonance of it all) I was stunned, but honestly found it pretty funny, and quickly came up with an idea for another character, but the group never ended up having another session. I think back upon those sessions with a mixture of fondness and cringe. Can it be chalked up to just a goofy college campaign? Was my character's death punishment enough? I accept whatever ruling the Crit deems appropriate. (PS, years later, when I next played D&D, I was able to use the backup character that I'd come up with, which was satisfying.)

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).

Georgia

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

Luke Johnson

May it please the court, esteemed Justices Emily the Luminous, Caldwell the Fair, and Murphy the Just, Hey, Jake, catch! throws an ice-cold Dr Pepper I present the case of the Agathys Affair. In a recent online campaign spanning months, my 7th level sorcerer, armed with the Armor of Agathys spell, engaged in a gladiatorial duel. At 4th level, I summoned the armor, granting 20 temporary hit points and dealing 20 damage to melee assailants. A quandary emerged when struck twice, suffering blows of 7 and 12. I asserted the npc's total damage would reach 40, adhering to spell rules. Yet, my DM countermanded, he said that damage was equal to remaining temporary hit points. Despite voicing my dissent, citing RAW, he conceded it for one round only, thereafter enforcing his interpretation. Post-game, I communicated my rationale, highlighting the discrepancy with RAW and the rarity of 1st level spells doing just 1 point of damage. The DM justified his stance, deeming the spell overpowering for my character's context, leading me to relent. Months later, rejoining for the "finale," another spellcaster invoked the same spell, employing the rule-as-written mechanics, and was lauded by the DM for his impressive use of spellcast. Esteemed judges, I implore your insight: Was my DM unjustly fixating on me, or am I being a little bitch? Yours in uncertainty, Luke B

Saoirse

May it please the most radiant justices and so nice to meet you Hi Jake I bring to you today the Trial of Josh the Kenku for the murder of Colby the Bard. I was a player in a campaign of Strahd as part of a youth program at a local game store. It is so chaotic and wild, but everybody ultimately comes together. Everybody except for one PC, Josh, the Kenku thief. In what was known to the group as my final session before I went to college, Count Strahd asked us one last time to join him. While we all refused, Josh decided to join him. Strahd called for a dracolich to attack our party, and then took Josh with him, sparing him. Our DM said since he joined Strahd, he wasn't in the fight. Josh asked if he could ride the dracolich and pelt us with ball bearings, and the DM agreed. We killed the dragon and Josh ran off, but not before my character, Colby, died healing everybody else. There were no hard feelings, but dying was definitely not the way I was expecting to leave the session. Was Josh to blame for my death? Or am I at fault for complaining over a poetic end? Thank you for your supreme wisdom! See you at Carnegie! -Seersh

Oli

To the honorable judges and Gemma’s dad, I bring you the case of the meta gaming druid vs the edgelord rogue A little over a year ago, I started playing d&d with a friend, her husband the DM and a couple of other people. Everyone at the table was playing for the first time, except the DM. One of the guys decided to play a very cliche edgelord rogue - you know the type - he would constantly keep loot for himself, never engage in conversations with other PCs about his backstory and would even steal from other PCs. His actions would also cause a lot of trouble with the NPCs, since he was always trying to steal from them or refusing to talk . I didn’t say anything at first because, even though it was annoying, I knew it was his first time playing and he doesn’t really follow any d&d shows or content, so I just assumed he didn’t realize how much of a cliche those type of characters are, and I was also thinking he was planning an interesting character development. Anyway, it’s been a year and he’s still playing his character the exact same way, with no character development at all despite everyone else in the party trying to engage in RP with him about his actions. So in the last few sessions, every time we finish a battle or meet a new NPC, etc, I tell the DM that my character is keeping an eye on him, to make sure he’s not doing anything wrong. He got pissed and accused me of metagaming, to which I reply that, after a year traveling together, my high wisdom druid would’ve realized by now how he’s always trying to steal or keep things for himself, specially after getting us in trouble with some NPCs so many times before. The DM agreed with me and it’s allowing me to keep an eye on the rogue, who is now sulking every session. So judges, was I wrong for saying my druid would’ve noticed something after a year of traveling together or should I have found a different way to approach the situation? Ps.: sorry for any grammar mistakes. Sending you all lots of love from Brazil.

M

To the honorable justices and the lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly low lowly bailiff, I request your judgement in the case of the ring of fire. In an ancient city hidden underneath a glacier, our party has been chasing clues hidden within ancient wizards towers of each school of magic to learn the secret steps to a ritual to access a magic artefact and hopefully find out how to save the world. In the evocation tower, we recognized that the clue was hidden behind a wall of ice and in our efforts to uncover the secret words, we triggered a trap and were encircled by 10 icy gelatinous cubes. Our wizard quickly thought to cast wall of fire in a 20 foot diameter circle around us with the "hot side" facing outward towards the blobs. The blobs were well within 10ft of the hot side of the wall of fire at the time of casting. The spell says when the wall appears, creatures entering its “area” must make a dex save and take 5d8 fire damage or half on a save. Our DM ruled that since the blobs were not “within” the 1ft thick wall, they did not need to roll dex or take damage at the time of casting, but would take the damage if they ended their turn within 10ft of the wall. Our party briefly reasoned with him that the area of effect is anywhere within 10ft of the wall, and the blobs should roll a dex save and take damage for being within spell's area at the time of casting. Our DM rejected this reasoning, and after light razzing, we accepted his ruling and moved on with our other shenanigans, but noted we would follow up with the supreme crit justices to confirm the rule of law regarding the ring of fire (many members of our party are avid NADDPOD fans). Despite getting engulfed a few times, we all made it through the encounter in decent shape, so overall we have no qualms with the way the DM ruled. We would like to know where the high court stands on the phrasing of this spell, and if the party was robbed of a mob of dex-saving blobs. We humbly accept your punishment. The Frost Busters

Nolan Childerhose

To the Honourable Supreme Crit Justices and Bailiff Jake the Possible Cake Guy, Our party was recently recovering from a tough combat session and time was of the essence as we planned how to take out the rest of the baddies before innocent townsfolk were executed in our stead. We couldn't hide out for a full 8 hours to get a Long Rest. However, as we strategized our DM told us it would take 4 hours to finish our preparations. This was perfect for me, as I'm playing an Astral Elf who can "finish a long rest in 4 hours if you spend those hours in a trancelike meditation, during which you remain conscious." I excitedly told everyone about my ability only for another player to try and correct me, saying I misunderstood my race. Judges, when I was able to show him the text straight from the Astral Adventurer's Guide book, he then spent the rest of the night complaining that the content must have been "rushed" and poorly play tested, as it was "incredibly OP" and unfair. Fortunately the DM allowed it and I was able provide some much needed healing throughout the fight that otherwise could have gone very poorly. I feel like this player making such a big deal of this ability means it won't ever come into play again. Should I be content with my one shining moment of clutch heals or is my Astral Elf not as OP as he seems? I humbly await your judgement.

Ross Gilliland

May it please the court and the unconventionally handsome bailiff, I present to you the case of the unrepentant player. Once while DMing I introduced my party to a village where everyone had a personal vampire who offered them protection in exchange for a regular blood supply, a la True Blood. My real life best friend and most problematic player decided his character (Hektor) would go to one of these friendly vampires and petition him for his assistance in a personal quest. The vampire told Hektor he would not be helping him since it didn’t concern him, and retreated back into his coffin. Hektor’s next words have lived in infamy ever since: “I light his coffin on fire.” Now for context, I had started this very session with a quick reminder to my players that their decisions will have in-game consequences, as I felt like my party of college friends had been getting a little TOO silly with their words and actions in-game. I felt very challenged in this moment to initiate combat, but I didn’t want my friend’s character to be killed so I just had his character marked by the vampire to be his new thrall, meaning Hektor could be summoned at any point to serve him. Most lawful court, did I make a mistake by showing leniency after my friend so obviously challenged my authority? I humbly await your decision.

Frank

Dear sweet justices and sour grape Jake, I present my case of deeply mystifying decisions made by my fellow PCs. I was playing a campaign with my group of five (including me), we’d been playing together for several months, and we’d gotten to an encounter with a mini boss of a short arc where we had to infiltrate an estate overrun with a clan of creepy eldritch Lovecraftian werewolves. We got through the whole dungeon and got to the end. The DM presented us with a Mindflayer as the big bad of the estate, who told us that his plan was to continue to spread the lycanthropy as a kind of mind virus and take over the nearby area. He posed a simple, standard, classic bad guy retort: join me, or die. Then, to my surprise, not one, but two of my fellow PCs said “ok, sure” and without any hesitation or discussion chose to join the bad guy. That left three of us struggling to comprehend the situation as we were then attacked by the bbeg AND our fellow PCs who were now also Lovecraftian horror werewolves with buffed HP and psychic damage. As the battle turned south, the two other players who had yet to turn coat said “ok, fine, we join too”. I was baffled and shaken as the DM let out a giddy cackle, clearly as shocked as I was about this turn of events. My party members then swiftly killed my character, who steadfastly refused to join. Beautiful justices, I ask, was I wrong not to join the bbeg at the DM’s obviously rhetorical request? I await your verdict.

Will Boris

To the Honourable High Justices, and the young dad/baby Jack I present you the case of the Timeline Hopping Dragonslayer I played in a campaign run by a DM who was running the same campaign twice at one time. He had two timelines of the same world running simultaneously. In my version of the campaign, we had a dragonborn player with an ancient red dragon villain in his backstory who we had just been sent to go slay once and for all. However, as we arrived at the island, we found a new member to join our party. A member of the other timeline, who had already completed the campaign 2 months prior (we only had about 1 month left) who had been invited back by the dm. This new future knight had already defeated the bbeg, killed this dragon, and saved the world, and was here to help us for some reason. We shrug it off and continue deep into the dragons lair and meet the bbegs main henchmen there as we fight this ancient dragon. Not only does this future player reveal information about the henchmen actually turning good in the end, revealing he was gifted his sword from his version, but this future knight also was the one to behead the dragon, giving us the victory. I did nothing to argue against this as a fellow player, and watched idly by as the dragonborn, bent on destruction of the dragon was denied his vengeance, and watch as that player slowly became less and less interested and now no longer plays dnd. Was I wrong to sit by, or was the DM and player wrong for stealing a second dragon skull to mount on his wall? I humbly await your judgement.

Ethan

To the most honorable Bailiff Jacob “the hottie” Herwitz and those 3 other nerds. (Just kidding, I’m so sorry, please forgive me or punish Jake on my behalf) I submit the case of sound effect shenanigans. I run a homebrew campaign where I’ll occasionally use a sound effect board for in-game things like swords clashing. Recently the players have started using soundboards also. They’ve played a sad trombone sound “wahh wahhhhhh” when a character died, LOUD and wet fart sounds frequently during otherwise high-stakes character moments. The players seem to be having fun with it but I’m starting to feel all I can do is be a punchline to a fart joke. Can I keep the fun of soundboards and stop that feeling? Have I opened Pandora’s (beat)box and now it’s too late?

Tabaxi Druid Sarah

To the honorable Justices Murphy, Axford and Tanner and of course the honorable yet lowly bailiff Jake. While playing D&D earlier this week, we discovered a bulette (aka a land shark) in a barren wasteland. Being a beast master ranger, I of course cast speak with animals and tried to talk to it to try to get information about if he had seen the necromancers we were tracking. Because it had a low intelligence score, the DM insisted he wouldn't know anything. But his wisdom score was 10 (which is actually higher than two of our party members) so I said that while he wouldn't know cardinal directions or what a necromancer was, he would absolutely know how to navigate and be able tell where he'd been and if he's seen or eaten any thing weird. A zombie would taste different than its normal food and sharks have an incredible sense of smell. Also, sharks are actually very good at navigation and it's something that's being studied to figure out how they do it. We have agreed to disagree. So justices I ask you, are things like directional sense, knowledge of terrain, and previously eaten snacks things that falls under wisdom or intelligence? Would an animal be able to answer these questions? (Ps, the DM and I are great friends and this was a mostly comedic argument because we are a party that always chooses chaos... but since it's going to carry into our next session I figured I'd try to get a ruling. Also we both know this is technically a monstrosity, but the DM is on board with the fact that I need to speak to - and try to befriend - every creature we meet, regardless if it counts as an animal).

Sean Groff

Dearest judges and merest bailiff- Moving vs being moved. My swarmkeeper ranger (flea infested tabaxi) was able to get away from an engaged creature without an attack of opportunity by virtue of his gathered swarm. Everyone was happy with this. Then we became puzzled when the gathered swarm of fleas pushed a sabertooth tiger 10ft through a spike growth spell cast by our druid. It was a sweet combo and seemed intuitive to us that the sabertooth would take damage from the spikes, but that contradicts the previously held "move vs being moved" precedent. Your honors, we seek no damages in this case, but wanted to bring it to the court for your jurisprudence.

henwarto

To the honorable justices Murph, Caldwell, and Axford and the Bailiff. I bring you the case of the Holy City of Sesame Street. One of my players recently left my game, but before he left he made a number of things canon in his clerics backstory such as the Church of the Cinder Infant (like in Teletubbies) with its protectors Clifford the Red Dog and his mighty Paw Patrol. I beg the court, do I need to include the Saints Big Bird, Kermit, and Elmo in my world or those plots to fall to the wayside?

