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Cases for Dungeon Court LIVE! (Patreon)

Published:
2023-09-11 12:26:37
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

Hey there folks! Lowlylowlylowlylowlylowlylowlylowlylowly Bailiff Jake here. The Supreme Crit is convening this week, LIVE in Minneapolis and Chicago! Please submit your brief (1-2 paragraphs, I do beg) cases on this thread and we will try you in open court.

Also, if you will be attending the shows please let us know! Write PANTAGES in your post if you will be in Minneapolis and write RIVIERA in your post if you will be in Chicago.

Lastly, there are a few tickets still available!

Yours in honor,

Jake

Comments

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.

Darkrisky

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 played 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. (Keep in mind my character saw all this in a “Facetime”.) 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 stood there smiling at me waiting for my answer. 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. PS sorry if this confusing. I had to condense a lot.

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.

lawless-crows

are ghosts organic? (Riviera!) to the highest of the realms’ court, and those who preside over it, and the bailiff ****, I present the case of the shatter spell vs the organic ghosts In a midnight attack that awoke the party by dropping one of the PCs & a BELOVED NPC, then splitting the group two and two, a group of banshees and will-o-wisps set up a fun challenge. It was a hard fight, with at least one PC dropping every round, and tensions were high to try and keep everyone safe. With her surrogate father figure under risk of soul-sucking, the sorcerer, Sienna, cast Shatter. She then asked: “since a ghost is dead, therefore not made of living things anymore, is it considered inorganic material?” She then argued that because spell’s wording says “any creature of inorganic material has disadvantage on saving throws,” the banshee should roll with disadvantage. I, as the DM, hesitantly said no, they are organic, which lead to 15 minutes of research and a heated (but friendly) debate that split the table. It ended with a “fuck science, magic is real, I’m the dm” and combat continued with no hard feelings. It sticks in my mind, even months later, so I beg the court to weigh in. Are ghosts organic material, or should I have given the them disadvantage on the save?

Ren

To the splendid judges and jake. I'm I the arshole to leaving a dnd group when the DM won't let me have spels. I have been playing with this group for many years had just finished a 20th level game where I played a druid. When charater creation came the DM had one stipulation I was only allowed to play with the group if I had no spells at all. I kept playing with them as a fighter but the joy was lost for me and I left. Nobody will talk to me from the group anymore.

Lexi H

RIVIERA!! To the illustrious justices of the supreme crit and the fresh baby baliff Jake, I present the case of the meta gaming stand-off. I’ve been playing in a game with some close friends for over a year. Sometimes I get mildly irritated at the level of “metagaming” talk that happens between the DM and another player at the table (i.e. “you guys shouldn’t travel to ___ yet because I planned that encounter for level ___,” overexplaining enemies weaknesses so nothing has stakes, etc) but most of the time I let it slide. I also sometimes feel frustrated with the amount that same player (let’s call her Jake) excludes the party from decisions, goes off on her own, and insists on dealing the killing blow in most big fights (she’s a bard). In our most recent session, we split up to loot a vampire’s abandoned mansion. In my room, I found some armor that “didn’t fit me right.” I grabbed it and went on my way. “Jake” found some important intel and thousands of gold. We were all super excited. When we came back together and I asked what everyone found, “Jake” said she found “some papers.” I said “is that it?” And she said “yep.” I asked to do an insight check, which I admit was not my best moment - I was metagaming! Participating in what I hate!! But can you blame me? I was so tired of the selfish playing, ESPECIALLY since I am the party’s cleric and bear most of the financial burden for components for spells like Revify. I failed my insight check. My DM then said the armor I collected “look like it fit ‘Jake’” so she said “I try it on.” So then I got catty. I said “I have the armor and I have not handed it over. You haven’t asked.” She said “oh. Can I try it on?” And I said “are you going to be honest about what you found upstairs?” She ended up offering to pay me for the armor. I told her not to PAY me, just to be honest and the rest of us agreed it was fair to split the money (or pool it together, but this specific player wants to keep her own money). So, I ask you - was it wrong of me to initiate such obvious metagaming, or was I justified in confronting the selfishness of that PC (and possibly player)? I humbly await your judgement.

Mitch

RIVIERA Dear Emily, Jake, Caldwell, and Murph, who I consider to just be regular people. My friend recently started a One Piece themed campaign, and inside a pub we saw a person we had fought before. While the rest of the party talked, I decided to throw a stool at him. I was told to roll and subsequently did 1d4 of damage. But there were no consequences. Here is where I maybe was a jerk. My friend is fairly new at DMimg, and so I decided to throw another stool. The guy was still talking to the party. Again no backlash. I threw an additional seven stools before he became bloodied and decided to fight back. Guys, am I wrong to continue to do something that kept working despite playing on the inexperience of my DM?

saavikams

RIVERIA hello honorable justices tanner, murphy, and 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 the rest of the party 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?

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. PPS Pantages!

Alex W

RIVIERA. To the honorable and honestly a little too beautiful Crit Justices and the baby Bailiff Jackson, I bring an update to the case of Shrek the Rogue. Previously, the Crit had heard the case of my twin sister who refused to play anyone except Shrek in our very first D&D game, and I must give a funny but sad update to that game. Unfortunately, life has gotten in the way for that campaign and it is on pause. However, Shrek still lives on in very silly memory. In the last session before we paused, I had “Gemma-ed” Fiona and made Shrek go through a court case to prove that he did not kill his ex wife. He won, and everything worked out well for him. However, I bring to you a confession. In the “Gemma-ing”, I rolled stealth on my assassin ahead of time. His first roll was a 2. Because I knew that in order for the rest of the session to run properly, Fiona had to die, I decided on the fly that the assassin rolls with advantage and proceeded to get like a 25 on stealth, an unbeatable number for Shrek (my guy has a -1 to stealth). I beg of you forgiveness on my sin of forsaking Dice Christ, and hope that you look down on me with kindness and forgiveness. P.S., I’m in row d of the balcony!

Lily Holmes

RIVIERA To the Illustrious Crit Justices and their lil buddy the bailiff: I'm currently playing in a weekly game with nine players and a DM. This is a lot of people, but we have a good time and the DM does a good job balancing all the players. The issue that I bring to the court today is that three separate players have decided to make a SECOND character. While I initially thought they were going to swap their characters out, each person is now playing two at once, which means we have twelve player characters and motivations to handle in a three-hour session. Am I in the right for being perturbed by this plethora of player characters, or am I just being a buzzkill? I graciously await your judgment.

DOOFINIUS (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-05 07:00 To esteemed and hopeful forgiving crit justices and that other guy baliff lake i bring not a case but a confessional so if you would interced to dice christ on my behalf i will confess, playing in a homebrew saltmarsh campaign and my first time playing artificer i felt a lack of healing so took a level of cleric because we also found plate so level of life cleric for the proficiency, we run into a bandit camp and are surrounded things get dire i had cast bless at the beginning and i lost track of rounds i do believe i had round 10 correct but i could of been off by one and bless saved some npcs and party members, my confession is two fold i have a strength of 9 so plate should have made my movement 20 ft and a couple times roll concentration on bless at half damage which sometimes was under 10, i had a moment of second guessing myself but pushed on thinking i was right on the rule always being half damageand so much was happening in the combat and to keep track of, so i ask did i overreach in trying to get to much and having to much to track walk speed concentration and rounds of combat and have i cursed the campaign by wildly changing the narrative preventing npc and party death or was this being my first transgression even though it was multiple during a seisson or can i continue with dice Christ's blessing if you want to call it that as i have Caldwell disease and am in someway forever cursed to bless the narrative and mundane in crazy ways
2023-09-11 12:45 To esteemed and hopeful forgiving crit justices and that other guy baliff lake i bring not a case but a confessional so if you would interced to dice christ on my behalf i will confess, playing in a homebrew saltmarsh campaign and my first time playing artificer i felt a lack of healing so took a level of cleric because we also found plate so level of life cleric for the proficiency, we run into a bandit camp and are surrounded things get dire i had cast bless at the beginning and i lost track of rounds i do believe i had round 10 correct but i could of been off by one and bless saved some npcs and party members, my confession is two fold i have a strength of 9 so plate should have made my movement 20 ft and a couple times roll concentration on bless at half damage which sometimes was under 10, i had a moment of second guessing myself but pushed on thinking i was right on the rule always being half damageand so much was happening in the combat and to keep track of, so i ask did i overreach in trying to get to much and having to much to track walk speed concentration and rounds of combat and have i cursed the campaign by wildly changing the narrative preventing npc and party death or was this being my first transgression even though it was multiple during a seisson or can i continue with dice Christ's blessing if you want to call it that as i have Caldwell disease and am in someway forever cursed to bless the narrative and mundane in crazy ways RIVIERA

To esteemed and hopeful forgiving crit justices and that other guy baliff lake i bring not a case but a confessional so if you would interced to dice christ on my behalf i will confess, playing in a homebrew saltmarsh campaign and my first time playing artificer i felt a lack of healing so took a level of cleric because we also found plate so level of life cleric for the proficiency, we run into a bandit camp and are surrounded things get dire i had cast bless at the beginning and i lost track of rounds i do believe i had round 10 correct but i could of been off by one and bless saved some npcs and party members, my confession is two fold i have a strength of 9 so plate should have made my movement 20 ft and a couple times roll concentration on bless at half damage which sometimes was under 10, i had a moment of second guessing myself but pushed on thinking i was right on the rule always being half damageand so much was happening in the combat and to keep track of, so i ask did i overreach in trying to get to much and having to much to track walk speed concentration and rounds of combat and have i cursed the campaign by wildly changing the narrative preventing npc and party death or was this being my first transgression even though it was multiple during a seisson or can i continue with dice Christ's blessing if you want to call it that as i have Caldwell disease and am in someway forever cursed to bless the narrative and mundane in crazy ways RIVIERA

Lockie McGrigor

"He was surprised when I said my character killed herself and the I quit the campaign" is one of the best sentences I've read and I hope this gets picked

Sawyer Rappa (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-05 07:00 To the World Series Winning Judges and the cursed baliff who got traded in 2015- 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 punched armin, armon, and kyle to death in one fell punch, canonizing their deaths. i, the dm, am delighted by this choice- he was in the battle while the party was at the circus. the party however, is asking how to make this action against the geneva conventions, thank you RIVIERA seat F12 main floor!
2023-09-11 12:49 RIVIERA To the World Series Winning Judges and the cursed baliff who got traded in 2015- 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 punched armin, armon, and kyle to death in one fell punch, canonizing their deaths. i, the dm, am delighted by this choice- he was in the battle while the party was at the circus. the party however, is asking how to make this action against the geneva conventions, thank you Sawyer seat F12 main floor!

RIVIERA To the World Series Winning Judges and the cursed baliff who got traded in 2015- 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 punched armin, armon, and kyle to death in one fell punch, canonizing their deaths. i, the dm, am delighted by this choice- he was in the battle while the party was at the circus. the party however, is asking how to make this action against the geneva conventions, thank you Sawyer seat F12 main floor!

Jor Elare

PANTAGES To the alluring, mysterious, sensual justices of the crit and their friend Jason, I present the case of the Tutor Eel. I DM a long-running off and on campaign for a group of mostly family. Due to busy schedules and adult life we will go for a few weeks in a row and then break off. To keep them informed of recent in game events, I introduced The Tutor Eel, a soft spoken brain worm created by mind flayer tech. He gave helpful tips and reminders to my party but I made the mistake of letting him access the mainframe of a major dungeon and control security feeds and give info. To solve this suddenly omniscient ally problem, I narrated his off camera demise when he was left alone in a tank far away from the party. Immediately my group exploded in protest and seeing my error I reintroduced him in a neutered form. However I feel like it was a narratively satisfying ending to a fun NPC and that I should have let him stay dead, was I wrong to cave to the outrage of my PCs?

KennyH (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-05 07:00 RIVIERA Hello honorable justices Tanner Murphy and Axford. Oh I guess Barliff Joef too. I present you the case of the forgotten warning. I joined a game of Lost Mines of Phandelver that my cousin was running. It was a great time and we had a fun group of characters. When It came time to interact with a certain green dragon. The NPC that gives us the quest to get the dragon to leave also gave a warning that the green dragon was cunning was not to be trusted. We went to sneak up on us lair, but were spotted. The dragon called out to us, and after several moments convincing our characters to come and negotiate with him (and several unsuccessful insight checks) we walked towards the lair. Only to receive the biggest womping of the campaign. Only one character survived. I ask, did my cousin (who is sitting next to me here at the show in Chicago) fail in his task as a DM to warn us/remind us what the friendly NPC told us about not trusting this green dragon. Or did us players deserve the slaughter we walked in to for completely forgetting what the NPC said to us? Important context, when the three of us who died made new PCs, he gave us all a free feat because he "felt guilty" for killing us. I await your most venerable judgement.
2023-09-11 12:51 RIVIERA Hello honorable justices Tanner Murphy and Axford. Oh I guess Barliff Joef too. I present you the case of the forgotten warning. I joined a game of Lost Mines of Phandelver that my cousin was running. It was a great time and we had a fun group of characters. When It came time to interact with a certain green dragon. The NPC that gives us the quest to get the dragon to leave also gave a warning that the green dragon was cunning was not to be trusted. The session ended with that warning, and a few weeks went by. The next session the party went to sneak up on the dragon's lair, but were spotted. The dragon called out to us, and after several moments convincing our characters to come and negotiate with him (and several unsuccessful insight checks) we walked towards the lair. Only to receive the biggest womping of the campaign. Only one character survived. I ask, did my cousin (who is sitting next to me here at the show in Chicago) fail in his task as a DM to warn us/remind us what the friendly NPC told us about not trusting this green dragon from the session that was two weeks ago? Or did us players deserve the slaughter we walked in to for completely forgetting what the NPC said to us? Important context, when the three of us who died made new PCs, he gave us all a free feat because he "felt guilty" for killing us. I await your most venerable judgement.

RIVIERA Hello honorable justices Tanner Murphy and Axford. Oh I guess Barliff Joef too. I present you the case of the forgotten warning. I joined a game of Lost Mines of Phandelver that my cousin was running. It was a great time and we had a fun group of characters. When It came time to interact with a certain green dragon. The NPC that gives us the quest to get the dragon to leave also gave a warning that the green dragon was cunning was not to be trusted. The session ended with that warning, and a few weeks went by. The next session the party went to sneak up on the dragon's lair, but were spotted. The dragon called out to us, and after several moments convincing our characters to come and negotiate with him (and several unsuccessful insight checks) we walked towards the lair. Only to receive the biggest womping of the campaign. Only one character survived. I ask, did my cousin (who is sitting next to me here at the show in Chicago) fail in his task as a DM to warn us/remind us what the friendly NPC told us about not trusting this green dragon from the session that was two weeks ago? Or did us players deserve the slaughter we walked in to for completely forgetting what the NPC said to us? Important context, when the three of us who died made new PCs, he gave us all a free feat because he "felt guilty" for killing us. I await your most venerable judgement.

JC

RIVIERA!! To the sweet blue justices and the crabster-fearing bailiff Cake, I bring to you the case of joke that killed two PCs. My party, including my beloved sorcerer, needed to infiltrate a bar that was a cover for the local mob to rescue a beloved NPC. We snuck in, trying to get information while one player snuck in the back. For someone reason, one player had their PC leave the bar without any reason or telling us why. They then announced after ten minutes of being gone that they returned holding a bottle of Tequila, and shouts Tequila! The bar immediately descends into chaos as we are attacked I guess as penance for the lameness of the joke. After our player infiltrating the back failed and was executed by the mob boss we decided to flee. But, after we left the doorway and we're making our way into the woods, the DM narrated how I was shot in the back of the head by one of the goons and was dead. No damage, no death saves, dead. So I ask, was this player in the wrong for potentially blowing our cover with a joke (one that I don't quite get) or is the DM wrong for unceremoniously ending my characters life. PS She was my first character and we were level 3

Darkrisky

Thanks! I hope so too 🤞🏼

Seneca Kier

[Pantages] To the glistening judges and the greasy bailiff, I bring my neither shiny nor wet case to you today in hopes of receiving just arbitration. I was playing as a pilot bard in an outer space campaign, where after realizing a lack of mechanical and vibe synergy with the party, my DM and I concocted a plan to have my character die and be reincarnated as someone new by a god they had a complex relationship with. Cut to the failed prison break with the session ending as my character died and the rest were captured, I thought all was well, handing my character sheet to the DM to keep as a momento for the future. When we began our following session, I arrived with a new character sheet that I had discussed with my DM, ready to go. The DM began playing a song that he told me he had made just for me for a rainbow road like event about my new character entering the story. I was excited and raced well to the cosmic jam he came up with, only for him to describe as I re-entered the material outer space plane that it was the exact character I was playing before with the same class, saying that reincarnation is tricky and that the god had changed their mind about a new form and that my character had to learn to find their place in the universe. The DM told me to feel the underside of my chair and I found taped to the bottom was my old character sheet, completely unchanged from before. Justices, and the bailiff who did a really good job reading this which we’re all very proud of him for, was I robbed of the chance to switch up what I was working with, all for the biggest own I’ve ever experienced in gaming? I prostrate myself before the judges bench in acceptance.

ChefJustinLane

Honored Justices and first-time-guest-bailiff Jake, I play in a streamed 5e campaign that has been running for over two years now. One of the players has a third party subclass that was built with support from the DM due to the player’s desired character arc. The class focuses heavily, almost exclusively, on fire damage. The player has even spent resources on Elemental Adept to bypass fire resistance. However, every–and I did not say most, I said every–significant enemy we have faced since this subclass was introduced has been not just resistant to fire, but immune to fire. The player has voiced frustration on a number of occasions and the DM just seems to chuckle and move on. I ask you, judges: should the DM have been more conscious of choosing enemies that made a player’s character irrelevant, or should the player just live with the fact that the whole world seems to be immune to fire damage and take some other damage types? Sincerely, Justin (@TheBrunchGuild)

Sam the BT

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

Adam Baker

May it please the high crit and the Balif who is now $20 richer. 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 (e.g. Thousand Miles) off of the back porch of the cabin onto an enemy below. 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 though hilarious. 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

OceanTorrent

(Pantages) To the highly esteemed and celebrated judges and the baby Balif in need of a high chair, I present the case of the railroaded player. My sister's campaign started with the party being teleported to the Fey Wild and beseeched to find the source of corruption that seemed to be affecting the material plane. After about 5 sessions the arc culminated into a final clash with a noble and his men who were in possession of the source we were looking for. The battle was hard and most of us barely survived. The Paladin dealt the finishing blow on the noble but was killed by the Noble's right hand man (party grieved in character, even had another PC leave the party after this). Overall whole party was actually pretty happy as far as I knew. However, after the session, the paladin's player sent a long rant to the DM stating that the whole campaign was awful, the save the world plotline was too railroady, and the rest of the players were only putting up with it because they're her friends but she needs to improve (this was her first campaign). He even sent her articles on "how to make a fun campaign", "How to give character motivation", and then akined his character's death to a suicide in order to defy fate (which was not alluded to at all during session). This incident ended up in the player being kicked from the campaign and the rest of us moving on without him, but I ask, was the DM in the wrong for not creating a more open world and giving a "save the world" plotline for first arc? Or was the player completely overreacting?

Bird Law

May it please the exalted Justices and merely edge the bailiff; I present the case of the Imperfectly Instantaneous Fireball. I was dming a game in college and the party had agreed to help a village get rid a hive of ghouls. Instead of going alone, the level 5 party convinced a significant portion of the villagers to come help. They all slid down into the dark 10x10 ghoul tunnels and killed a few ghouls, drawing the attention of the hive and causing ghouls to swarm the tunnel—crawling on the floor, walls, and ceiling. The wizard decided to fireball the ghouls. I warned that the nearest ghouls were only 5 feet away, but the wizard said he was aiming to hit the back wall *behind* the ghouls so the blast didn’t catch the party and their wimpy villagers. I told him there was no clear line of sight due to the darkness and constantly moving mass of ghouls in the tunnel. The Wizard said that fireball was *instantaneous*, so he should be able to hit the back wall with no issue if he Ever saw an opening. I argued that “instantaneous” meant “really fast” like a bullet, so he could still clip a ghoul accidentally. In the end we agreed he would roll an arcana check to try to weave the fireball through the ghouls and hit the back wall on the condition that failure would mean the fireball would hit early. He agreed and got a natural 1, hitting the very first ghoul and incinerating everything in the tunnel, villager and ghoul alike, badly injuring the party. There were some mixed feeling about this pyrrhic victory, and the wizard was pretty peeved for the rest of the session. I’ve felt guilty about it ever since. Honorable justices, was I wrong to interpret “instantaneous” this way and make my wizard aim his fireball especially carefully? I sit in a sooty ghoul tunnel and await your judgment.

Court Davies

To the magnanimous and benevolent justices, and... yup, that's it I think... I bring to you the case of the DMs shady potion robbery (working title.) I play in a hardcore campaign with a few close friends. We were fighting a gargantuan Roc and it was dealing tremendous damage to our party. After a few grueling rounds of combat we asked if it looked tired or injured. The DM simply stated it was bleeding a lot, but showed no signs of relenting its onslaught. Our paladin took this as a sign that the fight would continue for a while, so he used his action to chug a greater healing potion. During the very next turn, the DM narrated that the Roc geared up to attack, but then grew faint, and fell to the ground dead from blood loss. It turns out the roc had hit 0 hp several turns ago and would only die during its next turn in initiative. Our paladin asked if he could take back the potion he drank, so he could heal with a short rest instead. The DM refused, saying he had made his choice. No one argued with the DM, but the paladin fell noticeably quiet after this. After the session, the pally and I agreed that he was cheated out of an expensive resource and the DM has set a dangerous precedent. We are now afraid of wasting our consumables in battle. So I ask, are we right to feel that this ruling oversteps the bounds of fair play, or is this kind of thing justified in a "difficult" campaign?

Lorelei and Kyra Newly Weds

To the Credible Council of Crit and that guy who sneaks bologna out of their fridge, I bring you the case of "Tortles". My old party had had 2 Tortles in them, at different points. The first was Dungle, a storm sorcerer whod join combat and hide in his shell the WHOLE fight until the last enemy dropped, then he'd go around loot gobbling whatever he could. He also at one point began stealing small woodland animals to stuff into his shell for warmth, he died towards the end of our first arc after trying to thunderclap a Roc after exclaiming "I know what to do" and proplty being carriwd away and eatten (the player thought it was a phyical rock to be fair). However the second was a Tortle that the during our campaign finale fucked everything up, we had to take a bomb to a underground cult that was trying to create adult dragons with magic. The DM described a bomb that when twisted would begin a countdown timer. I (a monk) was holding this since I could move the fastest and place it where no one could stop it, however when the Tortle said he twisted it once the DM gave us all a look and said we have 10 rounds before the bomb goes off. I frantically tried asking for an opposed athletics or anything since I was the one holding it but was denied. We failed and the dragon ended up forming and getting away. So I ask you my esteemed judges, should we allow Tortles in our campaigns? As the only person having fun is the person playing the Tortle. I await your humble decision

Neil

To the highly bodecious crit justices, and the rad-rat himself, Jaques, I submit to a case of the slippery tortle. My friends and I are playing a party of tortles, a mix of mostly monks & rogues, and our DM playing a ratfolk, as our leader and companion, a fantasy-TMNT if you will. Throughout the campaign, we'd been using our boards as a free object interaction, with a performance check for extra movement each turn. In a big battle, my rogue had rolled a Nat 1 on performance, and the DM declared I'd wiped out my board trying to do a "sick 720", was left stuck spinning on my shell, and lost all movement, leaving me in the path for an AoE that was incoming. I pleaded I'd be able to slide on my shell to move away, but they ruled against me. I survived the battle and ultimately it doesn't matter, but I still feel I was robbed. Justices, I appeal to you, should I have been able to shell-slide my way to freedom?

Skillful Ferret

RIVIERA If it would please our judges and the Kawaii Bailiff, please recount the tale of the Torn Tabaxi, During our third session, the other characters in the party decided to make a plan to betray our mission and become an evil party. So, they role played a distraction to ostracize my character who was a lawful good Paladin, for the entirety of my last session (due to having to leave for a deployment). I had offered to play a Lawful Evil Cleric at session zero, 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 in the last five minutes of the game, to roleplay my character out, I took the artifact from our NPC priest to complete the mission on my own so that he would stay safe. 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. I was upset to learn this. Were the players justified in defiling my character’s legacy, and should the DM have allowed it?