Emily M

To the divinely ordained judges and Jarf, I present the case of the deceitful DM and the fumbled betrayal plot. In an escape from hell one-shot I was DMing, my players unexpectedly latched onto an extremely mundane human NPC named Stennek, whom they met while imprisoned by a warlord. After dragging this nothing man around with them and using him as a meat shield, I decided it would be juicy if the cowardly, unassuming Stennek turned out to be a deposed archdevil in disguise. After making the party promise not to kill him (an unwitting devil's contract that would come back to bite them later), Stennek joined the party as they set out to find a way to get back home to the material plane. One of the players cast detect thoughts on Stennek to scan his surface-level thoughts, and I, not wanting to expose my plot so early, simply said that Stennek was considering if he could find better allies. During a later session, one of the players cast detect good and evil to try and assess a threatening area. I confidently stated that there were no fiends in the area. Later on, the same player asked if Stennek was a deceased human stuck in hell as he had claimed, if he would come up as human or fiend with the detect good and evil spell. I realized in that moment that I had made the classic DM mistake of forgetting about the tag-along NPC. Panicked at the implications of this question, I stated that Stennek was standing too far behind them to get a read on him at the time the spell was cast. So I ask the court, should I have let my players expose my disguised villain early for the sake of honoring their spell abilities? Or was I right to preserve my secret scheme so that they could all have a fun betrayal moment in the finale of the game? P.S. My players got their revenge on me by absolutely whomping the final combatants, banishing my cool Hell Dragon, and finding a loophole in my devil's bargain. I throw myself at the mercy of the court, and will accept my punishment maybe a little too eagerly.

Zain Hussain

Dearest and most reverent Justices … as well as to the Pinch who failed upwards towards the highest courts. I bring to you the Case of the Tyrant Dm Our group is small and this was our first campaign ever in D&D. We’ve listened to podcasts and that’s generally how we have an idea how the game is played. The problem comes when the DM who has played several other campaigns never asks us to roll for anything. The most egregious of which ended with my character, (Bartholomew the black, a paladin who was kicked out of his order for questioning the orders ways) and my friends character (Beng Yamata a barbarian who wanted to bring back honor to his tribe) getting cutscene beheaded after we took a long rest. Our Party had just finished taking an oath to fight evil and become knights after we had cleared an entire goblin cave. We decided to camp in the forest away from the cave, closer to the main road. Our Dm rolls behind his screen and begins taking notes. He doesn’t say anything and says that’s the end of the session - no worries right? Wrong. The next session begins with us settling down in excited to see where everything goes. The DM begins narrating that while we are sleeping in the Forrest, a roaming band of bandits encircles us and and takes us hostage. Our third and final player, a rouge named “Bilbo Bangins” a self proclaimed very racist Elf, wakes up and breaks out of the arms of the bandit, trying to fight for freedom, The Dm then cutscene describes a large man walking up to our bodies and asks Bilbo mid fight which of us should be allowed to live for our transgressions. Bilbo said “what? What are talking about? How am I supposed to decide?” No rolls, no questions, the DM narrates both Bartholomew and Beng getting beheaded, and asks us if we wanted to roll new characters or take one of the sheets he had created. Keep in mind we made ZERO rolls after we became knights the session before. Not even initiative when the fighting started. When I started saying I should have been able to roll for something he said there were no rolls for this and it’s not a good idea to argue with God, the dm say is final. He said the reason it happened was because we got a nat 1 on a nature check when we camped… but he rolled it and never told us… I said I’m okay staying dead, I’m not rolling another character The Dm and rouge to this day blame me for our campaign ending, the barbarian stopped being friends with the DM. I also haven’t played D&D since. Honorable justices and… Jack? I ask or you, should I have been more of a party player and created a new character/ choose one the dm made to keep things going, or was I right to not want to continue is such a rigged game? I ask because I want to play D&D and the Dm and rouge want to get me to play with them again….

Beav

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

Jeff Wain

Bonjour beautiful bailiff and magnificent magistrates, In the campaign I DM I've unknowingly been using incorrect spellcasting concentration check rules since we started, using a flat DC10 constitution save to maintain concentration. Now that we know the error of our ways we've discussed swapping over to the real rules of half damage DCs. It hasn't caused any major issues, but up to this point it's given an edge to PC spellcasters over enemies because of constitution buffs and magical items. The problem is we're now late in the campaign, and many of the enemies are concentrating casters. While everyone's on board with the change, I'm worried about baddies upending the rhythm of combat the party's spellcasters are used to so far. Should we play out our shameful snafu, or place our eternal trust in the dice? We await your righteous ruling.

Connor Burris

Dearest Judges, and of course the lowly bailiff (who nobody will admit holds a place among the clergy... hmmmmmm): I present to you the case of the Roller Coaster that was too cool to exist. I run a weekly game (one of two, now, thank Dice Christ!) starting in Curse of Strahd and ending with an apocalypse on the Prime Material. As a bit of a teaser for the events to come (as Curse of Strahd can be a looooong campaign), I ran a 3-shot set in an adjacent plane that was effectively Fantasy-Space-Vegas, replete with gamblings, goons, and goofs. The most important thing to note is that nobody stayed dead, but every death fed the god of death who had been masquerading as the benevolent head of operations. And they had been sent to slay him. In order to gain tickets to Beholder Tank (loosely based off of shark tank, and greatly inspired by Tortle Tank) in order to get close to them, I had set up an encounter on a roller coaster, where they started in the back and had 10 rounds to clamber up to the front to tussle with a couple of Rowdy Bois (they loved dynamite and drugs) for the passes to be on stage. Each round introduced a new environmental hazard, as the coaster was designed to eventually kill all of the occupants (round 10 is fully lethal), as death was seemingly meaningless (Think poison darts popping up and the coaster flying through thick grasses obscuring vision and causing slashing damage). At round 5 there was even a free magic item grab! All of this is great, but the problem arose when one of my players questioned the feasibility of 60 second long roller coaster as well as how large it would need to be in the park to loop back around, and decided to jump off to intercept the baddies at a regeneration pod. I had him roll acrobatics, and succeeding he only took a d6 of damage, but he decided this on the same turn that my other player had reached the Rowdy Bois. This led to the player being more or less left out of the conflict, even though I had warned that this may happen. The jumper has told me since that it was fine, but I beseech the court: Did I make a bad coaster that doesn't make any sense, or just the coolest thing for Space Vegas, players be darned?

Daniel A.

They have to pick this one. Bahamut above, this is too much.

Gage

To the wonderful judges and the Butiful Jailif Dake, I present to you the case of the Min Max Resistance. I was playing in a module campaign with some friends not too long ago, my good friend was the DM. I had done lots of DMing in the past, but little playing, and I told him I wanted to make a pretty broken character. He told me that would be fun, and that I should totally go for it, so I obliged. I made a very strong hexblade warlock - Paladin multi class with very strong feats. He would smite with great weapon master hits and do boat loads of damage regularly. Everything was fine and the game eventually fell apart for unrelated reasons. Months later my friend mentioned to me that because of my character being too strong he had often given all enemies resistance to all my damage, and not done so for any of the other 3 PCs. None of them were made to deal a whole lot of damage, so I was the main player in that role, and I was pretty much only good at that one thing. Should I feel cheated that he decided to make all my rolls not matter in a way? Or am I the idiot? I humbly await your judgement, daddies

Andre Szarmach

Hey Jake, how are you doing? I would like to present to you (and the fairest judges in the land) the great horse scandal of 2017. I was a freshman in college running my first ever campaign for a bunch of my friends. I was running Hoard of the Dragon Queen, and the players had just saved the town of Greencrest from dragon cultists. This was session two or three. After receiving a quest to follow the cultists back to their camp, one of my players playing a paladin (we'll call him Eddy), asked me if he could find a horse to ride. I panicked a little because, being a brand new DM, I didn't know how mounts worked and I didn't want to deal with it in the moment. So I told him that since the town had been sacked, all the horses were either killed or ran away. This seemed to me like a reasonable explanation and we continued to the end of the session, though I noticed Eddy seemed a little withdrawn. Afterwards I was feeling really good about how the session went. I was hanging out with Eddy later in our common area and asked him how he liked it, to which he replied, "Yeahhh, I don't think I'm going to play with you anymore man. I was secretly testing you the last couple of sessions and you just never let me make my own decisions." I was absolutely gutted and the campaign never picked back up. Although I can't help but wonder, should I have just given the guy a horse and figured it out later? Or was I always doomed to fail Eddy's secret test? I lay myself at the mercy of the bailiff (and the judges)

Jameyrae Swetman

Beautiful Bailiff Jake and Bewitching Judges, may it please the court. My party and I were in a cave fighting some flying kobolds. One of these winged fiends was hovering over me, and the party’s wizard (my partner) fire bolted it, causing it to explode and rain innards all over me. My character Honey Summer-Stream, a half-elf cleric, hails from a cult of women who worship Sune (the goddess of beauty and passion) so she was APPALLED and declared the need for a bath immediately. Once we left the cave my DM laid out an alluring scene depicting a waterfall cascading into a plunge pool surrounded by wild flowers, trees…just begging me to go take a bath in it. My character, embodying many characteristics similar to Moonshine, strips completely nude and dives into the water casting her belongings aside carelessly. My DM asks me to make a perception check. A classic shout out to the 2 crew later, and my bag/clothes have been stolen. So the party and I chase after the two “hooded figures” immediately. Projectiles are fired. Spells are cast. We catch up and I tackle one of the thief’s. This is a good time to mention we use Roll 20, so have interactive maps with characters icons. Once grappled and somewhat injured, the previous dark circles (due to the figures being hooded) are revealed to be Tabaxi’s…WITH IMAGES OF MY CAT’S FACES FOR THEIR CHARACTER ICONS! I then was forced to battle my cats Bruce and Fred to receive my belongings back (one being a dragon egg in a terrarium that I saved from the black market and am trying to hatch). We did non lethal damage and let them go once I had all my things. I ask you, dear courtly cool cats, what do you think of this joke played on me by my dear friend/DM. P.S. let me add we all thought it was hilarious and I was a very good sport, as long as I didn’t have to kill my cats because absolutely not

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!

Kai Clarkson

Dice Christ Advice - is my son and campaign cursed? Praise be to Dice Christ, I prostrate myself and ask for your advice. 2 years ago, I started my first home-brew campaign. At the same time, my wife and I had just welcomed our first son into the world. For fun, we had him roll the campaign’s first dice. We had to have him hold it in his hand and wait for him to drop it. His first ever roll in his life? A Nat 20. We took this as a sign of fortune both for the campaign and my son. 2 years later, the campaign is still going strong, and my son is growing up beautifully. I write to you now and take us back to a time when we had just welcomed our second son into the world (the same day Jake welcomed Gemma!). To keep the tradition going, we had him roll a D20. His first ever roll? A Nat 1. Dice Christ I ask for your help. Is my campaign now set to fail? Is my son cursed like Murph? Does Dice Christ look favourably on one son and not the other? As a loyal servant I will humbly wait for any advice you have, and act any way I need to ensure my sons have a prosperous dice filled life.

Scotland Kraker

to the honorable justices and the baliff jake, who is highly if he sides in my favor and lowly lowly lowly if he sides against me I bring you the case of the Blinded Beholder. I joined a friends level 12 campaign in which we fought a buffed-up beholder. The beholder had an anti-magic cone for anything in his sight but my orc paladin was able to cast Blinding Smite while it was looking the other way, holding concentration. Next round I swung and HIT, but my DM ruled that because the hit happened while the beholder was looking at me, the smite wouldn’t go off because of the anti-magic field. I pled my case but the DM held firm, robbing me of 3d8 +1d10 damage on that hit (plus the potential for a blinded beholder). The party took more damage and, in a last-ditch effort to kill the monster, I misty-stepped behind him because the friend who invited me convinced me to go up even though I was very low on health. I took a full disintegration to the face and died, full dead no revivify. On the next initiative our fighter killed the beholder, meaning my blinding smite could have been prevented my death if it went through earlier. So I humbly ask the dungeon court, and Jake only if he is on my side: Should my smite have gone off because it was cast while I was outside the anti-magic-field, or was my character the necessary sacrifice to getting our party out of the fight alive? I await your judgement.

Kyle Czarnecki

To the illustrious and honorable Justices and that baby bailiff Jake, I present a case of Forced Forgetting. My group of 8 players had investigated a small town that was plagued by one of DnD's most iconic homebrewed monsters, a False Hydra. I want to preface this case by saying the creature is fun narratively, but a nightmare mechanically since players are almost forced to know nothing about it until the moment of its reveal. After long exploring the underbelly of the town, the players had done battle with the creature in its lair. I had felt that its ability for creatures to forget its existence after hearing its song a single time while in combat was a bit over tuned, so I had upped the amount of failures to five if the players had taken the precautions to deafen themselves before fighting it (which they did). However, while 7 of my players had made enough successes to not totally forget it the gunslinger was unfortunate enough to fail every. single. save. against this creatures song. This prompted him on mic to sigh and him say "so I guess I see my friends fight nothing." After the fight, I had said that he couldn't make out the body since his character forgets what this creature is; he proceeded to rant on mic for 10 minutes, using my own descriptive wording against me of how he 'forgot' the creature. This had caused me to retcon the effects of the song so that their victory would be less bitter and more sweet. I ask though, since the song isn't a spell should the effects persist and cause the creature to also forget the body of the False Hydra since technically the body is evidence of its existence? Or was the gunslinger justly upset at my misinterpretations? I throw myself before the court and await its benevolent ruling.

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.