Rob Lewin

RIVIERA - Yom Critpur Confessional To the exalted and poly-denominational clergy. Forgive me for I have sinned. Baruch Ata Ado-dice. I was DMing my first ever campaign earlier this year about a fantasy summer camp for adventuring kids. Session 3 featured a homebrewed hag creature taking over the drama specialist position and enchanting kids and staff into joining her production of CATS set in modern-day gangland New York. The point of the encounter I had built was to take her down while keeping all the charmed campers safe (they had commoner stats and would throw themselves in harm’s way to protect her). Well my players immediately started hitting her with AOE spells that should have fully killed all the campers around her. Since I didn’t want to go down that road, I just ruled that their spell damage could all be non-lethal if they called it, even though that’s expressly not RAW. Please absolve me of my sins wise Rabbis of the Crit. I designed a mechanic that I wasn’t prepared to back up with consequences. Amen.

ZZBones

To the illustrious Crit Justices and the enigmatic Baliff Jake the Snake. I bring the case of The death of the Chaotic Bard. My players were playing in a grim dark campaign and one player was wooden doll race called a Wechselkind. He was the kind of player that would pick up the obvious cursed item and cause havoc. The party was in an underworld and found other people trying to survive. The wood boy bard decided, after everyone was asleep, to widdle on the leg of another Wechselkind he met in the survivors camp. The NPC screamed for help and the other NPC survivors grabbed the wooden bard and threw him over the barricade, protecting the camp from danger. He was then set upon by zombies and the rest of the party said "Fuck him, let him die". I thought they would help him and this would be a way to try and roleplay their way out of it, but they just let the bard die. Was I right to have the NPCs throw the bard over, or was the party wrong for just letting the wooden bard die? I await your judgement P.S. The party used the Bards wooden body as firewood, after they killed the zombies.

Gosch

RIVIERA – in row J with one of the defendants present. To the mediocre judges and my favorite 8-bit book club guest. I was a first time DM running a two shot campaign where the BBEG was a druid who was sicking wild animals on town’s folk. When the party finally discovered the druid they decided to join him instead of fighting him. Foolishly as a first time DM I had not prepared for this situation. With much DM sweat I hastily threw together a group of fighters that had been following the party to “ensure they finished the job they were hired for”. A fight ensued that quickly started leaning towards a TPK due to my rushed balancing job. With most of the party down one of my players even looked at me and said “I don’t know what you want to do here”. In my desire to not cause a TPK on my first campaign as a DM I wimped out and saved the party via a somewhat logical deus ex machina. But I ask the court should I have stayed the course and let my players die for their poor choice in allies or did I choose right in sparing them?

McKenna Stout

RIVIERA - Row G! Dear benevolent Judges and the lowly, lowly, Bailiff Jack In the sprawling tales of our Eberron Campaign, a peculiar episode revolved around three intrepid adventurers: myself (Touko), Meanie, and Ceridwen. Our story began when our gracious DM granted us the chance to roll for trinkets. Each trinket held its charm, but Ceridwen's set our unusual adventure in motion. While Meanie and I enjoyed the whimsy of our trinkets, Ceridwen received an amulet with a remarkable power: it irresistibly attracted pigs. As destiny willed it, our path led to a confrontation with a group of ill-intentioned "heroes." Amid the heated battle, I strategically invoked the Polymorph spell, transforming our final adversary into a pig. Instead of the victorious calm we expected, the situation veered unpredictably. Almost instantly, Meanie and Ceridwen, with a burst of fondness, christened our new swine companion "Porker." Under the amulet's enchanting spell, Meanie and Ceridwen grew enamored with Porker, determined to keep him by our side. This pig—formerly a man—felt compelled to follow our party, particularly entranced by Ceridwen, and follow he did, for many, many sessions. My bard's heart grew increasingly uneasy. The predicament wasn't merely about Porker, our morphed foe; it was the moral weight of our actions. Here we had a sentient being, now trapped in a porcine form, ensnared by a magical bond and treated akin to a common pet. Hoping to alleviate this moral quandary, and after secret consultations with the DM, I decided to intervene. I discreetly cast the Polymorph spell again, hoping to free Porker by turning him into a rabbit. My intention was straightforward: as a rabbit, he might evade the amulet's pull, attain freedom, and perhaps eventually revert to his human self. But in the intricate weave of magic, outcomes are seldom direct. My covert intervention spiraled into chaos. Porker's metamorphosis into a rabbit didn't go unnoticed, leading to an impassioned pursuit and his eventual capture. The climax of this episode was a revelation that strained our bonds: I had acted in solitude, unbeknownst to Meanie and Ceridwen. As our journey continued, the shadow of Porker—whether pig or rabbit—lingered, casting doubts on our unity and the principles guiding our decisions. So I humbly ask the court, was I wrong? Should I have left Porker be and pretended he was always just a pig to keep the moral implications at bay? I await your decision. P.S. Meanie is my real life roommate and there was definitely tension in the apartment when it was found that I had acted alone, so this decision might finally take that weight off of my home.

Dayvis7

To the honorable judges and Baby bailiff Jake I bring the case of the main character DMPC. In a campaign I've been a part of my DM plays a human fighter npc in full plate armor that magically contains a demon curse. His character cannot speak and communicates by writing on a chalk board. We were at a masquerade in the elven capital at our political rivals house, and one of our party members wanted to sneak away to get information. She was the only member that it made sense for them to go because they were the only elf and would not be missed. Our DM then states that his character would be joining her and when we asked how his very distinctive character would not be noticed missing at the masquerade said that his character had set up that four identical actors had been arranged to mingle in the masquerade so no one would notice he was gone. This is not the first time he has inserted his character into to places that don't make sense for him to be or giving his character items the rest of the part does have access to (like full mithril armor and weapons.) I'm I right to feel like our PC's are being made to side characters by our DM or I'm I justified in telling my DM it does not make sense for his character to be in places he shouldn't. I humbly await your judgment, and my punishment if need be

GhoOooOOOooulia JoOOooolia

PANTAGES!! To the great and all powerful justices and our sweet baby bailiff Jake, I bring to the courts the case of the PCs and the bear. My party was a group of friends and our DM was my partner, I was playing an Orc named geode that was 1 lvl Druid and 2 lvls of barbarian, we had just leveled up at the end our last session and I took my 3rd level in barbarian and decided to go way of the bear. For flavor and fun story telling I decided to roll to see if I could find a bear so I could collect the piece I needed for my totem(a bit of hair, claw, tooth, etc.) When I rolled high the dm said that there was a circus in town that had a toothless, dancing bear. One thing led to the next and I became friends with said bear and asked for a bit of his hair, thanked him and went on my merry way. However, our parties rouge decided that this bear needed to be freed from the circus and managed to take the bear out of town to the cemetery our party was to meet at. I was trying my best not get involved in the bear shenanigans as I didn’t want to upset my fellow party members by asking the dm for too much, however the fighter in our party had decided just then that his parents (who were never mentioned before this session) were killed by bears and his character would want to kill the bear that was just freed from the circus. Geode having become friends with the bear and who was great full to the bear for giving him a gift for his totem decided that he would protect the bear as he knew the bear posed no threat to party. Quickly a fight broke out, PC vs PC (geode and the rouge vs. the fighter)and real life tensions were running high. It was at that moment that our DM called the session early to keep us from killing each other in game. We continued to debate the issue after the session ended and never agreed on if the fighter was in the right for going after the bear or not. We haven’t played that campaign since that night. Tell me great justices. Was the rouge and I in the wrong for trying to protect a bear that was of no threat to the party or should we have let fighter avenge his parents death whom we had only just learned of minutes before the conflict had begun? I am at your mercy.

YourAnimeDad

RIVIERA A3 - A4 To the freaking Crit Justices Axford, Murphy, Tanner and Baliff Jam Master Cake, I present The case of the Panic Shitting Brutal DM. I play with a co-workers Group that graciously allowed me to join in the last couple years of their big multi year campaign. It been a blast except for one glaring, rhythm stopping issue. He often excuses himself during pitched womping. One such womping was when he threw us underground dur8ng a rescue mission. I casted Freedom of Movememt in order to get through debris of cave ins after an encounter with Mindflayers. When he threw more of them at us and we weren't able to be grappled. He said "I need to shit" and came back with beefier boys that we continued to womp thanks to my Druid/Cleric's thoughtful Moonbeams." When we finally faced off against the Elder Brain orchestrating the harvesting of missing townsfolk, he needed to "take a big one" returning with a Mindflayer Lich. Counter spelling all my spells. Power Word killing me. Encasing me in an Antilife Shell. Draining our resources with a fleeing ElderBrain and stunning all the remaining players, save our Rogue, for the full 10 rounds(1min) of combat. Barely giving them chance to revive me in the final round. We ultimately came out exhausted and deflated. I ask does this Shitting DM deserve a dunk in his own gunk? Or am I the shitty player unable to let a DM sweat one out?

Xavior

Dear almighty and powerful justices and the swift hand of punishment the lowly lowlyJake. 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? *Also they romanced a god and keep calling on them to fix problems. Don't need help with that but felt like adding the salt.

Mikey Ambrowiak

Rivera! Row C Seat 3 or 4 depending on where my boyfriend is sitting. Dear the luminescent judges Axford, Murphy, and Caldwell and the slightly above average bailiff... its okay you're so pretty. I give you a tale of revenge against the back seat dm. I was a long time player when a group of friends asked me to run a little one shot for them since they never played before and wanted to learn. The PCs were a rogue, wild magic sorcerer, and a warlock. Well my little one shot turned into a full fledged campaign and this is where things started to turn. Early on in a larger group of enemies fight my wild magic sorcerer rolled on the surge table that brought 2 new enemies on the table. I being still new to dming was a little overwhelmed and asked the sorcerer if they were okay to roll again and explained why, she was fine with this! Unbeknownst to me the warlock had his nose in the PH to see what the sorcerer rolled and started to complain about how cool those monsters were and pouted when I remained firm on rolling again. This ultimately made my sorcerer uncomfortable because we never said what was happening and she didnt like him looking at stuff for her character and making comments on it. The list of instances also includes him repeatedly holding up one finger whilst interrupting people when they talked, as well as getting upset at not being able to out right kill a boss just because someone had them grappled (i did give them advantage on the roll), and going on long um actually rants when what he tried to do to solve a puzzle didnt work the list could go on and on. One day the warlock decided he wanted to try dming and run a module and asked for us to play. I see my opening. I made a grung monk and asked to swap my sword for some studded knuckles and gave him my character sheet to look over and he approved. I then proceeded to kick ass on sight with the slightly over powered weirdo I made. Is it wrong for me to be petty and give him a taste of his own medicine as the chaotic player that lives in my heart of hearts?

Andy Horton

To The Honorable Justices of the Crit, and Jake (who I hope we’re cool on in this live show for ONCE), I present the case of the Tardy Party. I am starting a game with some friends here in Chicago that I will be DMing. My friends are notoriously late to everything, if they say 7 in an invite text, most people in the group know “that actually means about 9:30”. I am punctual to a fault, but also laid back enough that when the plan is not my plan (like getting drinks on a random Thursday) I am fine with the mental math of their late style. I ran into trouble when scheduling our first session that I said we’d meet at my place at 8pm Wednesday night, which until recently we met at 8 for a volleyball league on the beach, so I thought it would great since the season ended 2 weeks ago. Long story short the earliest person got there at 10 and our season ended up going until 3am. I have work on Thursday mornings! Is there a way I can prevent this in the future, or am I cursed to be sleepy on thursdays forever.

Tommy

RIVIERA! To our honorary Chicagoans and the bailiff with the #3 stained pants, When I was a fledgling D&D player, I had a half-orc barbarian who was exiled from his tribe. When the campaign eventually required us to return to my village, there was a contest of strength being held there and an opportunity presented itself for me to redeem my worth to the tribe in 1 on 1 combat with another warrior. I was privately DM’d by a fellow player, a much more experienced one with a much more optimized monk character, asking what my max damage output was. My build was very vanilla and we were only level 4 or 5, so the number was low. In our next roleplay with the contest’s event coordinator, the monk convinced the coordinator that it should be a team fight instead of a 1 on 1 fight without consulting me or my character first. The fight ended up going well thanks to it being a group effort, and I probably would have gotten my ass kicked in the 1 on 1 fight, (not to mention, it’s more fun for everybody to be in a combat together than just 1 person) but I can’t help feeling a little ripped off all these years later. Was I wronged by my fellow player or was it ultimately better for the group that we participated in the combat together? P.S (it’s fine if you read this part out loud but you don’t have to), tonight’s show is my actual birthday so thank you for totally doing that on purpose!