Kevin Alman

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

Lux

May it please the court, for what pleaseth the Court, should pleaseth the Bailiff I'm writing to follow up on a case the honorable justices considered last time the court met. I sought advice on a one-shot including a cosmic turtle and an auction. Your (helpful) advice was that the one-shot was overstuffed, and boy did you turn out to be right. On the way to the session, it became apparent that I had a bad case of food poisoning. My brother (one of the players) took the wheel, and was forced to drive as I vomited all over myself, totally ruining my clothes and probably also the car ride for him. Nonetheless, the session went on as planned. As it turned out, one of the other players had already listened to the most recent episode of DnD court and recognized some plot threads, so I tried to throw some curve balls from my fetal position on the couch. I just want to thank the justices (only the justices) for their sage advice, which made what would have been an overstuffed session a fun one for my players, even if I ended up shedding 10% of my total body mass during it.

Payt Suro

To the oooh so honorable Judges and to the bailable Jack! I present to you the Question of PC Museum Tourists! The other week my new group sat down to play a short heist campaign. We are all already friends and have some dnd experience, but were sitting down with new characters together for the first time. Our adventure started with us receiving a mission stating that there was some evil rock that was about to go on display in the city's geological museum. Foul play and suspicious motives were invloved, and it was our job to steal the rock (which was actually suspected to be an egg) before it could hatch or be used for evil in the museum. Sounds good! However, We sat at the table for around two hours, and felt more like we were actaully just visiting the worlds most boring museum rather than preparing for a heist. Any time we tried to pick a lock or sneak into a restricted section, multiple weaponed guards would suddenly take notice and stand loomingly over us. Anytime we tried to persuade a museum worker for cooperation or information, we were met with gruff rule-following or unyeilding disinterest. We found several secret closets but they led no-where and revealed nothing. I tried to use my DM-approved backstory of being very familiar with the town, but I never saw anyone I recognized or knew anything special about anywhere I'd been before. It is not that the dice were against us, often we werent even prompted to roll. We finished the session with the museum closing for an hour before the grand exhibit opening and us just standing outside. Our DM has played lots before, and is normally a fun guy. I kept trying to listen to his cues and take routes that would be fun for him and the table, but they still always resulted in dead-ends. The whole session was such a drag, I dont think we're likely to play again since despite this being an official woc published campaign, it felt like there was nothing to do. Supreme court, I beg of you, how can I liven things up if I do manage to get the group together again? How can I as a player nudge the DM to allow us to make choices and impact the game? Should I just start fights with the guards and take big risks against the strong warning of the DM? Are we just dull players that missed all of the exciting stuff? How can I get us out of this museum tourist catasrophy.

Jon Fraser the Dicelander

To the world-renowned Bailiff’s Bailiff Jake, and those other people on the high chairs, I present the Case of the Fanatical Priest of the 15th Century. Setting: a short-lived Curse of Strahd campaign People: two veteran players, a few new ones, and a novice DM. Characters: suitably dramatically comedic for the setting, but all of us were at least purportedly “good”, one of whom was a Tiefling. One player, however, decided to play as a fanatical priest from our Earth’s actual 15th century. Case: Fanatical Priest meets Tiefling. Chaos ensues, with PVP happening almost immediately. We worked it out, but throughout the campaign, it took the collective effort of the party to damage control his actions, from slapping orphans to alienating key NPCs to attempting to convert and/or kill every “sinner” we met in his “righteous” fury. Finally, one session while the player was absent, I tied the priest to his bed at the inn and told the rest of the party I couldn’t find him before discreetly selling him out to the local authorities. Did I overstep my bounds as a player and/or did I help the new DM and party by removing a problematic character? Were my actions justified in light of his crimes? P.S when we told him what happened, he thought it was hilarious and we’re all still good friends, though the campaign ended shortly after

Zabribri

To the Dashing Daddy Murphy and the justifiably Juicey Justices. Oh, yea and the blonde guy. Jake, right? Anyhoot! I have a Dice Christ confession that has been weighing heavy on my dice bag. I play a one on one D&D campaign with my husband, not sure what you call that, but we have a good time just the two of us. Even though I already knew he isn't very good at role-playing 🙃 my confession relates to not honoring my roles during combat. My husband made a level 3 dwarf paladin he really likes and in an alleyway bar fight, I fudged my rolls so the fight would last longer and he eventually won. I accept whatever punishment you feel is best. I prostrate myself for thee!

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 (who he pissed off) in steel mechs, titanfall style. He wanted to throw the balls underneath them, but I ruled that they crushed the ballsor 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 vote against this or should this tiefling been a smear underneath ironfoot boots?

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 my bag 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?

Jane

To all y'all court folks - Recently, I ran a session where a masked woman tasked my players with descending a tower and killing a monster within. Said woman was planting explosives around the tower in case they fucked up somehow. My players accepted and eventually discovered that the monster was Pretty Chill and the masked woman was Definitely Some Sort of War Criminal. Learning this, they managed to persuade the monster to leave the tower and deceive the masked woman via speaking stone that they'd completed the mission. My problem is this: I set that deception DC fairly high and was surprised they managed to pass. Had they failed, I would've initiated a sequence where the explosives detonate, the players get a round to cast any necessary spells (i.e. fly), and the race to escape is on. Upon revealing this, my players seemed bummed out it didn't play out that way (although, their successes did manage to save several innocents trapped in the tower). Should I have made talking their way out harder? Should I have kept my mouth shut and saved that sort of chase scene for a future encounter? I humbly await your judgment!

Grant Durman

Oh esteemed Judges and the lowly bailiff Cake. I call upon your infinite wisdom and power to hear the case of The Fire Monk Sorcerer. A while back I was DMing a Wild West/ Steampunk campaign where there was magitech and good ol’ rootin’ tootin’ cowpokes and the party were a mix of characters, one insisted on being a centaur gunslinger, and the party had to help out a floating city where the old ways of magic were still taught. We had a guest character played by a friend who was an Inquisitor who hunted down magic users that weren’t sticking to the rules of the city and his character had a bunch of anti-magic equipment, one of which being a dope-ass sword that can turn into a long chain whip laced with anti-magic metal. Seeing this I had the main villain of this section of the campaign who was an Evocation Flame Soul Sorcerer become a home brew mix of that and a monk in order to allow him to make melee attacks. I gave him a lair action where he essentially Dragon Ball Z powers up and his aura bursts out flames and has them roll dexterity saving throws. He then could spend his legendary actions to absorb the flames he created, each action was an additional level spell in fireball, and channel them into a punch. He then could essentially punch a fireball that required no save if he hits you. Well, long story short, I crit on one of his attacks on the main healer of the group and one shotted him despite him having basically 3/4 of his health, making the entire fight a long one and almost TPK since they didn’t have a main healer. Safe to say the party was like WTF and at the time I didn’t think I did anything wrong. Now looking back I don’t know if I overpowered my cool Fire Monk Sorcerer or if it was just a luck of the dice on the crit. What do you think? Also the party of 5 was about level 10-11 at the time and the Monk Sorcerer was at a challenge rating 16-18? It’s been a while since I did this campaign but that’s what I can remember. I await your gratuitous jurisdiction. Also here is a treat for our dear bailiff:🍰

Dominic Franks

Dearest Justices and the Bailiff of Varying Levels of Lowliness, Jank I come to you with a case of the Unwanted (and horribly power scaled) Boss Rush. Earlier this year a good friend of mine started a campaign themed around the “Isekai” genre. This campaign begin normally and everything seemed to be going alright except we seemed to only be fighting single opponents that we kept demolishing. After our 4th session our enemies changed. Now every enemy we faced was ridiculously strong and we only seemed to make it through the use of some kind of MacGuffin or some Super NPC saving us. We begin to voice to our DM that it felt like the campaign was becoming a boss rush that we weren’t really down for that. After another 5 sessions of this and our complaints growing louder, the DM finally said that he was done making us fight enemies like that and he promised to work on that. At the start of the next session, I realized I had left my character sheet on my other PC so I told my DM to start without me and was gone for the first 10min. I returned to find the DM breaking his promise and us fighting a new broken boss. During this fight our DM told us that he had another DM help him make this enemy to “make our lives hell”. The enemy managed to kill one of our players and the DM, not in character, mocked us for picking a fight with his “special” character. We all quit that night. What I have come to ask is are we jerks for ditching the campaign like that or does our former DM deserve to be sent through a hellish boss rush himself? Thank you for time and wisdom, Dom DomaDom, Owner of the DomsDale DomaDome

Tucson Khan

To the Justices of the Supreme Crit and Schrodinger's Bailiff Jake, about whom we simultaneously feel adoration and loathing, until Murph opens the box and tells us which it is for this week. I bring you the case of Emery the Treant. My party recently traveled through a deeply wooded area in a long-term 5e homebrew that we've been playing for over a year. Things went as you'd expect until we came across a Treant who was guarding an enchanted clearing and had information we wanted. So we tried talking to him, and the way our DM handled the encounter was not something any of us expected! If you've ever seen the LotR movies, you might know that JRD had a unique technique for voicing Tree beard. He would deliver his lines while breathing in, instead of just while breathing out like a normal person. This conveyed his breathy voice and made Treebeard sound so different. Well, our DM is a big LotR fan and apparently decided to do the same thing. He delivered this really labored, breathy voice for this npc that just sounded, let's say, unforgettable. I mean, I appreciate the effort he put into it. Don't get me wrong, but the dialogue ended up taking way longer than it should have, and it got kind of annoying after about 20 minutes of dealing with this guy. When the session ended, two other players came up to me and asked if I could say something to the DM about never doing that again. For context, he's my brother-in-law. I don't know what to do. I appreciate the effort he put into this, but it honestly was kind of awful. Was he in the wrong here, or should me and my fellow players learn to appreciate artistic style better? I await your just decree. P.S. Never actually played DnD. Mixed feelings about the show! ;)

Craig

May it please the Justices. I present the case of DM v Paper Puppet Player Our group was coming to the close of our second campaign. The DM liked my character from the previous campaign a lot and worked them into being the BBEG of this one. I was fine with it, and excited to pummel him into dust and end his story myself. My previous character has an ability that can turn a humanoid into an inanimate but invulnerable paper puppet, it works instantly and can't be dispelled, there is no save but it is concentration. It should be noted that we play a heavily hombrewed game. I used it once in the previous campaign but it seemed OP and unfun so it was left forgotten. Well the final fight begins and my noble paladin is instantly turned into a puppet. I rolled my eyes but let the DM have his due. 2hrs later I was feeling less charitable. Legendary saves and a +20 con save meant nothing broke his concentration, despite a brief argument over the meaning of incapacitated. I was eventually released and got to take the final blow but my shining moment was crusted over by salt. So Justices was my DM right to use my characters ability against me. Or should he have done as I did and forget it. P.s. Our group still plays together and we are well into our third campaign.

Elise Brinkmann

To the honorable judges and Blake, I bring you the case of the economy 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.

Quinn LaCasse

To the highly esteemed Honorable Justices and the bailiff who always gets exactly the level of respect he deserves, I present the case of ROLE play vs ROLL play. I've been DMing for a bit over a year, and must admit fault in events leading up to the case I'd like to discuss. I started DMing having never played DnD before, and had a loose understanding of how stat generation could impact the party dynamic. Because of this, I told my party for stats I would prefer standard array but didn't stand my ground when a friend came in with rolled stats. Since this time, there's been some slight tension between the folks that had to take dump stats with negative modifiers and the rolled character who had noticably higher stats. Particularly for a warlock/sorcerer multiclass PC who often feels underwhelming compared to the other characters and has a -1 to dex, giving them a terrible AC and often the least turns in combat as they're always last. Anyway, fast forward to in-game, an oathbreaker paladin of luck NPC made a wish to the power of a demon of misfortune. I narrated how the NPC was sucked into a rift showing reflections of alternate realities. Realities where the PCs saw themselves reflected as potentially smarter, stronger, faster, more charisma, etc - but with a risk of them seeing a reality where they're less skilled than they currently are. I told them that this rift from the gods/demons of luck would allow them to choose 2 stats and re-roll them now as their character gained insight to alternate versions of themselves (Everything Everywhere All At Once style) However, my party's warlock/sorcerer that I had in mind when I made this mechanic, was the only one to decide her character would not want to take this potential power as her character already regrets taking power from her fiend patron. The issue of the warlock/sorcerer feeling the most underpowered compared to the rest of their level 8 party is now even worse as they're the only one that didn't get to dump their dump stat. I love how well the player roleplays and how they were the only one to consider that maybe taking a boon partially thanks to a demon prince of misfortune is a bad idea, but now they'll continue to feel underpowered being the only character with a negative modifier. This was supposed to be a free way to power up and even out the unbalanced party I allowed for. Judges, I beg of you, was I in the wrong for giving the players a chance to all gamble together for better stats, or is the player in the wrong for putting ROLE play over ROLL play and not taking a chance to improve the stats they've commented on being frustrated by multiple times? Thank you for your consideration, From now on I'm bought by Point Buy.

David Moelker

To the Judges with supreme Confluence and the bailiff. If it pleases the court I bring the case of "if you die in the game, you die in real life" I was playing a campaign with some friends I had met playing online D&D, but we had all vibed and gone out drinking together so we were actual friends. Or so I thought. In said campaign the DM introduced a rule. If your character dies, you are out of the group until there is a good point for a new character to join. He said it was to give deaths more meaning and feel more impactful. However, the first day he introduced this rule my character gax (A Blind Githyanki Fighter) was ganged up on by a bunch of the DM's enemies and promptly murdered. The DM then said "do you need a ride home?" Flabbergasted, I packed up my stuff praying that I could join in again soon. However, I never heard from them again. The group chat went silent, and they didn't tell me what was going on. A couple months later I saw the DM and when I asked him about it he simply said "oh, that campaign ended, don't worry about it". Was I wrong to accept the rule in the first place? Were they picking on me or genuinely trying to add stakes. P.S. The DM, is now my brother-in-law

Korrenor

For the Supreme Honors and their bailiff Cake, I bring forward the case of the unexpected divorce. My dear friend recently concluded a two-year-long campaign in an ancient Greece-inspired campaign where I played the hermit hero Abraham Washington. Over the course of this campaign, we met a smuggler named Belsarus whom we captured and turned over to our contact in the city. I discovered later that Belsarus was being forced to live as a servant in the house of the person who paid us to capture the smuggler. What happened next was a plot, a rescue, and we ran away together to the next act of the campaign. We developed a love story, got married on a ship as he tried to escape haunted islands in a demiplane sea. We eventually returned to the world fighting side by side and defeating an evil lich invading our home country. When we started doing our epilogues for the campaign, our DM had us all roll 2d6 to determine how well the rest of our lives went. I rolled a six, a "failure" according to the DM's mechanic. The DM then said since I rolled a bad ending Belsarus left me and I spent my life in a run-down shack on the docks of the city making a living as a fisherman. Justices, my own campaign is about to end and this DM is a player. Should I take the high road and try to end it all on a positive note if that is what happens or should I steal this mechanic and hope that Dice Christ allows me a path of retribution? I will follow the court's decision.

Jeremy Showell

Hello to the honorable acolytes of Dice Christ. I have a confession, but a new kind of confession. This, esteemed friends of the church is a listener sin, the sin of Critter Confusion. My confession is as follows : I was raised in the suburbs, and in my particular neck of the woods (or lack of woods), critters are few and far between. This critter deficiency, has lead to many confusing moments in my life, and being a faithful day one listener was yet another. You see, for the first 20 hours listening to C1, envisioning the radical adventures of the band of boobs in my minds eye, I made a critical mistake. I thought Paw Paw was a raccoon. It is incredibly obvious in hindsight that he is indeed not a raccoon, due to the amount of scrambling, and the biblically accurate possum noises Murph provided for us, but my lack of critter encounters got the better of me. I, for one don’t know how I would be forgiven for this, nor do I think it’s possible, so instead I would like to offer each of you an affirmation from the heart. To Murph, the wise and unpredictable :Your DMing style has significantly influenced my own. You tow such a delicate line between being goofy, and badass, while showing the value that a good “straight man” brings to comedy. To Emily the handsome and free : Your creativity knows no limits. It is always a joy listening to you play, and having no idea where things will go. The choices you make are so satisfying both in gameplay, and in narrative, and it’s insane to hit the nail on the head as many times in a row as you do. To Caldwell the rugged and kind : You most regularly make me laugh from the very depths of my soul. You touch the funny bone in such a specific spot, while also committing 100% to your characters. I am often shocked by the emotional depth that comes out of no where in subtle ways from you. And Jake the brave and honestly sort of jacked: Where to even begin with you. You were my introduction to all things Collegehumor, Dropout and Headgum. While Murph inspires my DMing, you inspire my comedy, which is something important to me. You’ve been a big influence on my life without even knowing it. Seeing your growth has been insane too, from C1 being your first steps to becoming one of the most well rounded, thoughtful D&D players I get to listen to every week. I hope to see you in the DMs chair at some point, I think you’re ready. Thank you all for enriching my life, it’s very silly sometimes, and I know parasocial relationships are bad, but I look forward to the little piece each of you share with us every week. Keep up the phenomenal work. P.S : Sorry this wasn’t brief.

Devin Awe

To the Gorgeous Judges and the Bailiff Who's Due For a Glow-Up, I present the case of the Icy Armor. I was playing in a mini-campaign as an Armorer Artificer, reskinned to be a ghost possessing a suit of armor. In the final battle, the DM cast a Chill Metal spell on my character, a Heat Metal spell that does cold damage. I argued that I shouldn't take any damage because there's no flesh touching the icy metal. The DM ended up agreeing with me, but I felt bad afterwards because I hadn't taken any damage yet in the campaign due to my 25 base AC. Was I right to bring up the counter point, or was I being a big whiny metal baby? I humbly await the court's decision.

Stephen Mark

To the ascendant justices and that bloke Jyle. I present to you the case of the sacrificed ranger My elf swarm keeper ranger lvl 12 and another players (dwarf life cleric) left our sorcerer and warlock at a safe house to go meet an NPC we had promised to meet at a nearby tavern. While there we were set upon by three Bodaks. We both ended up going down, while down I insisted that the Bodaks aura would still be hurting me and giving me death save fails, the DM kindly stated I don’t have to take damage from their aura. I told him “don’t remove the stakes now that I’m down” oppa murph style The cleric ended up stabilising and when he went to cast raise dead on me I told everyone my ranger decides to remain in his afterlife. It was a great narrative moment but after that session the DM approached me as I was going to my car to have a go at me for “making him a murderer” I ask was I right in taking a big narrative swing and insisting on following mechanics or should I have accepted the DMs mercy and not made a murderer of him.

TheStianax .

To the honerable Suprime Crit Justices and Jake Hurwitz (how cool that you managed to get him on DnDCourt!). I come to you with the case of the continuously failed wyvern poison harvest. This session takes place right before lockdown, and I was DMing for 12 players (these were two groups I DMed for in the same world that wanted to have a one/two shot all together and I misguidedly agreed) and we had just had a really long combat encounter with a really strong Wyvern Queen. After defeating the wyvern, the wizard of the party thought it could be useful to gather some poison from the wyvern Stinger, and I agreed. She did however get the ranger to do it for her, and the ranger rolled a Nat 1, which I said he poked himself on the Stinger and got pumped full of poison and he got downed from the damage. He was healed back up, and the wizard asked him to do it again. He tried again, this time with disadvantage, another nat one. Same procedure. The wizard then made the ranger do this three more times which he failed (he rolled under 5 every time), untill she tried another time, in which I just told her to stop, and that she is ruining the game for the other players at the table by taking up so much time. She seemed to get pretty disheartened after this, and never tried to loot or do anything creative like this again in any later sessions in any campaign. Was I too harsh on her, should I just have told her after the first fail that there was no more poison and avoided the entire situation. I humbly await your verdict.

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!

Brock

To the Supreme Crit Justices and the guy who just wants to please the court, I bring the case of the Chair Through The Window. Our Bard, a winged elf, had managed to sneak into a castle and was exploring but some guards found them in a tower room with no exit other than the window. So the Bard cast invisibility and hid. To escape, they tried to throw a chair at the window to break it (it couldn't be opened), and then fly away. I figured I'd let them break the window without a roll, as it was a simple task and they had a string of bad rolls up till this point, and told them the window broke, but they lost invisibility. They cried foul, saying invisibility only breaks if you cast a spell or make an attack. I said that throwing a chair at the window to break it is an attack. They said that because I didn't make them make an attack roll, it wasn't an attack and was instead an object interaction. I offered to let them take it back and try something else, but they refused. They said they should be able to break the window and remain invisible because they aren't attacking anything, they are just breaking a window. They even argued if they used their rapier to break the window it still wouldn't be an attack, just breaking a window and they'd remain invisible. Eventually we moved on, they became visible and escaped without taking too many arrows from the guards, but this event is still brought up by the player and party years later about me being a hardass DM. So I ask, is throwing a chair at the window to break it an attack? Am I a hardass DM?

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

Shannen Angell

I present the case of First Edition DM and the Skill Check Aversion. May it please the court and also the lowly/lovely/neutral bailiff, depending on his standing: I've playing my first full campaign for the last four months, and along with a couple other people my age, the group includes one player's dad-- this friend's father-in-law is the one DMing for us. He played first edition back in the 70s and it has been very cool to hear about the differences between original D&D and what 5e looks like now. Because he's an OG, I'm not sure if my issue is a result of changing mechanics. We never make rolls for anything outside of combat. For example: we wrapped up a mission last night and questioned the man who gave us the job, who had left some graffiti inside the dungeon despite telling us he'd never been inside. I wanted to see if he was telling the truth and asked to make an insight check, but the DM just gave us an answer, which I have no way of knowing whether it's true or not. This happens all the time outside of combat. It feels like we're just playing a hack and slash game. Whenever we are trying to persuade, perform, deceive, or intimidate, he either lets us do what we want, makes the decision based on our stats, or we have to directly ask if we can make a check with the roll not impacting the outcome unless it's a critical success or failure. I don't think we've EVER had to make a perception check. At this point whenever I ask to roll for a skill check, I feel like I'm derailing the session or insisting that we play "my way." I haven't brought this up with anyone yet, but I want a read on the situation before I talk to my friend about it. Judges, am I the problem player for asking to make checks during our social interactions? Does my DM just have a different DMing style or is he leaning too far into his first edition experiences from 40 years ago?

Heck

To the honorable juice-tices, and the prune-tastic bailiff Jim, I present to you the case of the super soaker. I’m running a campaign with three friends who are each new to dnd. In their first combat—a training exercise against an animated suit of armor, one of the combatants (Krangis McBasketball) investigated the area and found a bean. This was one of those magic beans that use the rolling table for their effect. Instead of planting it, he ate it. The effect was that a geyser exploded from the ground shooting a liquid 30 ft in the air for a minute. I modified this to mean he projectile vomited 30 feet for 3 turns. I asked him to choose a color (he said magenta) and that meant the liquid coming out was some kind of berry or grape juice. He then tried to attack the armor with his vomit. I decided to have it act like an unarmored attack, which worked fine but felt a little underwhelming to both myself and the rest of the table. The fight ended later with some regular attack. I ask the honorable juice-tices, should I have allowed more with this attack? My players are new to dnd, so sometimes I feel like I need to do more to show them all that DND can be. I throw myself at the mercy of the court.

Chandler Rice

Forgive me judges for I have committed dice heresy I recently started a campaign with some friends and we all are a little new to playing the game besides the DM, and there have been a handful of times when calculating the modifiers where I use a different modifier to get a higher roll. For example, when the DM asked me to roll a check using my intelligence it made more sense to roll wisdom in context, plus my wisdom is the higher stat, so I fibbed the modifier and used wisdom instead. When the DM realized this later and asked about it I simply told the DM i accidentally looked at the wrong stat. I don't think they really believed me, but he let it slide anyway and told me to make sure I read and learn the character sheet. Now I lay before you all and dice Christ in prostration to beg of thee to serve thine punishment unto mine soul and deliver retribution. Thank you 🙏

Troy Mumme

May it please the gorgeous court and also Jake, the bailiff. I come to you with a possible case of DMUI, DMing under the influence. I wish to turn myself in as to set a precedent. I was running a dungeon crawl where the party comes across a magical farm deep underground that is guarded by giant monsterous farmer wielding a shotgun. The party decides its better to sneak into the farmhouse and avoid him. When they got inside, they find his wife, Aristatalia Klampet, holding a baby and looking scared. The bard decides to use suggestion and tells her “Go into the bedroom and take care of your child the best you can”. I, as the DM, said that she goes into the other room and screams For her husband to come help. My reasoning was that she felt her child was in danger, and her husband would help take care of the baby bu protecting it. The party argued that she wouldn’t do that while under suggestion. The 5 hazy IPA’s that i had drank by this point would not let me see their side. I wouldnt budge. My players took it in stride and we continued. Was I over the legal limit for DMing? I await your totally righteous ruling.

Matt Thackray

To the honorable justices and R.L. Stein’s version of an adult, Jake, I present the case of the DM against Modifiers. Years ago, my boyfriend and I started our first DND campaign, which was final fantasy themed. Overall it was a bad experience. A prime example of why is this; we were not given any modifiers at all. Proficiency? What’s that. Plus 1 to huh? Basically anything that would be modified was absent in our campaign. To make matters worse, a D20 was rolled for everything, including damage. This was incredibly frustrating because my character, a thief, would constantly fail on rolls for things he technically should have been proficient in, like picking locks and stealth. You know, the entire reason I chose that class. So, as a way to get around that, my boyfriend and I decided that we would just look up what modifiers our characters would normally have and add them to our rolls. Well here comes the DM, claiming that we’re cheating and ruining his story. The next session, I was trying to sneak past a distracted guard, and when I rolled and added my modifier he said I was cheating and threw my character in prison. Suffice to say, I was less than pleased. So I gotta ask, am I a charlatan and a fraud that deserves to pay the iron price or does my ex-DM need to learn how the game actually works? I await your judgment.

Bukvar's Assistant Isy F

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

Bukvar's Assistant Isy F

May it please the court of justices and baliff juice (?). Lawyer Isy F representing fellow party member Jay. We were playing in an entirely home-brewed campaign based off 5E. Rather than leveling up, we had pretty complex skill trees that we unlocked with points assigned at the end of each session. My client was playing a clockwork tinkerer who at the end of his skill tree, got a fully functioning mechanical man. Much like a familiar. The issue is, once my client unlocked this after approx 45 sessions, the mechanical man (voiced by the DM) immediately begun to tell the party all of my clients secrets, even ones that had happened in my clients childhood and backstory. As a result of this and some other transgressions by the DM, the party disbanded. We beseech the court, has my client been wronged? Do mechanical men have the knowledge of their forefathers? Prosecution awaits your judgement!