Luke Polito

RIVIERA May it delight the brave justices and fright the cowardly bailiff, I present the case of the Cut and Run DM. A couple years ago I was in a survival focused campaign based on the Tomb on Annihilation module. We knew going in death wasn't just on the table, but was an invited guest. My character was Dougar Greystone, a dwarven barbarian and former gladiator turned bounty hunter seeking redemption for his past and money to bring home to momma. He sounded like Stone Cold and had full sleeves of runic tattoos in devotion to Moradin and the honor of his family. Eventually our party was captured by pirates and forced to pay a blood price for our transgressions: one of us would be executed. I took the hit, offered myself for the release of the party, and told them to bring my cut of the gold back to my mother's forge. The pirate captain then cut my head off with my own sword (which my mother had forged) and took it for his own before kicking my party back into the unforgiving jungle. The party swore vengeance, the reclamation of my family sword, and that my sacrifice would not be in vain. It felt like a unifying moment for the group, the session ended and we had a great cliffhanger! Then shortly after the DM messaged us saying he lost interest in the campaign and it'd be ending effective immediately. No more explanation than that. Am I right to still feel the sting of my unavenged character? Why would the DM go through all the effort to set up this sacrificial moment for the party and then bail? Is Dougar's spirit forever barred from peace? (this was a discord game, not folks I knew personally, but it had been going for several months at this point)

Nick Gamber

Dice Christ Confessional: To the most beautiful Sister Emily, the magnanimous Father Murph, the ever clever Father Caldwell and the under appreciated fourth guy, Jack. I come seeking absolution for I fear I am testing fate in an already cursed group. I play a Dwarven Alchemist Artificer, Ricky Thundercock, a naive trust fund kid from a family that breed the loudest roosters in Tal’Dorei. I want to start multiclassing him into Artificer/Fighter with my next level. It’s makes a lot of narrative sense; my party and DM all love the idea. But here is my sin: Ricky Thundercock lacked both a STR and DEX requirement for fighter so I just went in and secretly bumped up both stats by 1. Our table has already managed to pull off two IRL divorces since we joined two years ago. Am I playing with fire at a table that already has been cursed or am I providing addition fun for some necessary escapism? I will prostrate myself in a Walmart parking lot as I wait for my absolution or damnation.

Maggie

RIVIERA May it please the exultant judges and the sticky bailiff Sure-witz, I'm bringing you the case on behalf of my client (my partner who plays star wars 5e). When he first started, he joined a random group of New to Star Wars 5e players he found on reddit - just hoping to learn the rules and have a chance to play. The group contained an experienced GM, my partner (a scoundrel pilot, working to pay off his life sentence debt), two other random guys, and finally the Defendant. The Defendant regularly posted real life woes and personal information in the Star Wars 5e Discord. Messaging daily about how terrible their father, how the group should meet up IRL, and other general super downer messages that require some sort of emotional "i'm sorry that's happening / it's alright"-esque response. It came to a point where the Defendant was either flaking on games or playing them in odd scenarios so the time would be cut short. For example, my client could tell the Defendant was playing on an airplane one time, and at a family dinner another. My client and the other members of the group approached the GM about the Defendants behavior and they all agreed to form some group etiquette rules. When the rules were posted to the Discord announcements, the Defendant freaked. They messaged that it was a direct attack and claiming "quieting me is a form of hate speech" even at a point threatening to find the GM IRL. My client, trying to be helpful, tried to calm them down and diver the attack away from the GM. The Defendant then blocked and banned my client's Discord account. Was my client wrong to have helped divert the attack? What are the ways to go about handling online etiquette? Can you reinstate my client's discord account? I humbly await your judgement.

JME

PANTAGES To the lovely judges and also Gemma's dad I guess, I submit the case of mechanics vs roleplay. Our party was faced with a wall of force where our wizard had to cast a disintegrate spell from a scroll in order to pass. There was going to be an associated spellcasting check for this to be able to work. Our party also includes an artificer and circle of stars druid. Both players knew that the next level would come with flash of genius for the artificer, and cosmic omen for the druid, which would both help significantly in passing this check. We went out with a month to find a scroll and get back. During this time, I kept asking if there was anything we could do to gain the "experience" (in a milestone campaign to be fair) needed for another level up. After multiple sessions of this, the DM broke, saying he hated "min-maxers" and that he had "already given us a bunch of levels basically for free". I shot back that the mechanics are part of what makes the game enjoyable and I "wanted to earn level ups, not just get them for free". Simular arguments have happened before but none quite this intense. To be fair, this was billed as a roleplay-based campaign, but I didn't expect a complete abandonment of the game itself. Was I wrong to argue and defend my fellow gamers? Should I try and settle into something different for me?

Lucas Peterson

PANTAGES (Row R!) To the overwhelmingly-powerful justices and whoever else happens to be there I guess, I bring you the case of the fey's 2nd Amendment. I am currently running a Pathfinder 2nd Edition game for my friends. During character creation, I had a player interested in playing a Sprite. Sprites are Tiny fey creatures, even smaller than Small, and thus need to enter the same square as their opponents in order to attack them in melee. In order to get around this, the player suggested that he could play a Gunslinger, a Pathfinder-exclusive class whose whole gimmick is using guns. However, I vetoed this. My reasoning was that since Sprites are roughly a foot tall, any recoil from a standard firearm would pretty much obliterate their tiny bodies. My friend suggested that they, instead, would use Sprite-sized guns. I offered to run some quick physics equations to prove that a tiny Sprite-sized gun would not be able to break an opponent's skin. For some mysterious reason, my friend then accused me of being a nerd that hated fun. His reasoning was that this was an unrealistic fantasy game where people throw fireballs around and we roll dice to determine how much it hurts, so drawing any sort of line due to "realism" was stupid. Now, according to Rules As Written, I am in the right here. In Pathfinder, classes and ancestries have rarity, with Gunslinger being Uncommon, and Sprites being Rare. GMs are allowed to dis-allow any option in the game that is not Common by default, and my friend eventually settled on playing a Dwarf instead. However, his words still haunt me. This IS an unrealistic fantasy game, after all, so who am I to say that a foot-tall fairy with a teeny-tiny glock isn't a threat? Was my gut instinct to disallow this race and class combination acceptable on a moral level, regardless of the rules, or was I stifling my players' creativity? Am I, indeed, a nerd who hates fun? I am at the court's mercy.

Rebecca

RIVIERA, this submission will be from Becca in the balcony To the high-flying judges and the bottom-dweller baliff, I bring the case of the reckless aarakocra. I've been playing in my first campaign with my cousins for a year now, and I play a flightless and slightly-stupid aarakocra. My cousins have been playing for years so they know all the tricks, which is all good because it's helped us avoid a lot of trouble. But now, a year in, I kinda wish we had more trouble. We've had our fair share of battles, but anything remotely optional and potentially dangerous, we pass over- from getting wishes from genies, to exploring a floating island, to getting on a ghost train full of skeletons, we skip over all of it. Sometimes these things are definitely traps or deadly, but they still look like fun. Usually, my character wants to explore these things but is told "no" by the group, and up until now he's listened to them because he's new to this world and feels he doesn't know any better. But now, I have severe adventuring FOMO so I've had him run off on his own. This has put him in a lot of danger that the party has bailed him out of- most recently the wizard had to fly him away from a deadly pirate ship that turned out to be a giant mimic. In character, they scold me and we move on, but I'm not sure if they're starting to get annoyed out-of-character. Am I a problem player? Or is the party playing too cautious? I humbly await your judgement.

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." There was no charisma roll and barely a hint of role-playing to earn this privilege. Ever since, our paladin has been riding this incredibly powerful, sentient creature and I'm still carrying the single, golden hair from her golden 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

Lilyannifer

This is a simple one. I'm playing a Mage in a game of Old School Essentials (essentially a B/X clone) and one of the class abilities is being able to hold open or closed an unlocked "door, lid, or portal" for ten minutes. The way the GM described the pit traps in the dungeon we are in was "a lid which is hinged on one side and swings down when stepped on" so I asked if I could attempt to hold closed a pit trap and we could cross it safely. I can only use the ability once per door and I have to roll under the target number on a percentile die to do it so I didn't think it was game breakingly powerful. The GM ruled that pit trap doors aren't lids or doors, and when I asked him to explain what they were without using the words door or lid he couldn't. Am I wrong for trying to be twisty with an ability? This character class doesn't have traditional spell slots and can only cast off of scrolls or magic items so the abilities are important.

Kylie Conover

Pantages- Row A LOGE To the lovely Supreme Crit Justices and the bailiff, Jack? Jace? Oh you know who I am talking about- Anyways- I present to you the case Weird rules lawyer Adult vs. museum programming I work at a brand new children's museum and have been developing a TTRPG summer camp. This was my 3rd summer piloting it and although it was only a week- what a week it was. Character creation, cardboard forts building, costume creation- and the culmination of all of that- 2 days of playing an adventure in a world they built together using the chosen TTRPG system (we have used D&D, Kids on Bikes and Monster of the Week.) Here is the dispute(?)- I was telling someone about my camp and how I modify the rules so that these kids can just pick up and play (also the youngest kids have been between 7-8 and their attention span is only so long). They told me that I was wrong to modify the rules and that there are other games I could have used- which I responded- yes- I know- I have used those games too. The point of this exercise is to get kids using their imagination and practicing Social Emotional learning skills- the game is just a conduit for these things. I don't believe I am wrong - but I guess I will leave it up for the court- Should I try and stay closer to the rules to give the kids a better experience of the game or was this person just being a weird rules lawyer? I await your verdict, Kylie C

Ashen

RIVIERA To the honorable justices Murphy, Axford, and Tanner, and I guess also to Murph’s DMPC “Jake.” I present to you the case of the Difficult Druid and the Bleeding Bard. My partner and are in a campaign for over two years with four level 8 PCs: a wizard, a monk, a bard, and a druid. Our dragonborn druid refuses to wild shape, and instead hangs back to use her acid breath or spellcast. Of course, the wizard stays out of melee range and the monk, with over 50 movement, moves out of range each turn, leaving the bard as the easy target. The bard, with few spell slots, little movement, and a melee bonus from college of whispers, ends up being the only PC in melee range. The druid never wild shapes and only uses her acid breath (which of course must recharge) or the spell Wind Wall in every situation. ONLY Wind Wall. The DM has tried to alter the style of encounters to combat this (including more and more ranged enemies), but it still ends up with the bard as a sitting duck. To encourage the druid to wild shape, the DM created a home-brew ability for her to wild shape into a dragon wormling, which the druid has only used once since getting it six months ago. As the only PC up in the mix, the bard gets absolutely rocked. Once she was downed three times in one combat (the DM even apologized afterwards). The wizard sometimes takes hits so the bard doesn’t have to, and the monk has stopped using evasion to draw hits away. To add insult to injury, we all watched the DND movie together after a session, and every time the druid in the movie wild shaped, our druid said, “that’s so cool, I wish we had someone in our party who can do that,” to which I responded, “you can turn into a fucking bear.” We’re all very good friends and there is truly no bad blood here, but it’s kind of brutal for the bard to keep dying. I prostrate myself before the court and ask if we should get over our tank not tanking or if we should trap our tank in a wild shape a la Tobias from Animorphs. Signed, the Bleeding Bard (AKA Ashley the German Whopper spill girl from Spilltacular fame)

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

Tatym

RIVERIA (ROW C) To the firm but fair judges Murphy, Axford, and Tanner, and Baliff Cake. I bring to you the case of the Boardwalk Beatdown. I was the DM for a new campaign with my partner, brother in law, and bestfriend. It was session one, only about 30 minutes in, and the characters were on their way to meet under their own circumstances on the aforementioned boardwalk. My partner played a werewolf with a criminal background and a known reputation. As he entered the dock to finish a business deal, he insisted on rolling a stealth check to sneak past the three guards on duty. Knowing he was only level 1 and hasn't played much D&D, I gave him a DM nudge to take a longer route or use a disguise instead of sneaking by guards that knew him and were actively looking for trouble, but he wanted to roll the dice so I gave him advantage for his previous criminal knowledge. He failed and was interrogated by the guards. Things became violent quickly and he took the aforementioned beating. He had to be saved by my bestfriend who was playing the regional king's daughter. After this, he wordlessly went upstairs to what we thought was a bathroom break. 45 minutes go by before I check on him and he's sitting in the very dark living room in complete silence before saying he was upset by how things went down. I said it provided a good story mechanic for meeting the other PC. I still feel bad about it even though the campaign still progressed and we had a lot of fun. So I humbly ask you, was I wrong for providing consequences or should I have relaxed for the first session? I submit myself to your (live!) judgement.