Tieler Soumas

To the esteemed Judges and proletarian Bailiff: (please excuse the long post, but y'all needed the background drama to understand the context) I present to you the case of the disorderly Brother-in-law's Girlfriend My wife and I recently moved from their hometown to a city eight hours away. Because of this, I started DMing a campaign for a party of 6 remotely, made up of a mix of family and friends. In the process of setting up for this campaign, I sent a group text out to the people that I thought would be interested in playing to organize a party. This led to my brother-in-Law (wife's brother) asking if his girlfriend could join, as she was not included in the initial text. Wanting to be a good BIL I said yes, despite knowing that she is a bit much to say the least. Without going into too much detail, suffice to say she is the most obnoxious one at family gatherings (bringing a gallon jug of a mix of SunnyD and voldka [heavy on the voldka] to the last thanksgiving, just for her self, being loud enough to make me scoop my magic deck and leave a table full of friends because she is just that insufferable, just to name a few). Suffice to say, she is known in the family and in the friend group to be a raucous rabblerouser. Anyway, In the sake of keeping peace I said "sure, no problem." I should have seen the writing on the wall. The first clue was when her character was created: most of the people could read the room and understand that our campaign was going to be silly and lighthearted, starting in a magical comedy club (they knew this beforehand). The other members of the party included a goliath rouge, an elfling (elf-halfling hybrid) druid, and an Aarakocra named Hoowhohoo, a silly monk, and a drunkard of a Dragonborn as a cleric. Enter: Deathbringer. A Dragonborn sorcerer (which is fine) whose scales and breath weapon change according to what time of gemstones are in their proximity. Her back story said her father was a black dragon and her mother was a powerful sorceress, but she was born as a blue dragonborn, causing much of a stir. Not wanting to quash their creativity, I just Yes-anded her putting the stipulation that only certain gems will change her scales, at my discretion. Since starting the campaign, on two separate occasions she has joined the discord session while she is actively at a party or visiting family insisting on trying to participate via text, only to use audio while still hanging out with the group she's socializing with. In addition, she tries to hoard all of the items I have given the group, often denying the player who it was obviously designed for the chance to have it. Nearly every npc she encounters she asks if this person would know anything about her back story or why she is blue or whatever color, making the social interactions a slog. Her antics have gotten so out of hand that it has caused my wife to socially disengage from the campaign as it is hard for them to get a word in edge-wise. So I ask you Justices: was I right to include her in the campaign? Or should I have bit the bullet and excluded her? I humbly await your judgement

Billy Martinez

To the Just okay justices Axford, Tanner, Murphy. And their extremely responsible and humble Baliff, Jeff I’m the DM of a DnD 5E & Call of Cthulhu home brew campaign and in our first session, everything was going swimmingly, rolls were great, players were having a wonderful time, it was a classic great first session, until My players reached the first dungeon boss of the campaign. My Eldritch Octo Paladin & his trusty Shark Hound proceeded to start mopping the floor with my poor players. Now his stats weren’t too crazy or anything, everyone was starting at Level 3. The issue came with everyone attacking the shark hound who happened to have some high dexterity, due to being a slippery fish dog. Unfortunately a lot bad rolls aimed at the wrong target later, my wizard was out of spell slots and accidentally shot my Druid with his crossbow due to a critical fail, my rogue was rolling death saves after being cut down with the paladins Coral great sword. My Barbarian and Druid were up and still attacking my Shark Hound, ignoring the big boss boy paladin and getting whomped. Frustrations were high, as the mead was flowing and players were starting to feel tipsy. This is where my sin against dice Christ took place, after changing some rolls for both the Paladin and just trusty hound so they didn’t TPK my players I may have suggested that by focusing on my paladin, the irritating fish dog may “dissipate” after defeating the paladin, as he was intrinsically tied to the Fishmonger’s own life. After fudging some roll’s and hinting at the key to beating the Saltwater Couplet, my Barbarian and Druid focused their might on the Paladin and won the day, striking a killing blow and by extension causing the Shark Hound to return to the void upon his defeat. A short rest later and some potions distributed the session ended, everyone had fun, no one died, but I felt somewhat guilty for undoing the ancient one’s well earned whomping of my team. I ask you, should I be brined in Davey Jones locker for my sin, or will Cthulhu forgive me for ensuring my players victory despite their shortsightedness and lack of insight. I humbly await your judgment!

rougezapato

To the immeasurable justices and 5 out of 10 bailiff: I bring you the case of the “(Not so) Lethal Campaign” I recently started my first ever d&d game with a new roommate and his friends, who are all fairly experienced. In our session 0 my roommate, the DM, said that we’d start up a lethal and low level campaign à la Game of Thrones. In our first session we had a combat encounter. One of the enemies crit and managed to kill my character in a single hit. This was fine by me and I even got excited at the high stakes. However, the other party members argued saying, “You can’t kill someone in the first session”. I tried to tell the others that it was okay, but my DM decided that my character shouldn’t die and I’d just be unconscious. We’ve had a few sessions since then and others have gained ongoing skill disadvantages from just being knocked down. Judges I ask you this, should my character have been killed or is the first session a safe zone. I humbly await your judgement PS - My DM rolled in front of the board during our first session, but has since bought a DM screen.

Vera

Hello to our righteous judges and Cake the Connoisseur. 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 then described as the druid being followed by a black mass that I could not make out exactly what it was. Then, me thinking this was gonna be our first fight he allowed me to cast eldritch blast and I proceeded to one shot the black mass. After this he described the Mass being the druids wolf companion who was running alongside the druid, not chasing him. This moment was mostly treated as a non event in game give or a take a few jabs at me for killing his companion however, over the years when I would defend my choice because there was no indication that the thing chasing our druid was friendly at all or even a non immediate threat his only retort is "Why didn't you do literally anything else. You just shot at the first chance". (This is all in good fun, more importantly the druid player and I are in good standing) 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 druid player whomped me and destroyed an entire encounter involving dire wolves with the spell spike growth and I couldn't have been happier.

sarah may

To those who are evespeeping in the courthouse bathroom, and Jake! didn't realise you were in here - i present the case of a simple ooze. My party and I found ourselves in a rat infested cave. After getting part way through, i (an ooze person named Dingle) caught a rat and wanted to use it as a guide. i asked if i could put the rat in me half way, letting the ooze hold him in my chest and letting his other half sort of be out and supported. my other party members did not like this and said i couldnt have a friend in me (jealous that they had no ooze like capabilities), but nothing in any of the books say otherwise. dm's, can i have a friend in me that also tells me where to go???

Morose Psych

May it confuddle the court and please todays guest baliff. I present the case of the pure chance player. 6 years ago, some friends and I decided to try DND after listening to you beautiful people. Since non of us had played before I took the reins as the reluctant DM and that first session turned into a a campaign that finished 2 months ago. This brings me to a player that joined half-way through, he had never played before and we were still shakey at best on the rules. This player decided to leave everything to chance, so he rolled for his class, his species, his background, even his eye colour. We thought this was quirky but then found he rolled his stats by going in order of his character sheet, so he ended up with the most charismatic monk to ever fail a wisdom save. I gave him some bonuses to balance his stats as the game went on and all was well. The problem is, he keeps doing it. Every character he plays is completely random! He has been the cause of 2 TPK's because he even lets the dice decide what he does in crucial moments. This often leads to laughter at the table but every now and again I see a look from another player who really wanted that serious moment. I have spoken to him a few times about how it helps me prepare if I have an idea of how he will act, he just tells me I'm trying to be controlling and should let the dice decide for the excitement. We've been a fairly close-knit group but I'm trying to start a new campaign and I dont know if I can handle another few years of unintentional chaos. Do I submit to the dice? Or do I stand with my own decision? P.s. we all hate your show, thanks xx

Zvika Aloni

--dice christ-- To the wise and sagely chucklefucks who interpret the workings of dice Christ, blessed be. Did my DM openly defy dice Christ, or did we fall victim to the dice devil's trickery? It was early in our campaign and we had just been given shelter and succor by a dumb goblin NPC with a cute voice, named Meat Chef. You know the type... The kind of NPC that the party immediately claims as a companion. So eventually we're getting whomped by a mindflayer and I decide that our best chance of making it out alive is to throw Meat Chef into harm's way as a distraction for the rest of us. The DM had me roll. ...and then again because of disadvantage? When the dice rolled in favor of Meat Chef's last stand, the DM had me roll another die, to try to give Meat Chef a way to survive. And then another die. And another. He was having me jump through hoop after hoop in an attempt to keep this NPC alive. Eventually, the odds of the dice coming up the way they did, resulting in Meat Chef's death, was 1 / 1920. Then the extremely sweaty DM said he just couldn't let it happen, defying the will of the dice. You see... one member of the party, the DM's then-girlfriend now-wife, had grown very attached to Meat Chef and was approaching the point of emotional trauma during this whole scene. Disregarding the dice in order to protect the feelings of a player is of course the right choice - I don't think we can argue with that. But I ask you: was the dice devil riding shotgun, or is Dice Christ a bit of a sick fuck sometimes? PS message me if you want more details including the math

Derek C

To the honorable justices and whoever is a guest today. I present the case of 'The Ghosting Group'. Around 14 years ago my friends and I found a DM at a local comic book store that had a separate room, used for card games and more. So we joined this DM at the table and had a really enjoyable time. Soon the DM’s girlfriend came and she was a little strange but tolerable. Anyway, sometime later this couple wanted to join our group and we agreed on the terms that if we didn’t vibe with their style that we’d ask them to leave. Spoiler alert, it didn’t and honestly I’ve felt bad about how it went down. The DM and his Girlfriend were the ones who had their phone numbers so they delivered the news by text that the group was breaking up with them and apparently never spoke to them again. Forward to our next game the couple showed up at the comic shop and the tension in the air was so bad that the manager told us to take it outside before we even spoke. There we told them how we felt and they became upset and slightly aggressive before huffing off into the parking lot. The couple simply didn’t mesh well with our group, but were we right to ghost them and should they have accepted their vote off the table? I throw myself on the mercy of the court. Ps. A year later we voted off the DM and his girlfriend. P.s.s. Hate your show.

Doplgangrdude

May it please the court, the always astute Crit Justices Murphy, Axford, Tanner and the affable desk clerk Jake. I bring forth the case of a pvp pc death. We were a group very new to playing d&d, maybe 4 or so sessions in to the campaign, and I was the dm. We were all long time friends so our chemistry at the table was mostly pretty solid.. mostly. One of our friends, who was playing a Paladin named Arthur, was a bit of a chaos goblin. He would constantly antagonize NPCs, flirt with monsters, and Leroy Jenkins himself into dangerous places while the rest of the party planned. Admittedly, there were times that I kind of enjoyed the shenanigans, as it kept me on my toes and were fun to resolve. Other times, they actively hindered the party and frustrated the other players, including myself. I noticed things getting pretty tense when one of the others asked me if they could just kill Arthur, while Arthur was sitting right next to him. Being new and naive I said they could definitely try, laughed, and moved on. Sure enough when Arthur attacked a NPC the others were trying to have a conversation with, the rest of the party attacked and ultimately killed him. Needless to say the mood at the table was a little sour when the session ended and I've felt guilty for letting it get that far ever since. To be fair to the other players, they had asked Arthur to chill in and out of game a few times. Was i wrong for letting them take things into their own hands and giving the go ahead? I am at the mercy of the court. P.S. We still all play together and have had a blast the last 2 years.

Evan

To the Honorable Justices of the Supreme Crit and the Lowly^3 Bailiff James - I present to you the case of The Players v. Schrödinger’s Megalodon I DM for a group of players in a sea-faring campaign that kicked off in earnest with the players “liberating” a pirate ship (they stole it) and “re-employing” the old crew (they fled to the seas). The voyage to the main port city in this area of the world was a journey of two weeks that was marked by an early GBB-style cooking montage to decide which of the three self-proclaimed chefs on board would cook for the crew and saw multiple run-ins with a group of sahuagin and a mind-controlled megalodon they used to harass the ship. In the final battle between a sahuagin warband complete with a clam-mounted harpoon platform pulled by said megalodon, the party defeated the sahuagin and the shark now free to make decisions for itself started to flee because it was below half health. The barbarian on his turn decided to hurl a Bead of Force at the fleeing megalodon to prevent it from escaping as it had attacked and fled multiple times over the voyage and caused a lot of damage to the ship. The Bead of Force struck true and the giant shark was trapped in the limited space that the bead provided. I described the cramped force bubble sinking beneath the waves and told the party that as it passed into the depths they were unable to tell if the shark was alive or dead - it was at this point that one of the players stated that because the shark was unable to swim, it would be unable to breathe and would therefore suffocate and die in the bubble. I tried to explain to the player that the shark was still able to maneuver the bubble from how the magic item is described, that the item description also clearly states that breathable air still passes through the barrier so the shark could still be alive, and furthermore the shark still had a quarter of its HP left. The player however stuck to their argument and even got the other players on their side saying that the shark should be unequivocally dead and that I should “just give them the win.” Judges, I lay myself at the mercy of the court - am I in the wrong for leaving things ambiguous, or were my players too eager for the kill after smelling blood in the water?

Arun Bharatula (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-05 07:00 G'day your stunning Honors and good on ya, Jake the bailiff. Fair dinkum, this a chin-scratcher with a campaign set in the the Australian outback, where kangaroos roam, Vegemite flows and boomerangs whizz through the air. The Billy Gang, rightly known for our mischievous exploits, are accused of stealing the Golden Boomerang - a treasured artifact that brings luck to the land. The plaintiffs, a tribe of salty goanas, brought our case before Outback Court. Judge Sheila "Boomerang" O'Riley the stern kangaroo presiding over the Outback Court has referred our case to the Supreme Crit Justices. I got nabbed with a golden boomerang, right? Not THE golden boomerang. My defence attorney, Bruce "Crikey Cober" Dundee, charismatic and handsome dingo defense attorney called expert witness, Dr Muddletoee PhD MD to the stand who on a history check said the boomerang wasn't the legendary Golden Boomerang they're bangin' on about. The prosecution's kicking up dust, sayin' Dr Muddletoes, a hotshot historian, should've chucked an arcana check instead. They reckon that boomerangs got mystical mojo. Dundee esq petitioned lobbed in a fair share of arguments but Judge O'Riley, had a taste for the fancy rules lawyer lingo from Matilda "Koala" Kowalski, the no-nonsense prosecutor koala and got a bee in their bonnet. Did that history check give us a fair go, or should we toss the dice for a fresh start your Honors?
2023-08-25 23:35

Doctor Doctor

To the honorable Dungeon Justices, and the ever-persistent voice of Jake's questionable character choices, I humbly present a case from my tenure as a player. In a vibrant realm teeming with anthropomorphic critters, I embodied the shell of a warlock tortle. Inspired by the legendary Abyssal Chicken familiar case, I envisioned a demonic entity as my familiar—more fitting than a pedestrian raven, especially when a raven-esque Aarakocra already graced our party. Our generous DM embraced my imaginative request, designing a system where this devilish poultry could indeed lash out, but with a caveat: I'd roll for its obedience each time a command was issued. The grand introduction of "Mr. Chicken Beak" was met with an overwhelming hatred of my new familiar. Alas, our first skirmish tested the bond. Guiding my feisty fowl towards an Aboleth, my roll succeeded, and the DM allowed a modest 1d4 damage. But then! Our rogue, literally standing up at the table proclaiming, "Familiars cannot attack! Maybe you can use the Help action?" Despite my protest, arguing the homebrew nature and the checks and balances of my persuasive prowess over my pet, the DM sided with the rules-monger. My Abyssal Chicken was declawed, rendered to a non-flying raven, and its will remained indomitable, requiring persuasion to do anything but follow the party. I pose to this esteemed court: Is my disgruntlement misplaced? Tragically, my Tortle met its doom that very session. Would a competent familiar have tilted the scales? I await your guidance. ~A Disgruntled Warlock with a Depowered Poultry.

Thelonious Punky Brewster

To the Honorable Supreme Crit Justices, and … Etcetera *shrug*. May it please the court: I submit to you a case of separate; unequal, slithery and squishy damage soaking capabilities. Our party of four had spent multiple sessions setting up an ambush for our alchemical artificer’s unrepentant rich and royal father’s purchased posse of mercenary menaces whom she had escaped from at the outset of our Saltmarsh escapades. A clever-enough combination of Hallucinary Terrain overlaid with Finn’s (Mordenkainen’s) Private Sanctum as well as some particularly potent portent opportunities allowed us to truly get the drop on said dastardly deca-douches (there were ten baddies). My High-Elf Divination wizard Finn'ly'ah'ryth (sounds how its spelled) utilized the Gift of his Alacrity and the Fortune of his Favor to ensure he acted first. Eager to take advantage of the enemy- who having arrived as any pretentious prat of Yuan-Ti royalty would (atop a Palanquin perched upon an enormous singular Boa Constricting serpent) – cast a new and novel spell. Upon creating a Gravity Well 15’ above the group of 7 enemies – the Serpent failed their saving throw, being lifted 15’ into the air and subsequently dropped as did 3 of the 4 baddies atop this writhing royal ride - Success! – Although…. While rolling the extra 1d6 damage for the 10’ of falling - I was informed by my DM that only the serpent itself would suffer the additional falling damage because (and I quote now from my extemporaneous notes) “The serpent breaks their fall”. ________________________________________________________________ After a short but sharp protestation – I relented and we resumed the roiling conflict. Were that the only slight I would not be writing to you today dear honorable justices (and… etcetera); Later in the fight, in an effort to ground a legendarily annoying archer atop their Hippogryph, I teleported our party's Barbarian/Illrigger and sent them floating five feet above the flying foe. Upon which, after some awe inspiring saving throws and ability checks they, having grappled the dangerous but delicate archer-type, thrust them both off the mount- Plummeting 50’ to the ground. So NATURALLY I spoke up, a wry smile upon my lips a simple inquiry tripped off my tongue: “Surely the enemy having lost the grapple check would break our Barbarian’s Fall!?” Justice was denied that day, ‘that’s not how it works’; the retort still stings as it rings within my ears. I deign today for this court to correct the record, and I place my ingot of injustice upon the anvil of your authority to craft a correction into the annals of authoritative Justice that is this courts’ rightful purview. Note: My reckless misuse of ‘whom’ and flagrant punctuation errors saw me thrown out of the lower courts, but I appeal to your higher natures to see the soul of what I submit to you today. From: Finn'ly'ah'ryth (sounds how its spelled)

N

To the esteemed Justices and the beloved Bailiff, I present to you the case of the deadly chain pull I was in a group’s 1st campaign with a 1st-time DM. I missed a few sessions and when I rejoined, was dropped straight into a king berating the party for failing his quest. Without much context for this (my party just told me "we failed the mission, his daughter is still kidnapped, you weren’t part of that mission") I talked back twice and the king ordered his guards to restrain me. I said 1-2 sentences each time – specifically protesting his anger and hostility. There were no dice rolls at any point. The DM said if I struggled, there would be consequences. I didn't hear this part and said “I pull at my chains”. I was immediately beheaded, and then the DM turned to me and said "do you understand what you did wrong?". I sensed IRL hostility, so to peace-keep I said I accepted my character death and would sit out the session (this death occurred 10 minutes into the session). The DM then stopped play to lay out all the reasons the king had to be angry - half of this was new info to me. When everyone realised that I didn't hear the "consequences" line, the DM insisted he would retcon my beheading. He proceeded to demand that I apologise to the king (I stayed silent), then narrated my imprisonment and applied a mystery curse to me before letting me rejoin the party. The DM "jokingly" said that he was working really hard to keep me in the game and I was making things difficult. The king's anger at the rest of the party was conveniently forgotten and my fellow players said nothing. I hated being forced into this "merciful retcon" and wished my character had died so I could leave the table and session (I ended up leaving this group later anyway). I have a lot of Murph energy IRL (a good and serious boy) and this felt like disproportionate retribution. I ask the court, were my DM's actions justified or not? Were his emotions bleeding into the game? Was this a merciful retcon? Should my character have just apologised? I humbly request your judgement.

Brandon Boling

Hey Justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner! Oh… Jake, didn’t see you there… if it may please the lovely court and… jake over there, may I present the case of the Devilish Boy Band. I am a player in my DM’s music themed Campaign. The party and I are all Tieflings in a boy band from the nine hells called: “Momma’s Boys”, due to our collective love and devotion to our devil mommy’s. Sounds all fun, until drama hit our recent session. Momma’s Boys was invited to perform at a prestigious music festival, where we’d all share the stage with some of the most famous and respected artists in the world. The festival organizers have strict rules and regulations for the performers, such as limiting the duration, volume, and content of their songs, as well as requiring them to dress in a certain way and behave in a certain manner. To prep for the night, we all went back to our Hell Tour Bus to begin going over what we should play. Being the Bassist, I didn’t mind whatever as long as it still felt like Momma’s Boys. However, the lead singer Baz and guitarist Axel were immediately at another’s throats. Baz wanted us to play it safe with one of our big hits from a previous show, while Axel wanted to go wild on stage with some new art. This back and forth would eventually lead to Axel joining the competition as a solo act which peeved Baz so badly, they actively sabotaged one another shows that would inevitably get all of us arrested. Justices, and I guess Jake, was Axel in the right to stay true to the free spirit that is Momma’s Boys, or should we all have just hugged it out with Smelly Pete (Our Drummer) and gone on stage as one big Hellish Family. We await your response.

Jean-Philippe Haineault

To the highly honorable wise old justices and the toddler bailiff Jake. I present the case of the shredded character sheet. I play a monk in a campaign with some friends. I wanted to follow a creed, but not be the annoying lawful good paladin so I wrote the creed specifically so I can justify anything as long as the party didn't purposefully kill the innocent. The problem started at the end of an arc, a member of the party was insta killed after rolling a Nat 1 on a constitution saving throw against a life stealing artifact that a party member was using to seal an ancient evil. His sacrifice allowed us to save a country and the lawful evil shaman PC was based around his familiar being able to reincarnate him through possession of a new body. So it didn't seem too bad. However after he expressed his wish to go find an innocent to possess, I felt like I could not let him sneak away. So I chased him, expecting to either arrive too late or catch up and talk him into possessing a body in a coma or something similarly more ethical. I ended up barely catching him and pushing him away from his victim but before I could say anything, the player stood up and ripped his character sheet to pieces. Saying he was done playing the character since he couldn't play him as he wished. I apologized and offered alternatives such as taking it back or saying that I had knocked the man into a coma when I pushed him away, but he was adamant. It obviously put an abrupt halt to the session and left things awkward. We talked after the game and he explained to me that he was more mad at the GM for killing his character so suddenly and that there was no bad blood. But I can't help but feel like I took it too far by interfering with his character reincarnation. The next session he arrived with a new character that fit better into the group and all is well. But I wonder if I acted like the annoying lawful good paladin I wanted to avoid. Please show mercy on my soul or my friend's for our next reincarnation. Thank you

Thelonious Punky Brewster

As I read this beneath the shade of a Coolibah tree, I stuffed a Jolly Jumbuck in my tucker-bag, and I just want to go Waltzing Matilda with thee.

JazzSnackers

To the most honourable Justices Axford, Tanner, and Murphy...and Jake: I present the case of the Honeyed Monster Blindside. I have been in a homebrew game set in Dimension 20's world of Calorum for almost a year now and started the campaign as a honey sorcerer with an attitude. The game was going great and the stakes were high when her girlfriend was kidnapped by cultists and was going to be sacrificed in their ritual. Unfortunately, we were unable to save her in time and her girlfriend was lost, at this point, my DM described that there was a deep buzzing within my character. Leading up to this point there had been one or two moments before where the DM had narrated this buzzing during high emotions (one actually had bees come out of her mouth) and had even mentioned at one point that a magical item was registering her as Fey, but since her girlfriend was kidnapped at the time I didn't put that as priority number one in my mind. So the DM described this buzzing and asked if I wanted to tap into this deep emotional feeling of anger and hurt; it felt fitting to my character in this moment so I said yes. He then described my character brutally shapeshifting into this Honey/Bee monster thing, gave me its stats, and then on my turn tried to make me attack my own friends even after he said my player's consciousness was still in the monster (which we all luckily managed to argue and I could use the monster as I wanted). After the combat, he narrated that my character, as a baby, died and was brought back to life by a honey spirit who was then bound to it for life, which as a player I knew nothing about, and said that my character was now either going to be stuck as this monster until she slowly perished away from it, or she could shift back to her human form but be horribly disfigured for life. Unsatisfied and upset with both options and unable to choose on the spot, I made my character/monster fly away so her fate was never known, and ended up making a new character. I was pretty upset with my DM for blindesiding me with this character backstory and for not giving me any warning on what I was signing up for when I agreed to tapping into my characters buzzing rage in a heated moment, but am I justified in this thinking? Or should I have bought into my DMs clues more and be punished for my negligence? Thank you and love you all ✨️

The Diced Apple

To the honorable judges and the handsome bailiff Jack. May I present the case of WWE dragonborns. I am a new DM for my little sibling and their teen friends. Two out of four of my players are dragonborns. One is a monk (my sibling) and the other is a barbarian. I love these teens but they are crazy. For some reason, both the dragonborns keep trying to do WWE shit rather than use their abilities. The barbarian decides to pick up the baddies and throw them instead of using his +1 great axe. I kindly ask if he wants to use his axe instead because it will do so much more damage, but he don't wanna. I ask him to do a strength check, which he often rolls well on, and then I roll fall damage to reflect however far he has throw the enemy. The monk wants to throw enemies or tackle them. I often just ask them to roll their unarmed strikes and flavor as whatever they are going for, but it doesn't feel right and the player seems disappointed. The human paladin (who decided is mute) and tiefling druid (who attempts to seduce everyone) in the party don't seen to mind the dragonborns shenanigans, so they don't help me convince them to use their actual attacks. They are all new players but I am at a lost. Are there rules on throwing, tackling, or leg sweeping enemies? Is my table a bunch of crazy teens or am I just being a hardass? The four of them are wonderful at role playing and have thoughtful characters, even if they are all a little nutty. I'd appreciate any suggestions the court has to offer and accept any punishment on behalf of myself or my silly players. - Apple PS: You guys are freaking amazing and I love the show. Congrats to the new daddy Jake.

Matthew

To the extremely hot judges and the strange looking bailiff I bring you my case of the campaign ending counter spell While playing in a pirate campaign we had planned a stealth mission to get some documents for our pirate boss. This compound we are attempting to raid was surrounded by cliffs, we decided to attack from above and target the biggest threat. We were able to successfully sneak to our positions and waited for our bard to cast hold person on a surprise round. When hold person was cast the boss was able to counter spell without knowing the hold person was being cast ruining our plan. We argued that since the enemy had no clue the spell was cast it wouldn’t work but the dm wouldn’t even give his reasoning for counter spell working. This made everyone kind of lose interest in what was happening in the session. Later in the combat my monk opened a door to the inside of the compound and found more enemies after running in. The banishment spell was cast on me and I failed my save. Banished inside the compound the enemies shut and locked the doors with my crew outside. When the banishment ended I reappeared outside of the compound with my crew and that was the end of the session. Those questionable rulings along with other issues with our dm the campaign ended. So I ask you judges where me and my crew wronged or will we have to spend eternity in Davy joneses locker.