Marisol

To the Crown Justice Hurwitz and him only. (At risk of international incident, we had Mr Hurwitz sworn in to the Crown Crit of the UK) I bring to you the case of the cowardly character. After listening to NADDPOD for a while now, I started my first campaign and chose to DM for my boyfriend and some people from his old campaign, including their ex-DM. After character introductions, I narrated the hook to the first combat - a ghost train that only the PCs can see. Before I can continue, the ex-DM says he got a 23 on his Wisdom Save so won’t be charmed into getting on. Please note, I did not ask him for one. Reluctantly the other PCs didn’t get on the train too, to keep the party together. I tried two other intros to combat and ex-DM won’t engage, with the other PCs eventually giving up and splitting the party to fight. We ended the session quickly after, feeing there was some weird tension. Jokingly my boyfriend said something about ex-DM’s character being a bit of a coward, to which he replied that I should have started as a player in his campaign because my story hooks were boring and I could learn a lot from his. We ended the call shortly after and haven’t had a session since then - six weeks ago. Crown Justice Hurwitz, and others I grudgingly suppose, should I have started off as a player before attempting to DM? PS If Justice Murphy suggests I get new friends may I at least keep my boyfriend?

Marge In Charge

PANTAGES No court case. Just wishing you a happy reading! I’ll be in row c. Hi!

Kyle David Perry

RIVIERA - Row R and my 30th birthday (so excited for dice cream) To the Honorable Supreme CRICK Justices and the benevolent bailiff Jail, I present to you the case of the Confusing Cow. My party of three in our close knit home game were traveling on a ship and I decided my character wanted to do something nice for the ship’s crew. So the party Druid wildshaped into a cow so that we could provide milk for everyone on board. Our DM asked me to role an animal handling check, and though untrained I rolled a Nat 20. My DM then went on to explain that when I tried to milk the cow I instead caused it to orgasm. In asking him if I had also accomplished gathering any milk from my actions the DM said No, and didn’t let me try again. Should I have been granted milk for my cow Crit or does our DM have pasteurized precedence. I humbly await your bovine expertise and judgement. -KDP P.S. Long time listener. Hate the show.

WindowMan RR

PANTAGES To the honorable justices, and the bailiff Jake who’s quality is similar to an n64 controller. I present to you my case. My DM for a Curse of Strahd Campaign made me play a bartender that got killed by my real character when we reached the gates of barovia. I had proposed the idea of the barkeep being bad and me rping as him, but I said I didn’t want to about a week before the session but he still made me do it. And had just thrown me into it with no real help or anything and made me rp both at the same time while we were waking to the gates of barovia. PS: all of the players left after the first session because the DM was not good. We ended up all running ice wind dale instead.

Stansky

Most honorable Justices: Axford, the Witch of Whomping; Tanner, the Godfather of Goofs; and Murphy, the Inimitable Engineer of Ingenious Encounters... also the bailiff, who I think made a bunch of BuzzFeed videos with that Armin guy like 20 years ago? I am the DM for my regular D&D group in a campaign that is now going on to its 3rd year. I had been dealing with some burnout, so my partner offered to DM a mini-campaign and let me be a player as my birthday present this year. In our last session, the party split up to enter an orc encampment, everyone hiding while our half-orc barbarian attempted to talk his way in. The DM revealed that he had stepped on a pitfall trap, took 6 points of fall damage, and landed at the bottom of a cavern containing some vine creepers and a plague zombie. At the top of initiative, an orc from the camp jumped out of hiding and into the pit. The DM let us know the orc had taken five points of damage from the fall. It was my turn. I did some quick math: fall damage averages to about 3.5 damage per 10 feet, so if the barbarian took 6dmg and the orc took 5, then the pit was either 10ft or 20ft deep, but almost certainly not 30ft or more. I was 40 ft from the hole, so I ran 30ft closer, quicken spell cast mage hand as a bonus action, then used my action to have the hand grab the end of my 50ft. rope, zoom down to the bottom of the well, tie the rope around the barbarian— DM says no - it's 30 ft deep. You can't reach him this turn. I bit my tongue. Okay. I waited for my next turn. Immediately before my turn, the DM had a creeper push the barbarian 10ft further into the cavern. They let me know that my rope was now too short to reach. I started my turn by moving the remaining 10ft closer to the pit to make up the distance, and then I used my action to tie the rope around the- DM then told me that it was too dark for me to see where to send my mage hand, so I still couldn't tie the rope around him. I said I have dark vision and mage hand doesn't require sight. DM said make a raw luck check. I rolled a 13. No, you can't find him. Before my next turn the DM *happened* to crit twice on the barbarian (one through silvery barbs) and I had to jump in the pit to cast cure wounds and join the fight in earnest. Judges, I ask you, is this a tyrannical DM making up roles and changing numbers after the fact? Or should I just shut up, stop backseat DMing, and play my minmaxed divine soul coffee lock without questioning my generous partner or their rulings?

Suzanna DePeri

RIVIERA — this is from Suzanna in row B/2, seat 5!! May it please the court and the lowly (or highly? depending on the mood of the justices) Bailiff Cake Jerkwitz I used to DM for a group that was mainly my former roommates friends plus me and my boyfriend. It was fine when me and roommate lived together, but when we moved out of our apartment, the commute time to DND became 45+ mins for either me and boyfriend or everyone else (because of the new apartments we selected and because we don’t have cars!). These people would not speak to me for a month and then message the group chat and ask when were playing DND. I was running a sort of modified Naddpod campaign one, since I know the world quite well from so many listen throughs! During one session while they were approaching Ezry, I described a Stunkbug-esque character outside the bubble and the party thought he was scary and tried to avoid him. But then, my former roommate decided to introduce herself and I was like oh thank goodness, they can go with Stunkbug to get into Ezry! But when they got to the bubble, former roommate said only she had interacted with Stunkbug so she was going in and the rest of the party couldnt go in with them. Every session was similar to this. Was I wrong to basically ghost this rarely active groupchat and start DMing a group of my actual friends (boyfriend included)?

Marianne

RIVIERA! To the patron saints of the Church of Dice Christ: This is not so much a confession as a testimonial. During a high-stakes battle, a brainwashed NPC attacked my halfling bard with advantage. The DM proceeded to roll two nat ones. I started cackling wildly and made everyone pause while I took a picture of the dice. On the very next round of combat, Dice Christ punished me for this poor sportsmanship. I came up with a brilliant plan to snap the same NPC out of her brainwashed state by pretending to be her young son. The DM gave me advantage on my persuasion check. Reminder: I was playing a halfling. I rolled a one, a two, and a three, in that order. Everyone else had a good laugh while I cursed this statistical wonder.

Cam Valpoop

PANTAGES To the honorably Minnesotan judges and the lowly Iowan baliff Josh, I bring you the case of the failed Mulan-ing! I was DMing the Lost Mines of Phandelver for my party of experienced players. The group just made it to the ruins of Thundertree, where they were asked to help scare away a Young Green Dragon who was keeping his hoard there. The party devised an incredible plan to “Mulan” the dragon by using one of the party’s sorcerers in the role of Mushu, as he was playing a tiny dragonborn named Slippy, who was reskinned as a salamander (a Salamancer if you will). Slippy unleashed a 2nd level Dragon’s Breath spell into dragon’s room to fill it with smoke, while the other sorcerer used prestidigitation to silhouette him in the smoke and the party’s cleric used prestidigitation to shout at the dragon to flee from the tower. I had the cleric roll Performance for what he said to the dragon and had Slippy roll Deception to appear as a giant dragon in the fog, and then let them use the higher of the rolls to scare it away. I set the overall DC for the check to 30, because in my mind there was no way outside of a nat 20 that this would work. However, after Slippy rolled a 21 on his deception and I said it failed, my party grew upset with me. Now alerted to their location, the green dragon unleashed his breath weapon on the group, nearly TPKing them all if it weren’t for some high CON saves. Battle ensued and the party was eventually able to scare off the dragon by taking it below half HP, but they still tell me I took away their “Mulan Moment” to this day. Judges, I ask you: was I too much of a stickler for realistic gameplay and crushed the creativity of my players, or were my players too engrossed by the hit 1998 film Mulan to see how foolish their plan was to scare away a whole-ass dragon? I leave my fate to your swift and fair judgement. PS: Slippy's player and I will be at the show in the balcony!

Benjamin Anderson

To Their Honors: the Supreme Crit Justices, and the Bailiff of variable status. In my former DND group, I was using Ghosts of Saltmarsh and a number of other sources to run a swashbuckling campaign. The players were all level 5, and had been tracking a ghost ship whos crew had kidnapped an important NPC. In this campaign, gunpowder weapons were unknown technology. I thought it would be an interesting campaign if a band of pirates had discovered how to use gunpowder and threatened to take over the region using their superior weapons. So as the PCs were taking a rowboat through a narrow passageway into the pirates' cove, the pirates began firing a cannon at them, knocking out multiple characters, including the party's sorcerer who had to be revivified using the party's only diamond. While exploring the pirates lair, the party found a storeroom. Now, our party's rogue had a habit of using Thaumaturgy to dramatically open doors and containers, so when he saw that this room was filled with unmarked barrels, he tried to use Thaumaturgy to open them all at once, despite the other players' protests that he should slow down and see what is in the barrels, since they were obviously gunpowder. The barrels were in fact, all filled with gunpowder. I had the rogue roll a 50/50 luck check to see if Thaumaturgy would cause the unstable explosives to explode. It was a nat 1, so the spell blowing the barrels open also caused a chain reaction of exploding gunpowder barrels that I ruled would be equivalent to a 7th level fireball spell. This killed the rogue outright, and since the party had already used their revivify diamond, he stayed dead for a number of sessions until the party found a druid powerful enough to cast Reincarnate for them. My question is this: would casing Thaumaturgy on an explosive barrel make it explode? My players have been razzing me and the rogue's player for this incident for years, and I feel tremendous guilt for killing a PC for casting a cantrip while doing a bit that the whole table enjoyed. Sincerely, Benjamin (they/them) Very excited to see you at the PANTAGES for the second time.

MMM MMM

May it please the court and the bailiff who is surely seated below the audience, I bring you the case of the eldrich mind control battle, I was DM’ing for an Eldrich style campaign and one of the players had been using eldrich abilities granted by a god that slowly gained control over their mind, at the climax of an important battle with the priestess of the god I had the god take control of the players mind permanently, (I had talked before hand with the player about this and they agreed) however another player cast geas on the mind controlled player which I said didn’t work because the opposing force was to powerful, they argued their mind control attempt overrides the previous one, who is wrong in this mind control debacle? I eagerly await your decision

Ram Sachel

RIVERIA To the fantasmal Judges and the Buff Bailiff Berf, I host a monthly DnD game for my group of friends online. I built the entire world from scratch, including a homebrew battle system for airships. The issues began with an Aarakocea named Maw-Caw, who sqwacks like a chicken and attempted to raise an army of forest animals. While this was humourous at first, the majority of my players reached out to me about his lack of taking the story seriously. Before I could have a conversation with the player, during an airship encounter, Maw-Caw used his round of combat to throw himself off the airship to his death, leading to an incredibly difficult encounter afterwards. His excuse was he had already created a new character, and wanted to implement him into the story immediately. In the wake of this sudden move, Maw-Caw left the game in the next session, and another player also attempted the same move a few sessions later. Two other players no longer play in my campaign, and the story is suffering for it. Judges, am I in the wrong for allowing Maw Caw to essentially end his character in a single round of combat, or was Maw Caw's sudden Demise at fault for causing a rift in an otherwise fairly story heavy campaign? I humbly await your judgement

Clint S.

RIVIERA - mezzanine row c! To the most beautiful, brawny and blamess Justices in all the land, and also... I come before your honors today not with a case - but rather a humble petition. Today (9/16) is my DM Tommy's 30th birthday, and my wife and I flew out from LA specifically to come to this show with him. At the time a new DM, Tommy ran a game for a group of a 7(!!) of us during covid and has graciously continued to do so even through becoming a dad and moving back to Chicago. He is, without a doubt, one of the most selfless, generous, and kindest people you will ever meet. For these, and so many other reasons I don't have the space to list, I throw myself before you and request that the Crit bestow upon Tommy Weber the most prestigious title a naddpole can receive - NormalAssDude. Thank you for your consideration.