Rychu

To the undeniably beautiful, gallant, knowledgeable, and justifiably deified Supreme Crit Justices Caldwell, Emily, and Murph (and also that bailiff whose name I can't remember), This is an old case but one I believe is still within the statute of limitations. My friends and I were playing in a game run by another friend. Everyone at the table has years of experience DMing and playing, so we have a lot of trust in each other. The adventure was pitched as a Futurama/Duck Dodgers-style comedy space adventure using the new Spelljammer rules, so naturally, I came up with the daring-do half-orc sailor Rex Tangle who was searching for a new ship to captain after his last crew mutinied. To make a long story short, the party came together, found an abandoned Spelljammer, and immediately used it to start a delivery business off-world while being hounded by a Mind Flayer space pirate who claimed to have some sort of ownership over it but was (supposedly) willing to let us keep it if we did jobs for him. He would try to initiate these jobs by sending over little hivemind aliens to attempt to communicate with us, but each time we ran away or shoved the little alien overboard. We were having fun! The DM, however, was secretly fuming. The last time we encountered the little alien, Rex Tangle and another crew member picked it up and held its head underwater while having a conversation (like I said, the game was pitched as a Futurama-esque goofy space comedy and I was basically playing Zapp Brannigan), and I decided to say I held the little alien under until I didn't see bubbles, killing it while cracking bad jokes. The DM immediately got angry and said that I was forced to change my alignment to evil (this was not the first callus kill I had made in the campaign), and had the Mind Flayer spice pirate teleport his ship over to us and give the party a fight they couldn't win, killing my character by throwing him off a cliff while standing up for his decision. The DM was frustrated that we were constantly running away from or discarding his plans and that killing the questgiver was the last straw, while we the party believed that we were playing the story by having a fun goose chase with this strong criminal in space while remaining scrappy deliverymen. Were we, the party, in the wrong for not picking up the quests the DM was throwing at us and running away, or was the DM in the wrong for not communicating that this was his story plan to us and giving us deadly consequences in a more lighthearted game for pissing off an NPC we knew was powerful?

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.

Matt Purvis

To the highly venerated justices and.. I wanna say Jork? May I present the case of Spoiled-Kid Syndrome. I'm a fairly new DM, only having two campaigns, both still ongoing. Now that my first campaign is nearing 30 sessions and my players at level 6 I've realized that between my excitement and inexperience, I enabled my players to be grossly OP. I mean horribly so: all 4 of them already have +2 homebrew weapons with cool features, almost all of their attunement slots full of random cool shit, and I have to bend backwards to try to give them challenging fights. Thankfully, I learned from my Murph-from-C1-type mistake and have been stingy on cool shit for my 2nd campaign. My C2 party is made up of some of C1 players. Here comes the issue. Recently in C2, my PCs have been rather pushy about when they'll get upgraded gear, another level, magic stuff, etc. So much to the point that it consumes our after-session debriefs. Now I ask you, are my players right in assuming my magic mistake is precedent and I should fold and resume the Santa-DM style OR was I right to try and correct course and not dole out so much cool shit?? Thank you for your time and consideration.

Stems137

To the honorable justices Murphy Axford and Tanner, and the lowly bailiff John. I present the case of the inadequately described chest. I was playing in a new campaign with some friends of a friend, and we were delving into a dungeon, as the rogue of the party, it was my job to scout ahead for traps and other danger. While doing so, I stumbled upon a hidden room. As I entered the room, the description I was given follows "This is a mostly bare room, save for a single "chest" against the back wall." approaching cautiously, I searched for traps, I was told I didn't see any noticeable traps. So I decided to open the "chest". This is where I take issue, as I got closer to the "chest" I was told to make a dexterity saving throw, as giant blades sprung from the wall at waist, and neck height. as it Turns out, the "chest" I was looking forward to opening was not in fact a box with a lid, but instead a dismembered human torso, left by the last unfortunate soul who entered this room. I argued that had I known this was a human torso, I wouldn't have been so keen on opening it, but I was told that I would still be taking the trap damage as I still approached the "chest" this nearly killed my low level character. I ask you, am I right to be upset at this outcome, seeing as I was deceived into approaching from the start?

Joshua Kramer

To this esteemed judges Murphy, Axford, and Tanner, and the only baliff I can tolerate (but then, I haven't met many bailiffs). I submit the the case of the Absentee Execution! The first campaign I ever played in was in high school. We would meet in our school's library during our spares and played every day. We played the rules loose, and all of our characters were incredibly overpowered, but it was a really laid-back, exciting intro to the game! One day, I decided to skip school, and therefore the day's D&D session. All good, I thought - we were in the middle of a dungeon crawl, but I assumed my friends had it in the bag. So I was surprised the next day, when I showed up and asked my DM about the game, and he told me that, oh - we weren't playing today. Also, sorry, my character had been killed while I was gone, and the campaign was now over! Thankfully, he didn't suffer much. Our fighter had looted a cursed sword from a chest, got possessed, and swung around on my wizard on the spot. He cleaved the poor guy completely in half - right down the middle, I was told. Then, not long after, the rest of the party was confronted out of nowhere by the "gods of the realm" for being too overpowered. I think the party was given a choice to surrender, but decided to fight the gods instead, which resulted in two more casualties, with a final lone PC on the run from the gods for the rest of his life. That was the end! We never fought the BBEG or even discovered what his real plan was, we just died in some random dungeon we found. Afterwards, we remained friends and there was no ill will, but I will always remember how I abandoned my boy in his time of need. Was I at fault for skipping school, or does the blame lay at the feet of my DM? Please judge these teenagers from nine years ago.

Jon Fraser the Dicelander

Holy mother of god; liked the case just because it’s so fucked. If you’re in the LA area and need a new group lmk

Nathan Morphett

Greetings honorable justices Murphy, Axford and Tanner, and the lowly squared bailiff Blake! My case is a simple one. During a Christmas special session that happened in the Christmas plane. My players experienced a light-hearted let's save Christmas session. This involved slaying many Christmas themed beasts such as a giant snow man, grinch-like goblins and candy cane wielding fairies. There was also a lot of Christmas themed loot/magical items that at the time I thought were just fun/neat little things to have. Some examples are a bell that summons a spectral reindeer once a day, Christmas cakes that act as greater healing potions, a giant bag of holding themed as Santa's sack and many more. This was all fine, except I took in a little too much of the Christmas spirit (if you know what I mean) and gave one player a Santa shirt. Seems harmless? We'll, this shirt gives the player a +4 to AC and doesn't use an armory slot. This resulted in my player having a whopping 24AC at level 3. Now, I've found ways around this (int saves and the like) but today I had the idea to make the shirt a little cursed. Nothing mechanical, just that the shirt will always appear on the outside of what he's wearing and people will comment on the weird Christmas themed shirt that he's wearing mid year. I also would like to have them grow a white beard every morning and start to grow chubby. I have done this retroactively a few sessions later (my reasoning is that it's a curse that develops the further away from Christmas it is), my other players love the idea and think it's a funny way to balance his OP ITEM but the player in question won't have it, they say I'm metagaming and retconning their cool gear because I'm salty that it turned out to be so effective. I understand I'm a little late to making some rulings but I find them harmless and in good humour. Is my player right that I'm metagaming and retconning their item because I'm salty about how effective it turned out? I humbly await your judgement.

James M

Dear honourable justices of the court and to the joke…. I mean Jake, that is the the lowlyest… umm I meant loveliest bailiff. I bring forward to you the case of the Narrative Advancing DM. I’m in a current campaign with a bunch of theatre friends, (Always lots of Drama). The guy running the campaign has taken it upon themself to produce quite an epic story, creating his own map, currency, races etc which in its own right is awesome, but, upon starting the sessions we have noticed that he seems to hurry us along. On our first session, we found ourselves stranded on a beach after a shipwreck. Having a roleplay moment we were about to introduce character names when the DM spoke out and said ‘you see a map’ None of us were currently looking for a map! We were just enjoying the comedic role play of our rather unusual characters, myself being a Kenku Druid named Klang who likes shiny things. We continued with the role play and none of us picked the map up, this is when the DM then sent us a digital image in discord of the map and said ‘Are you guys gonna leave and carry on then or what?’ We hadn’t even got to introduce our characters names before he was handing us a map and making us climb a cliff edge! We have since done another 2 sessions and the same sort of thing keeps happening, The DM will advance to plot points and the next puzzle quicker than you can say ‘Investigation Roll’ So I ask you honourable members of the court and Jake, am i wrong to judge the DM for his pushy demands or is he at fault for not letting us gel as characters before we began our campaign.

James M

Dear honourable justices of the court and to the joke…. I mean Jake, that is the the lowlyest… umm I meant loveliest bailiff. I bring forward to you the case of the Narrative Advancing DM. I’m in a current campaign with a bunch of theatre friends, (Always lots of Drama). The guy running the campaign has taken it upon themself to produce quite an epic story, creating his own map, currency, races etc which in its own right is awesome, but, upon starting the sessions we have noticed that he seems to hurry us along. On our first session, we found ourselves stranded on a beach after a shipwreck. Having a roleplay moment we were about to introduce character names when the DM spoke out and said ‘you see a map’ None of us were currently looking for a map! We were just enjoying the comedic role play of our rather unusual characters, myself being a Kenku Druid named Klang who likes shiny things. We continued with the role play and none of us picked the map up, this is when the DM then sent us a digital image in discord of the map and said ‘Are you guys gonna leave and carry on then or what?’ We hadn’t even got to introduce our characters names before he was handing us a map and making us climb a cliff edge! We have since done another 2 sessions and the same sort of thing keeps happening, The DM will advance to plot points and the next puzzle quicker than you can say ‘Investigation Roll’ So I ask you honourable members of the court and Jake, am i wrong to judge the DM for his pushy demands or is he at fault for not letting us gel as characters before we began our campaign.

Brynn Tell

To the demonic justices and Princess Jake, I present the case of the Desperate Moodkill So during lockdown my friends and I decided to start a dnd campaign on Roll20. We've played various campaigns together since highschool, so when it came to running, four of the six(including me) through our hat in to dm. We decided to run a roguelite/sitcom series of oneshots, centered around the Guildmembers of The Guild of Ratlinburgia. We all had guildmembers and would rotate who was dming each week and the dm they would make the quest taken off the quest board. The game was very low stakes because the oneshots always ended back at the guildhall and if we died we were resurrected with a cut of our earnings by the "Definitely not a Lich" Guildmaster. The case takes place during the dming turn of one of my friends who was a dedicated "forever player" but through our encouragement decided to give a crack at running a quest. It was a quest to rescue a princess from a demon attack on her castle, an iconic adventure, and through some hilariously wacky situations and silly combats we made it to the throne room fairly unscathed and we were all having a fun time. They had us roll a perception check to notice a sound on the ceiling as the princess and demon came crashing through, and we all rolled initiative. I aI went first, being a wood elf dex ranger and immediately double moved into melee with the demon, standing over the princess, since the rest of my party was mainly ranged. The demon then went and hit me for 26 points of my 28 health (the most of the party) in one attack, no crit. I and my character were both shaken from the blow but the rest of my party attacked and did a large amount of damage. On my next turn i decided I would disengage and run, leaving the princess(not the heroic type) but my dm said i could pick her up as a free action. So i did but as i ran they said the demon took and op attack against the princess. I stated that see was being moved without her action so it couldn't, but they said the princess had essential saved her action to move with me. Then the demon hits, bites off her arm and having tasted her blood starts glowing red, and spouts wings. Horrified my character looks at the rest of the party and says "Run". Reluctantly everyone began rushing out of the castle as the demon flies away and everyone felt pretty defeated, dm included, with the battle ending after only 1and 1/2 rounds of combat. We had a disappointing end to a fun and lighthearted oneshot and although I didnt intentionally try to kill the the mood, I couldn't help but think it was my fault. So I ask the court, was I wrong to make the executive decision to run, especially since death wasn't severe in these oneshots, or was it okay to lean into the fear of almost getting one-shot by a blazing demon? I put myself at your mercy P.S After talking with the dm the next day they said they wanted the demon to feel recklessly danger so it rolled 1d20+6 damage and they had just happened to roll a 20 and that we had done 90% of the demon's health in one turn so they had to improvise and get the demon to get its powerup before it died

Locemo

To the radiant and just judges of the Supreme Crit, I present- Oh hi Jake, yeah, good to see you too. Hmm? No I haven't seen Jake and Amir. I present the case of the Helpless Newbie and the Anti-Meta Sentiment. I joined a game with some friends, being run by a newer DM. I was the last player to join the crew, and probably the most experienced at DnD, give or take the DM. After the second session, I noticed our sorcerer (a first time player) was struggling with the game and not rolling very well on any stat checks. I figured I should leave it to the DM to help him along, but after a few checks, I realized that the sorcerer had a +3 to Strength and a -1 to Charisma. Somewhat baffled, I pointed this out at the table, a little curious if maybe the new player had a build I didn't know about, to which the DM immediately told me to "stop metagaming". I accept that discussions at table about stats aren't fun, so I let it stew, but after the session, I told to sorcerer how he could re-adjust his character to make them work better, to which the sorcerer agreed, and asked the DM. Again, he told me to "stop metagaming" and told the player to stick with their original stats, as that is what he had already set as his character. So I ask the court; am I wrong to feel this is too ardently anti metagaming? My DM seemed to want my fellow player not to have a good build at all, which was obviously making gameplay less fun to play for my fellow player. Am I wrong to try and undermine the DM's authority, or is the DM being too strictly against metaplay? I throw myself at the court's blade.