Trevor Wurtsmith

May it please the court and that creepy little bailiff Cake. I bring to you the case of the campaign wrecker. I started a campaign recently, after spending months home brewing and prepping I recruited a party and we had our first few sessions. They went pretty well, we had some new people so the chemistry wasn't perfect yet. One of my experienced players (let's call him Ryan) told me they could run a parallel game on our of week and relieve me if my forever dm status. I was thrilled, but his demand was that I removed one of the players (let's call him Jared) from the game as the Ryan "would not run a game for him". Granted there was some chemistry issues with the party and Jared, but they were new to the game so I was trying to give a generous read. We ended up parting ways with Jared after our 4th session and started our parallel campaign soon after. Fast forward 3 weeks and Ryan sends "I'm not playing or running a game anymore have a nice life" and ghosts us. This ended his game and left the players in my game feeling deflated and too few in number to continue. I ask you, am I to blame for allowing these events to transpire or is there a game wrecker in our midst

Laura Jewell

RIVIERA Row C To the Honorable Judges Axford, Murphy, and Tanner via their Administrative Assistant, I present the case of the chaotic wizard, Chyz. May it please the court, I just finished playing in a two and a half year long campaign. I was one of two wizards in the party, and had a pretty typical wizard build—cool spells but not a lot of hit points. The other wizard was a lion folk named Chyz, who went a very different route. He maxed out his STR and DEX scores, and was the most athletic wizard DnD has ever seen. He also specialized in area of effect spells, firing off fire balls and cones of cold at every turn, and to his credit, did a LOT of damage. Both to the bad guys and whichever party members happened to be nearby. When we got to a higher level, I noticed he said that Cone of Cold was his spell that did the most damage. At that point, I had Power Word Kill, so I asked him if he had been updating his spell book as we leveled up. He had not been. Once he realized his mistake, he had access to chain lightning and meteor swarm, and let them fly. At the end of the campaign, our DM calculated that Chyz had done a cumulative 1,062 points of damage to the party in friendly fire. I ask you, was I being a bro to remind him that his spells got even more powerful as we leveled up, or should I have kept my mouth shut for the good of the group?

Feyza Craven

Holiest of holy and infallible judges and penitent Billiff Bill. I ask for the death sentence in a fun sort of Ironic way for the guilty party. I ran a game of Vampire: the Masquerade that wrapped up in February this year. At the end of that game, 3 of my 5 players betyrayed the other members of the Coterie (VTM party). Two of them together and one on their own, this caused a massive feel bad that has caused trepidation to play again. I have been working to get us to play again, and have dropped the edict of no more passinng notes, and no more major betrayals against the coterie without out of character OKs. Tell me Highest Bishopric of Judges and I guess the Brailiff can answer in too, was I wrong to give this edict, and if so, what would be a better solution to my plight?

Tara Fedele

My humble greetings to the honorable judges and the dutiful bailiff who is doing his okay-est.

Ashley McCartney

PANTAGES To the ineffable Justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner, and their bumbling intern Jork, I present to you the case of the wrongful character death. I hatched a plan with my DM to kill off my paladin, Meersha. This was my second character in that campaign, as I hadn't been able to nail the "fun in battle/fun to roleplay" balance that keeps me invested. My first character left the party for backstory reasons, so I wanted to spice things up with Meersha and my DM was on board. It was a heroic last stand during a chase with a monster we were too low-level to beat, giving my friends the time they needed to escape through a locked door. Enter my best friend, who was playing a life domain cleric. He was hell-bent on saving me. I told him to leave me behind, which just made him mad. I even texted him during the encounter to let him know I wanted this to happen. He was livid at my insistence that Meersha die. It's the only time I can remember him being angry at me during a game in almost 20 years of rolling dice together. Eventually all went as planned, and he got over it after the encounter. But I ask the Court: was I wrong for insisting Meersha die? Was he wrong for being determined to save someone who didn't want it? We're both in the audience and humbly await your decision.

Mad

RIVERIA- balcony L to the honorable high justices of the court Axford, Murphy and Tanner along with that guy who I think was a guest on 8-bit book club. I present to the court the case of the podcast copycat A little bit ago my friend was DM-ing a campaign based on popular dnd podcast. However, as we got into character creation I was told that I had to be a cleric. When asked why, it was because I was the most nurturing person in the group and the wizard and fighter were already taken. While I do tend to fit into the "mom friend" role, in dnd i enjoy playing martial characters over spell casters. Eventually this campaign fell apart and they restarted the whole thing with an entirely new group. I appear before the court and ask, Is it alright for a DM to assign classes to better fit the narrative they are trying to tell? PS- for additional context if we were to go a different route from the podcast our dm would say "no. thats not how this goes"

Logenthar

RIVIERA To the Honorable Supreme Crit Justices and the Bailiff Jonk, I present to you the case of the AI Dependent player, may it please the Crit. I am GMing a Pathfinder 2E campaign with a group of mostly relatively new players and one veteran player. The players are all very enthusiastic about creating their characters and role playing, and we have a lot of fun together. However, one of the players uses generative AI for EVERYTHING. He used Chat GPT to come up with his character description and I think his backstory as well. He used a different AI to artificially create his character portrait art. And worst of all in my opinion, he will use Chat GPT while we are playing to come up with responses when NPCs ask him questions. It bothers me and it slows the pace of conversations as he needs to type out a prompt and generate a response. We are still very early in the campaign and he is new to TTRPGs, so I want him to feel comfortable, but I also want him to use his own creative ideas. Justices and Jonk, should I allow my player to continue abusing generative AI in our sessions or should I have a conversation with him to encourage him to use his own ideas and nip this in the bud early on? P.S. hate the show, I've never listened to it, I don't know who you are.

Brandon Wlosinski

PANTAGES - Front and Center To the enlightened and finely put together judges of the High Crit, and the precious baby bailiff Jakey-poo, I humbly submit to the Court the case of the Big Bagged Evil Turtle. Our party found itself in the fight of our lives recently during a customized side encounter in Rise of Tiamat. We were an already exhausted party that had just watched a min-maxed pally-monk-rogue assassinate a former PC, now NPC, stealing her blood to raise Tiamat. Against this character, wizards, cultists and an adult blue dragon, we were holding our own trying to keep the dagger containing her blood away from them. Our bard pulls a wild card and polymorphs this min-maxed enemy into a turtle on an amazing failed saving throw. Keeping now the turtle and knife away from the other baddies; our cleric stowing the knife, our bard stowing away the turtle in their pack. However, the dragon used a legendary action to Wing Attack the party. The bard succeeded the DC 20 Dex check and took half damage. The DM then required the turtle make a Dex check as well. Of course the turtle failed, breaking polymorph and bringing this nearly undamaged min-maxed level 20 NPC enemy back into the playing field. We argued that the turtle should not have needed to make the saving throw, being in the Bard’s pack who successfully saved, but the DM argued we did nothing to secure it there, and so is affected since wing attacks affect all creatures in range. I humbly submit before the court, should the turtle have been kept in the bag? Or were we destined to do battle with this fiend? I humbly await your judgement. (PS, though a heated discussion, this did lead to an insane story moment where, faced with a TPK, the Cleric rez’d us all back to full with a successful divine intervention after being all otherwise down, leading us to victory.)

Dane Larson

RIVERIA- 3RD ROW I HAD A CRUSH ON THE DM SO I INITIATED PVP To the honorable Justices and hey.... is that Jake? Oh sick. As the title stated, I had a crush on the DM. Our Rogue was playing as the Warlock's dad, and decided (without consulting the DM) to play the kind of dad that would berate their child in front of the party, hitting sensitive backstory issues the Warlock was struggling with. I could tell that not only was the Warlock getting uncomfortable, but the DM most definitely was. I was a Divination Wizard built for battle and decided to take matters into my own hands. I cast Fireball at the Rogue starting initiative; when our Druid tried to stop me, I used my low portent roll to give her low initiative and counterspelled her cure wounds. Eventually the Warlock was able to convince us all to stop. The tension was strong for the rest of the campaign, the DM later told me the Druid almost quit because of this incident, and the campaign only lasted a few more sessions after that. Was I wrong? I humble myself to the crit justices and possibly Jake. PS: I'm engaged to that DM now. Lmao.

Jaime Weaver

RIVIERA - Mez Row B If it may please the Court, (I suppose Bailiff Jake can chime in as well), I have a moral quandary for your consideration: the case of The Accidental Horse Pimp. Context: We have an all-woman (all 40-50ish moms, just to paint to the picture accurately) party led by a seasoned male DM. Early in our campaign, the party took on the task of freeing an important prisoner from the Hellknights of Westcrown. The prisoner was in transport and the captors had camped for the night. As we developed our plan, my character’s adopted sister (a half-elf urban Druid named Roz who was also raised by a band of gypsies - can we say that word now? Idk.) said she would use her ability to speak with animals to communicate with their horses and lure them away from camp during the battle. As we crept through the darkness, Roz is chatting with the horses - like you do - and is telling them that if they “come on over here, they’ll find something they like” and “we’ll make it worth your while…” The rest of of party realized that she was pimping out OUR horses to lure them! Since we know that horses can count (as learned from the Boston show), I humbly ask for your judgment on how Roz handled this situation. She did not get consent from our horses to use them as sexual bait, and I’m pretty sure we could have just offered up some apples or sugar cubes. What says the court on this? The party went along with it because the battle had already begun but, damn, Roz. 🐎 🐎

James Hyde Waymire

PANTAGES Stoked for Minneapolis show and seeing the lowliest of bailiffs! My case is called "The Butthurt Barbarian." I was in a horror 3.5e campaign and our normal DM decided to let another friend run this one so he could play a barbarian dwarf. The guy who took over as DM said this campaign is meant to have less tom foolery and be taken more seriously which we agreed to try our best to not we the shit heads be normally are. Especially our friend playing the dwarf. After discovering an abandoned village covered in a moonlit fog our barbarian dwarf decided to split from the party to go to a forge he saw. On his lonesome he discovered a cellar in which he failed a perception check to see if he knows this was actually a torture chamber. He was immediately introduced via a sneak attack to two living weapons in the form of whips and their handles being butt plugs. Sorry to say but after a failed constitution save they made a fierce entry inside of our barbarian and told him that only the safe word could set dat ass free. I should also add these living weapons had beautiful personalities. Anyways, rather than yelling out to the party for help or even searching to find the safe word to free him, he instead quit the campaign then and there and we never met or continued the campaign after. Was he a little too butthurt in a situation he could've tried to get out of or was he right to gtfo and bury a campaign two sessions in? I leave this rough case with no lube in the trusted hands (or butts) of our highest judges.

mr. nugget

To the honorable judges and whoever else happens to be there. I bring you the case of the sacrificial stoat. My group has been playing in our friends homebrew Baldur's Gate game for several years and we are fairly high level. Recently our group defeated a group of high level goblins who had some pretty sweet gear. One such piece was a pair of fire gauntlets that were an artifact. One of the drawbacks of the gauntlets was that they required a sacrifice of a creature of the same alignment to attune to them. The fire genasi ranger really wanted these gauntlets. I jokingly said that the druid in the group could cast the spell awakening on a stoat because they were most likely the same alignment. Everybody laughed at this and then to my growing horror began to take it seriously. I ended up having my character to my foot down and say that was way to messed up a thing to do and the ranger hasn't gotten to attune to the gauntlets to this day. I ask the court was I wrong to yuck our rangers yum or was giving a creature sentience just to kill it going way too far? RIVIERA

Katie Utke

RIVIERA. To the lovely judges and equally lovely bailiff, I have a tale from a D&D game in the 70s: the Not-Drowned Ogre. My Dad was in a game when he was in high school and he played a cleric. The DM put forth an orge for the party to fight. My Dad tried to cast Create or Destroy Water in order to drown the ogre. The DM said no, saying it had to be cast in an enclosed space. My Dad argued that the Ogre's lungs counted as an enclosed space and therefore the Ogre should drown. The DM and my Dad fought, and then my Dad left the campaign, never playing D&D again until my boyfriend & I ran a one shot for a family back in 2015/2016. I have since told this story to other DMs and players in the Chicago area and they have come back to me saying they used my Dad's trick to great success at their table. I think my Dad won the battle of the public, but by the battle of rules & regulations, was the DM right to say that Create or Destroy Water could not be cast in an Ogre's lungs? I accept whatever punishment on behalf of my Dad who is back in Minneapolis MN and is not at the show here tonight.