Liz M

To the virtuous clergy of Dice Christ, please offer one of your lambs some resin-cast guidance. My boyfriend keeps a d20 in his car. There is a flat space past the cupholders and under the display where it can freely roll around as he drives. I generally think of this as fun and cute. But recently I have become increasingly aware of when his Mazda rolls a natural 1. We have taken a lot of road trips this summer and there are just so many ways this little car could get absolutely bodied. Then again, nat 20s feel like a little emotional boost. I humbly ask the church: is this a blasphemous use of dice? Will Dice Christ smite us on I-95 for our indiscretions? Or should I simply always fear the maniac drivers of Stamford, CT, regardless of what his car rolls? Yours in faith and the passenger seat, Liz

Nathan Punga

To the honorable justices Murphy, Axford, and Tanner, and the dastardly bailiff Jake, I've run into an issue recently. I DM a game for my family. We started Waterdeep Dragon Heist and my mother made an urban ranger with the Urchin background. Part of the background is that the character starts with a little pet mouse. My mother asked if she could have a pet monkey instead. The fool that I am said, "Sure, that sounds funny." I thought it was an innocent enough ask, and she's a new player so I didn't want to rain on her parade. My issue is this, she uses this damned monkey for everything! Need to sneak into a place? Monkey can do it. Need to pick a pocket? Monkey Monkey Monkey. I asked her if we could tone it down on the monkey business a little and she flat out refused. My mom is generally a reasonable person, school teacher, but she's turned into a maniac for this blasted ape. Would I be in the wrong if I absolutely obliterated this monkey, or at least had someone kidnap it? I humbly request your guidance, and surrender myself to your judgment. Thank you.

Nev Altan

To the absolute, powerful, and radiant Justices Murphy, Axford, and Tanner, and the overworked bailiff Jim. I have been running a campaign that (for the most part) has met every Wednesday for the past two years. It was my first ever campaign I’ve run and has been the campaign that has taught me most of my DM-ing knowledge. A few sessions ago my party were fighting a massive magically corrupted serpent from a kingdoms founding mythology. During the intense battle, I revealed that the serpent had 4 legendary resistances. Upon hearing this, our party’s rule lawyer spoke up, saying that creatures can only have up to 3 legendary resistances. We razzed and joked back and forth for a bit, and eventually decided to allow the forth use of the resistance stay, but I ask you mighty justices, was I wrong in tossing aside this rule, making my boss too powerful? I lay myself humbly before the judgement of the court.

Hardtooth unsureleg

To the court of the good lord Dice Christ and the bailiff gas station cake. My partner and I along with two of my band mates have been playing for almost a year. Recently my character ( half elf fighter) got a new weapon , a great axe that deals 5 d8 damage and has a trample flavor that lets me sacrifice a damage die to knock them prone. Over all this is a wicked weapon. The thing I’m asking for your ruling on is that it is shaped like flat rubber duck and every time I hit the dm makes sure that he makes a duck sound. So far this campaign and my character has gotten very serious. All the other characters have rad weapons that look and sound cool as shell. When asked the dm said that he was quote “ im just trying to lighten the mood of the table”.Am I wrong for feeling cheated of the cool finishing moves especially while killing an astral dragon.

Evan

Hello effervescent justices and the bailiff of questionable quality. Our party was in the middle of a fight in a clock tower. Our warlock and my barbarian are on the 10th floor. The fighter and cleric are on the stairs up to the 10th floor, 25ft away. The warlock shouts some directions to the fighter, and the DM asks the fighter to roll perception to hear the warlock. The warlock rebuts that 25ft is well within earshot of a shout, but the DM argues that since the cleric is still coming up the stairs in the middle of a fight, he would have trouble making out the words. I ask you, was a perception roll in this situation a needless obstacle, or would a fight make it difficult to hear your friends?

Fyco

To the Beautiful Bailiff Brad (I think he looks like a Brad) and those other people who stifle Brad’s ability to shine, I bring to you the case of “The Max Life Mayhem”. I DM for a couple of groups and in this case an evil campaign. During a battle with a BBEG (maybe the BBGG?, eh whatever), the wizard in the group had taken a rather big hit and max HP was reduced. Earlier in the session (in game likely more than an hour had passed) he had used False Life to gain temp hit points and maxed it out at 8. The hit he took was a Water Siphon which reduces the max HP by the damage taken on a failed Con save until after a long rest. If max HP is reduced to 0, death. The wizard failed. After having taken more than one of these fails, his max HP was getting pretty low. Within the next round the encounter was over and the party triumphant. With literally 8 HP left, he asked me about the false life. I scanned my notes and realized it would wear off either before or during the fight. I decided that the reduction from the blow would have taken the max HP from the false life prior to affecting his true max HP and declared that he would have simply been unconscious at that point with 0 HP when the False Life HP dropped off, instead of final death. I ask of the court, was this the end of the wizard? PS (if the bailiff finds this relevant): I had previously killed this wizard off, minutes into session 1 but provided a reincarnation option for the party to bring him back. So my decision in this case may have been to save this poor guy from a true final death. I’ll save that story for later though.

Rachael Lovely

To the Honorable Crit Justices Axford, Murphy, Tanner and the Bailiff Jack, I present the case of Character Bleed Crush. I have been playing dnd with my friends over discord. For a very long time I was only able to play one-shots or weekend long game sessions because I either had to play really late at night or really early in the morning due to time zones but my long awaited long term campaign has come! In session number two my PC fell in love at first sight with a NPC and therefore derailed everything that everyone had planned because my PC compromised my true identity to them for our espionage mission. I have since realized, looking back at all of my previous sessions that I have played with my DM when he was playing a fellow PC, that my characters have all had crushes on his characters (not that they ever acted on it.) In doing so I realized that I have a little tiny crush on him. I don't plan on ever acting on it IRL because it doesn't seem worth it to blow up years of friendship over a little crush and in the future don't plan on doing romance with him again but this brings me to what brings me to the courts today. Did I do my fellow party members and DM dirty by derailing our campaign over my IRL feelings for my DM or was it an honest mistake? I beg the courts their just judgement on if I deserve punishment for completely derailing our campaign in the second session! ~ Rachael (they/them)

Gigi

To the honorable crit justices and that blonde dude I present the case of the auto hitting cleric Me and a old party got together to play a one shot that took place in water-deep, while fighting the dms wife who was joining us for the first time was confused when rolling to hit in combat so the dm said that she could just roll damage. I tried to explain to the dms wife and the dm that you need to roll to hit in combat but the entire party immediately shut me down saying that I can’t disagree with the dm. The problem only really arose when the dm ran a fight later that night against a evil golem with a 28 ac, the dm still made the rest of the party roll to hit the golem, we were having a tough time hitting the golem except for the cleric. After defeating the golem the dm got mad at the cleric for destroying the golem so easily and not following the rules The night ended with “let’s just make it a two shot” and the dm mad at his wife I ask the court is it the cleric’s fault and should I go back for the 2 shot

Icanruinamoment

To the Honorable Crit Justices Axford, Murphy, Tanner and the absolutely craven bailiff Jimothy Hardnips, I present the case of Joritz of Mount Arreat. From what I know of the honorary Crit Justices all are huge Diablo fans as I expect no less with such cultured refined taste and decorum our brave justices carry. My question is this I am starting my first campaign and really don't want to be a hardass dm so am giving everyone pretty much free reign on their characters. I have so far a primordial druid, a haunted ranger who carries the ghost of his captain with him, a drunk monk who imbibes while he fights and his missionary makes some of the best wine in all the realm, and a swordsman fighter who wants to become the best in the land and is an honorary King's Guard of a huge city. Lastly there is Joritz of Mount Arreat who is just a subpar barbarian not even really that good, as the player has stated, with a Wife he can call upon once a day called Raekor who is absolutely supreme to him in every way which honestly I find to be pretty great, BUT....at the same time I'm not sure how well it works with the cohesion of the story or how others at the table will take it. I believe I might be able to swing it and make it work but don't want the other players to not enjoy the experience cause they're hung up that there's a couple characters from Diablo breaking the immersion for them. Am I right to let this first time player swing wide with Joritz of Mount Arreat and his super chad wife Raekor? Or should I give him some options for different character ideas? He says he isn't very imaginative so I don't want to push too much, but I will serve whatever sentence is passed down on me by our Supreme Crit Justices before I start this campaign. Thank you for your time and may Dice Christ always be guiding your rolls.

Hunter

To the honorable justices and- oh shit what’s his name? James? No that can’t be right. Anyway I present to you the case of Half Movement and What that Means: In one of the campaigns I’m in a few weeks ago, we were in a pretty dicey fight in a cursed, decaying forest with an evil hag and her animated vine monsters. Because of the vine monsters, some party members’ movement was halved. An NPC who’s movement was halved from the vines was knocked prone. He stood up and my DM then declared that he had no movement left. We were all confused because he should have some. Our DM then said that when your movement is halved, that means you can take half of the movement available to you in a turn. Meaning that since this NPC used half his movement to stand, he can’t use anymore of his movement. We all disagreed and argued that it just means your walking speed is reduced to half its value. Honorable justices, does movement being halved mean you can only mechanically take half of the movement available to you or the actual number is reduced to half its value? I humbly await your judgement and bow to the mercy of Dice Christ. PS: Blake! It’s Blake the bailiff. He likes cake or something? idk

Samuel

I humbly approach the honorable Supreme Crit Justices and relatively esteemed bailiff. I present the case of The Double Jumping Goblin. I play a goblin bard-ificer in my good friend's homebrew game. My character gained the Telekinetic feat from Tasha's Cauldron. He is inspired by Ratchet from the Ratchet and Clank games and I thought it would be cool to double jump in homage to the source material. I reasoned that the Telekinetic shove ability should be able to shove the character 5ft in a given direction during a jump effectively giving him a double jump. I asked the DM if I could, he said no and we moved on. The campaign is great, however I still think the rules as written are on my side. What say you, Justices and Jank? P.S. Can't wait to see y'all at Carnegie Hall!

Just a little guy

To the honorable justices and to that lowly guy in the corner, I present to you the case of the "4 hour repetitive discussion." In one of our sessions our DM had some issues right before the session started which delayed him by about an hour. Everyone else was there so we decided to talk about the campaign and what we should do with this session. We were about to make a huge decision which would drastically change the direction that the story would go to. We spent the entire hour discussing what we should do out of game. We came to an agreement on what we should do, and then then when the DM showed up we told him what we talked about and roleplayed it out. This lasted for about another 2 hours as we had to reconvince one of the players to go along with our plan. Then when the time came to actually make the decision, the player who needed to talk to the NPC was also the person who needed to be convince of the plan. She decided in that moment to do completely opposite option causing many issues that we still are dealing with. When we asked her about it, she said that she changed her mind and that she wanted to do this instead. Everyone in the party was pissed at her, but no one could actually do anything about it in game. We then talked for another 2 hours about how we could fix this issues. She kept saying she doesn't understand why we were angry, even though it cursed one of the other players. My question is should we be angry with the player, or is this a simple case of "that is what my character would do", even though it made no sense for her lawful good character to rip the soul out of a person to gain strength. I would understand if we had not already come to an agreement beforehand and had a total of 3 hours of conversation about this.

Natural Dragon

Dear honorable justices Murph the majestic, Caldwell the cunning and Axford the awesome along with the third best guest star in NADPOD history the lowly Jake from State Farm… I give you the case of the lying (IRL) rogue. I play D&D with a group of co-workers. We work at a brewery in a college town (this will be important later) and during Covid we were dubbed “essential” thus we were isolated from everyone but ourselves at the brewery for 2 years. Over the course of the pandemic they found out that I played D&D and asked if I could run a game and I said yes. Once Covid became manageable our schedules shifted slightly so it’s been difficult to set up games. This last weekend we had a festival at our brewery. We were given Saturday off. Once we knew that we all planned to play D&D. The week leading up to the game everyone was on board and I had been prepping a scenario where the group would ambush a wagon with a mystical item they needed to fight the BBEG. I was excited to continue the story as it had been about 2-3 months since we played last. I had been wanting to do this scenario since then. Well the day of the adventure, 4 hours before the game was to start my rogue texts the group “Gotta bail guys 😿I need to catch up on some sleep. Feel free to adventure without me today” then about an hour later another player texts “I feel the same. I need to catch up on some rest. Sorry guys” I have to cancel the session and the other two guys of the party are sad but understand. My rogue kept Apologizing to me and I kept being like “it’s alright. You weren’t feeling good” he kept being weird about ruining the session. If this was the end of the story I would be fine and would have given him a free pass like I had been doing. Then the other night I was working with the rogue. We were throwing kegs around and he rolled a nat 1 in real life and let it slip he went to the first women’s volleyball game at the local university on the night of our D&D game. I could tell he knew he fucked up. I didn’t react to it and acted as if I couldn’t figure out what he just told me. Initially I just wanted to keep the peace and move forward. The more I’ve thought about it, I’m pissed at him. He ruined a week of hard prep and an afternoon of adventuring with friends. So my question to the justices is do I let this go? Do I tell other members of the party what he did? Do I confront him? Do I punish him in game? Am I overreacting? Is there something else I should consider? I await your verdict and justice my honorable judges and Jake from State Farm. If you use this case please call me Jay. You all rock!!!

Jacob B.

I spread my greetings to the court of illustruous and even-tempered justices. And to jake I present thee with this simple query: shall I try again? I ran a game with critters of chaos and whimsey with my girlfriend and her roommate. They played cats that were suddenly awoken due to a fermented catnip present in a petsmart garbage bin. My players began a bit of smoking wacky tobaccy whenever their characters would imbibe in the catnip and before long they were as stoned as sisyphus after the first trip up the dreaded hill. The session ultimately didnt finish as a result and we havent been able to conclude the part 2 of my oneshot due to school/moving. I of course hold no ill and fun was had by all, but I wonder if I should write a new one shot or continue with this one disjointed and gapped as it is.