Delani N Wright

RIVIERA To the honorable crit justices and the bailiff who reads the cases eloquently though his decorum out of court might be wild. I bring to you the case of sadness and disrespect. I have been the permaDM for my friends and family for 2.5 years now. I have never rolled a character for myself. So, imagine my delight when a person in my grad program said he was DMing a new campaign and asked if I wanted to join. I made my character, a sweet halfling artificer alchemist named Ada. Who made bio-mechanical robots but wasn't very good at it yet as we were level 1, it was a lot of fun. The rest of the party loved my role-playing scenes and we had a lot of cool moments... except for one player. She was a Dragonborn whose hoard was a pile of clothes on a red rider wagon, they kept falling off and it was a huge hassle anytime we moved which, as you can imagine was all the time. We still had fun even with her antics until one fateful day. We ran across two grieving adoptive parents who needed safe passage to visit their dead son's grave. I hearing their story (removed for time), felt deeply moved, and knelt on the ground pledging my service and vowing to keep them safe. After this session, the player who was the Dragonborn said “Out of character does anyone else think that Ada is annoying?” I bewildered by this sat in silence for a moment before saying “Haha yeah I guess so.” And there was an awkward silence until the DM ended the call. I have no problem with people thinking my character is cringy in game because quite frankly she was because I am. But she specifically took it out of the game so it feels like a slight on me as a player. My question to you is should I build a bridge and get over it? Or should I knock over her dumb clothes cart? My fate is in your hands. P.S. I ended up having to quit the game because turns out grad school is hard. Also, the whole campaign ended shortly after I left.

Anthony S

To the honorable justices and the guy who reads these, I would love to present the case of dmpc slaughter. When I started playing DND I made my first ever PC named Gero Ironjaw, a half orc fighter who was destined to reclaim his tribe. About halfway way through the campaign, we found ourselves being questioned by some guards (that we later found out we're fake), and Gero was on his knees and had a gun to his head after the Dmpc kicked his knees, tryin to calm him down. I asked to roll a sleight of hand check, which I rolled a 12, to brush the gun away. The dm ruled that it was too low of a roll and I hit the trigger, blowing my characters brain out. My question is, was that too harsh, especially being my first ever character? Guns are very much a thing in this world due to an abundance of artificers, so I didn't think it was warranted. I await your generous and thoughtful judgement.

Alex W

To the Honorable Supreme Crit Justices and that one guy, I present to you the case of the incorporeal Shade. I play a homebrew Shaman Firbolg inside a dark horror setting, My party was in the middle of a fight with these homebrew creatures called Shades. I cast a 5th-level lightning chromatic orb at one of these creatures. I successfully hit the AC but my DM says since these things are incorporeal it passes right through instantly vaporizing a bystander behind it. I argue there was no way of me knowing there was a risk of me hitting a bystander because it was not in the rules and I was not warned of the risk, but my DM says I should have considered that it was a possible risk. Should my DM have warned me about possibly vaporizing an innocent bystander, or should I have known it was a risk? One of us awaits your righteous punishment. Shade stat block: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/1970393571900400/

Stumbleduck

PANTAGES To the resplendent supreme crit justices and the guy who, let's be honest, . I come before the court with the case of Rocks or Not: Several years ago, I was DMing a game where the party was traveling through a jungle when they were attacked by cannibalistic hunters. At one point during the fight, the party druid (my younger sister) said that she casts the spell Wrath of Nature. I was vaguely aware of what the spell did (on future turns, you can control the surrounding environment to attack), so I told her “great!” and moved the combat along. When it got back to the druid's turn, she told me she wanted to use the spell to pelt an enemy with rocks. In my mind, the surrounding environment was thick jungle; full of trees and dirt, but not rocks. I told her this and we debated back and forth for a bit. I told her every other part of the spell can still work, but she said she really only cast it for the rocks part. I held firm and told her there aren't any rocks in this part of the jungle. To this day, she will send me pictures of rocks she finds while driving around exclaiming, “See! Rocks!” Your Honors, was I wrong to imagine a rockless patch of jungle, or should my sister accept that rocks aren't everywhere? PS: I know it's your job to come up with a punishment, but if you rule against me, I will happily buy my sister a new set of math rocks to replace the ones I owe her.

Blake Wilburn

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

Dexter OG (edited)

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2026-09-05 07:00 To the Venerable, Virile, and Voracious Judges and their one friend who is a baby, I present the case of the Campaign-Ending Jinx. All throughout highschool, I had been running a game for some lifelong (or nearly) friends. I had been preparing several portfolios for art school applications, and my friends, all high achievers, were too busy with academics to play. Come the end of Senior Year, we were all out of school and were desperate to continue the four year long campaign that had been left by the wayside in our respective collegiate pursuits. I was delighted that my friends seemed just as excited about playing, enough to even dm me on discord to ask questions. The player in question, whom we’ll call Jinx, told me that he was “very inspired” by the show Arcane, and one of its protagonists, Jinx. To the uninitiated, Jinx is a multi-personality antihero who begins as a sympathetic character and ends a murderous psycho. It was fitting for his character, who was a wizard corrupted chaos, but made me worried. This character had caused party issues in the past, being the catalyst in an apocalyptic event that the party had to solve. Jinx also asked me for additional magic items for their character, citing their time away from the party as reason for it. I declined, explaining there would be opportunities to get such items later on in the session. They relented, and I put aside my fears and went back to preparing. When the session started, the party had just ended a confrontation with one of the BBEGS and needed to escape a city with the survivors as it was being overrun by the undead. They leapt onto a ship with the remainder of the populace and watched as the city burned. Deciding that now was a good time, Jinx rolled a wisdom saving throw (without my asking) and determined that their character had reverted to their villainous personality and started causing trouble. In retaliation the party tied her to the mast of the ship telling her to behave or she would be the party’s next target. In the meantime, the BBEG Lich had set up a few illusions on the ship to attempt to trick the players into revealing the mcguffin, which was in the hands of one of the party’s allies. The party began investigating these illusions, but were interrupted by Jinx constantly muttering under their breath and interrupting the main story to escape their rope ties and murder a citizen of the ship to take their place. When the party found out, they searched the ship for Jinx. One of the other players, a Hexblade Warlock, eventually found Jinx and combat began. Jinx rolled poorly on initiative and after a brutal crit from the warlock which dealt ~120 damage, was instantly dead. Sullenly, Jinx’s player pulled back from the table while the party celebrated the crit and remarked to me “You told me I wouldn’t need magic items.” After that, the session proceeded as normal and jinx took up the mantle of a different character but so much time had been spent on their shenanigans that it ended shortly afterwards and we haven’t played since. I humbly beseech the court—should I have given this player the magic items they requested and leaned into their character or should I have told them to take their roleplaying down a notch to create a better atmosphere for my other players before it disrupted the session?
2023-09-11 19:43 To the Venerable, Virile, and Voracious Judges and their one friend who is a baby, I present the case of the Campaign-Ending Jinx. All throughout highschool, I had been running a game for some lifelong (or nearly) friends. I had been preparing several portfolios for art school applications, and my friends, all high achievers, were too busy with academics to play. Come the end of Senior Year, we were all out of school and were desperate to continue the four year long campaign that had been left by the wayside in our respective collegiate pursuits. I was delighted that my friends seemed just as excited about playing, enough to even dm me on discord to ask questions. The player in question, whom we’ll call Jinx, told me that he was “very inspired” by the show Arcane, and one of its protagonists, Jinx. To the uninitiated, Jinx is a multi-personality antihero who begins as a sympathetic character and ends a murderous psycho. It was fitting for his character, who was a wizard corrupted chaos, but made me worried. This character had caused party issues in the past, being the catalyst in an apocalyptic event that the party had to solve. Jinx also asked me for additional magic items for their character, citing their time away from the party as reason for it. I declined, explaining there would be opportunities to get such items later on in the session. They relented, and I put aside my fears and went back to preparing. When the session started, the party had just ended a confrontation with one of the BBEGs and escaped a city with the survivors as it was being overrun by the undead. Deciding that now was a good time, Jinx rolled a Wisdom saving throw (without my asking) and determined that their character had reverted to their villainous personality and started causing trouble. In retaliation, the party tied her to the mast of the ship telling her to behave or she would be the party’s next target. In the meantime, the BBEG Lich had set up a few illusions on the ship to attempt to trick the players into revealing the McGuffin, which was in the hands of one of the party’s allies. The party began investigating these illusions but were interrupted by Jinx constantly muttering under their breath and interrupting the main story to escape their rope ties and murder a citizen of the ship to take their place. When the party found out, they searched the ship for Jinx. One of the other players, a Hexblade Warlock, eventually found Jinx, and combat began. Jinx rolled poorly on initiative and after a brutal crit from the warlock which dealt ~120 damage, was instantly dead. Sullenly, Jinx’s player pulled back from the table while the party celebrated the crit and remarked to me “You told me I wouldn’t need magic items.” After that, the session proceeded as normal and Jinx took up the mantle of a different character but so much time had been spent on their shenanigans that it ended shortly afterward and we haven’t played since. I humbly beseech the court—should I have given this player the magic items they requested and leaned into their character or should I have told them to take their roleplaying down a notch to create a better atmosphere for my other players before it disrupted the session?

To the Venerable, Virile, and Voracious Judges and their one friend who is a baby, I present the case of the Campaign-Ending Jinx. All throughout highschool, I had been running a game for some lifelong (or nearly) friends. I had been preparing several portfolios for art school applications, and my friends, all high achievers, were too busy with academics to play. Come the end of Senior Year, we were all out of school and were desperate to continue the four year long campaign that had been left by the wayside in our respective collegiate pursuits. I was delighted that my friends seemed just as excited about playing, enough to even dm me on discord to ask questions. The player in question, whom we’ll call Jinx, told me that he was “very inspired” by the show Arcane, and one of its protagonists, Jinx. To the uninitiated, Jinx is a multi-personality antihero who begins as a sympathetic character and ends a murderous psycho. It was fitting for his character, who was a wizard corrupted chaos, but made me worried. This character had caused party issues in the past, being the catalyst in an apocalyptic event that the party had to solve. Jinx also asked me for additional magic items for their character, citing their time away from the party as reason for it. I declined, explaining there would be opportunities to get such items later on in the session. They relented, and I put aside my fears and went back to preparing. When the session started, the party had just ended a confrontation with one of the BBEGs and escaped a city with the survivors as it was being overrun by the undead. Deciding that now was a good time, Jinx rolled a Wisdom saving throw (without my asking) and determined that their character had reverted to their villainous personality and started causing trouble. In retaliation, the party tied her to the mast of the ship telling her to behave or she would be the party’s next target. In the meantime, the BBEG Lich had set up a few illusions on the ship to attempt to trick the players into revealing the McGuffin, which was in the hands of one of the party’s allies. The party began investigating these illusions but were interrupted by Jinx constantly muttering under their breath and interrupting the main story to escape their rope ties and murder a citizen of the ship to take their place. When the party found out, they searched the ship for Jinx. One of the other players, a Hexblade Warlock, eventually found Jinx, and combat began. Jinx rolled poorly on initiative and after a brutal crit from the warlock which dealt ~120 damage, was instantly dead. Sullenly, Jinx’s player pulled back from the table while the party celebrated the crit and remarked to me “You told me I wouldn’t need magic items.” After that, the session proceeded as normal and Jinx took up the mantle of a different character but so much time had been spent on their shenanigans that it ended shortly afterward and we haven’t played since. I humbly beseech the court—should I have given this player the magic items they requested and leaned into their character or should I have told them to take their roleplaying down a notch to create a better atmosphere for my other players before it disrupted the session?

fangenstein

May this drama please the honorable judges and befuddle the stalwart bailiff. I am a permaGM and mostly do gimmicky one shots for a local group my husband is a part of when they have lulls or special occasions. As such, their DM for the main campaign reaches out to me occasionally for ideas on how to have the players Find Out when they Fuck Around. This newest development is one that I've been expecting for a while. They have a problem player who is generally an ass outside of the table and has only been tolerated by the hosts (the DM and her husband who is also a player). The only reason he's been allowed at the table at all is because he *was* another player's best friend of about 10 years when he was first invited into the campaign. Since joining he has gotten into it with the rest of the party because they are all playing genuinely evil or morally dubious characters, and even though he was told this weeks before going in and was up to date on the story he was walking into, he decided on playing a lawful good character with Tragic Backstory and Cursed Future(TM). He has a case of Main Character Syndrome and has been the reason at least two sessions were cut short and everyone was sent home hours earlier than normal. The rest of the table has all come to an agreement that he needs to go. That's already settled. But they also want a satisfying story beat to do that on with his character before going "Alright, bye." So their DM reached out, filled me in on the current and planned plot, and has asked me to help with the story for getting rid of this player... which before I have even put my hands on it includes having his character get tricked into ritualistically killing his own children, selling his soul to his devil father through said ritual, and potentially losing all of his strength stat depending on rolls. My humble question is this: do I help make the fate of my husband's former best friend's character more awful as retribution for the genuine torment he's brought to this group of people and table I don't play with but do see the responses of (with the confirmation that this guy DOES enjoy bad things happening to his characters) or should I step back and leave this solely in the DM's hands?

Tara Fedele

My humble greetings to the honorable judges and the dutiful bailiff who is doing his okay-est. I humbly ask the court to either overturn or sustain judgment of Brennan Lee Mulligan calling my Druid’s grove a ‘lair.’ This summer Brennan stopped by the Gunks Gaming Guild where I play DND. We happen to be in the middle of a session when he stopped by, and he asked us to introduce our characters. When it was my turn I introduced my wildfire druid who is a Magistrate/Mayor of a city set in wildspace. After elected they turned their manor into a community center offering free food, lodging and healthcare. As my druid leveled up, the Guild Masters made the manor and grounds a permanent druid grove. The grove gives me special abilities such as improved wildshape (monstrosities, dragons, and fey up to half my level), summoning shambling mounds, and lair actions. Previously the Guild was divided between calling it a community grove and a lair. However, Brennan exclaimed “You have a lair?!” From then on the Guild always refers to it as a lair. I ask the court to consider its primary use as a community center: should it be labeled a community grove or a lair?

B.T.A. Workshop (edited)

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2026-09-05 07:00 PANTAGES To the benevolent Supreme Crit Justices and their cake eating baby I present the case of the Charming Aboleth. My friends and I are playing through Tomb of annihilation and have been making our way through the floors of the dungeon. When we encountered a rather charming and hungry Aboleth. The Aboleth attempted to individually charm myself and two other party members,including Mikira, our cleric. Their roles were seemingly successful, but mine failed. My new best friend the Aboleth requested that I feed it a member of the party. Happy to oblige, I waited until our party needed to ferry across the water and made sure that Yo-nah-tas, our Efreeti Warlock and I were alone in a paddle boat when I kicked him overboard to the Aboleth who devoured him after several rounds of combat. Mikira, hearing the splash, came to investigate. I told him that I had accidentally dropped the oar and that Yo-nah-tas had decided to stay in the other room to rest and regain their flying ability. On an opposed skill check, my deception won out 17 to 6. He then said he would like to cast detect magic, which both I and the DM objected to. As far as he was aware, I gave a solid answer. He disagreed, saying he knew there was something magical afoot as the still unseen creature had tried to charm him. I disagreed because I successfully explained away the sound of the splash and was being outwardly helpful. Later when we returned to the original and they found yo-nah-tas was missing, I expressed concern that our friend was now missing and recommended that we break up into teams of 2 to find him. Mikira failed another opposed check against my deception, 19 to his 8. And again asked to cast detect magic because something seemed “fishy” about my story. This time I agreed that our friend going missing was suspicious, but I had again given a reasonable answer and based on the rolls, our interaction would not be a good reason for him to cast detect magic, and that doing so would waste time when we could be looking for our missing friend. So I leave it to the court. Were these interactions suspicious and worthy of detect magic in spite of my rolls, or were the objections of the DM and myself justified.
2023-09-11 21:39 PANTAGES To the venerable Justices and their cake eating baby I present the case of the hungry hungry Aboleth. My friends and I are playing through Tomb of annihilation and have been making our way through the floors of the dungeon. When we encountered a rather charming and hungry Aboleth. The Aboleth attempted to individually charm myself and two other party members,including Mikira, our cleric. Their roles were seemingly successful, but mine failed. My new best friend the Aboleth requested that I feed it a member of the party. Happy to oblige, I waited until our party needed to ferry across the water and made sure that Yo-nah-tas, our Efreeti Warlock and I were alone in a paddle boat when I kicked him overboard to the Aboleth who devoured him after several rounds of combat. Mikira, hearing the splash, came to investigate. I told him that I had accidentally dropped the oar and that Yo-nah-tas had decided to stay in the other room to rest and regain their flying ability. On an opposed skill check, my deception won out 17 to 6. He then said he would like to cast detect magic, which both I and the DM objected to. As far as he was aware, I gave a solid answer. He disagreed, saying he knew there was something magical afoot as the still unseen creature had tried to charm him. I disagreed because I successfully explained away the sound of the splash and was being outwardly helpful. Later when we returned to the original shore and the party found out yo-nah-tas was missing, I expressed concern that our friend was gone and recommended that we break up into teams of 2 to find him. Mikira failed another opposed check against my deception, 19 to his 8. And again asked to cast detect magic because something seemed “fishy” about my story. This time I agreed that our friend going missing was odd, but believed my successful deception was not "fishy" nor a reason to cast detect magic, and that doing so would waste time when we could be looking for our missing friend. So I leave it to the court. Were these interactions suspicious and worthy of detect magic in spite of my rolls, or were the objections of the DM and myself justified. P.S. no bad blood at the table, just want to know who was in the right.

PANTAGES To the venerable Justices and their cake eating baby I present the case of the hungry hungry Aboleth. My friends and I are playing through Tomb of annihilation and have been making our way through the floors of the dungeon. When we encountered a rather charming and hungry Aboleth. The Aboleth attempted to individually charm myself and two other party members,including Mikira, our cleric. Their roles were seemingly successful, but mine failed. My new best friend the Aboleth requested that I feed it a member of the party. Happy to oblige, I waited until our party needed to ferry across the water and made sure that Yo-nah-tas, our Efreeti Warlock and I were alone in a paddle boat when I kicked him overboard to the Aboleth who devoured him after several rounds of combat. Mikira, hearing the splash, came to investigate. I told him that I had accidentally dropped the oar and that Yo-nah-tas had decided to stay in the other room to rest and regain their flying ability. On an opposed skill check, my deception won out 17 to 6. He then said he would like to cast detect magic, which both I and the DM objected to. As far as he was aware, I gave a solid answer. He disagreed, saying he knew there was something magical afoot as the still unseen creature had tried to charm him. I disagreed because I successfully explained away the sound of the splash and was being outwardly helpful. Later when we returned to the original shore and the party found out yo-nah-tas was missing, I expressed concern that our friend was gone and recommended that we break up into teams of 2 to find him. Mikira failed another opposed check against my deception, 19 to his 8. And again asked to cast detect magic because something seemed “fishy” about my story. This time I agreed that our friend going missing was odd, but believed my successful deception was not "fishy" nor a reason to cast detect magic, and that doing so would waste time when we could be looking for our missing friend. So I leave it to the court. Were these interactions suspicious and worthy of detect magic in spite of my rolls, or were the objections of the DM and myself justified. P.S. no bad blood at the table, just want to know who was in the right.

Scarlett B

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

Ryan Fitzpatrick

RIVIERA To the honorable justices and Jank, I present to you the case of the cruel god. My friends and I were playing as low level characters with a rookie DM. In session 2, we passed through a rift that led to a god's garden. The dm warned that we shouldn’t waste any time since time passed faster here, setting up a map with drawn bushes and the god in the distance. As a cleric of this god, I approached him. The DM then proceeded to narrate the god seeing us and saying we shouldn't be in his realm. He picked all of us up, dropped us over the edge of the clouds, and we fell all the way back to the material plane. When we landed, we had all aged 30 years (my human was now in his 60s), and an old npc that we needed had become a skeleton. The DM later said he expected it to be a stealth section, and he’d have to think about what would happen next. We never played again. Was I wrong for assuming my god would be happy to see me? Or was the DM in the right for punishing an ignorant mortal?

Joe North

PANTAGES Dearest Highly Esteemed Judges and Gemma’s Dad, I have a confession that has been eating me up with guilt for years. Our campaign started with Lost Mines of Phandelver, because I was a newbie DM and most members of the group were newbies as well. The only non-newbie of the group was a coworker of mine who had played for years and was helping all of us learn the game. Everyone chose one of the premade characters in the starter set, and our experienced player ended up with the lawful good fighter. He admitted to me that playing that character was starting to drive him crazy so he asked if we could plot an exciting demise for him. We were at the end of the Lost Mines campaign when the BBEG used shatter on the ceiling above our wizard, and the fighter heroically pushed her out of the way and got crushed instead. His damage was beyond his max HP (as planned) and the party said goodbye to their beloved friend. They threw a memorial feast and all these new players remember his death as their first PC death experience. The thing is, my fiance plays the party cleric in this campaign and has confessed he still beats himself up for being stuck fighting spiders when he could have possibly saved the fighter. To make matters worse, once he started casting Spirit Guardians, he made one of those spirits that fighter guy. So every time he has casted spirit guardians over the past three years, I’m reminded of this party member we plotted to kill! Casting Spirit Guardians is now referred to in that campaign as “calling (fighter) and the boys” and he lives on, reminding me of our cruel plot with every appearance. It’s been killing me for years not to confess this to him, and both my fiance and this coworker are at the show tonight, so I would love to have him hear it from you instead of me! Please grant me the forgiveness of the High Court and Dice Christ and alleviate my longtime guilt. Sincerely, The Guilty Dungeon Master

Izzy PM

To the honorable court justices, and John Bailiff, I present to you the case of the martyr barbarian. In my first full campaign, I decided to play a character that fit very well into the DM’s created world. It was a pirate/sea faring themed campaign, so I was a Merfolk that was a runaway slave from a notorious pirate lord. In one session, we came across a village that had been taken over by pirates and used as a giant encampment for them. It turns out that it was under the control of the pirate lord, one of my character’s sworn enemies and his former master. The group discussed how we were going to get into the camp and free the villagers at length, with the other members (a bard, a Goliath Barbarian in Full Plate, a sorcerer and a cleric) wanted to stealth into the camp, find where the villagers were kept and free them. We had just failed to stealth through a castle, and time and time again the group had a lengthy conversation about stealthing and the Best Way to go about things, when the dm clearly wanted to just move the story along. I suggested we could technically just go through the front door, as I was wanted by these pirates and they’d probably escort us to the leader and we’d figure it out from there. They insisted on the stealth message, and seeing this opportunity for my character, I had to refuse. His enemy was right there, why wouldn’t he walk right in and demand to see him? Boy was a barbarian not a wizard. I did so, and as I thought, I was taken right to the leader and managed to learn important information, and use myself as leverage to go through the camp unharmed with some good rolls. Meanwhile, my party failed again at stealthing and got ambushed by pirates, and I had to go save them. After the session the players told me they were upset that I had split the party and gone “rogue”. The dm expressed to me privately that he was thankful I made the decision to progress his story, and I got a really cool backstory moment out of it too. I ask the honorable judges, was I wrong to split the party? I am normally against it but in this case I knew my character would be stubborn. Should I have gone with the party’s plan or was I right to stick to my gut? For some extra background: at the previous stealthing mission, when it failed and we were being pursued by high level guards with nowhere to run, my character volunteered to stay behind to allow the others to escape, and they were fine with it as a character and story choice. I promise I do not /mean/ to do these things it’s just my friends would take like at least an hour to discuss what to do next, or panicking.

Woofington Von Barkshire (edited)

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2026-09-05 07:00 PANTAGES, Seat U1 Good evening, Supreme Crit Justices, and also the bailiff, to whom I have no strong feelings for or against, I bring to you the case of the Bug Blender. I was a player in a Dungeon of the Mad Mage campaign with about 4 other players, and I played a paladin for the first time and was absolutely loving the pure joy of expending my divine smite slots and being an integral part of the party in legendary battles. About 3/4ths through the campaign, a new player joined and I found out he would be playing a thri-kreen (a bug with four arms) barbarian/fighter, which was good as I was happy to have another front-liner in the party, but the DM and the new player had homebrewed a way for this character to have a grand total of 12 attacks per round, 24 if he used his action surge! This was crazy! He went on to solo an adult dracolich (CR 17) and pretty much dominate every fight he was in. It came to a head when, during one encounter, the cleric cast a spell on one of two very powerful fiends that caused it to be vulnerable to the next attack. Rolling with advantage, I crit, and used my only 4th level spell slot to deal massive damage, totaling up to 197 between my two attacks, nearly defeating the fiend in one turn, a feat which was the peak of my paladin career! The thri-kreen, however, was unimpressed, and walked up to the other enemy, entered a rage, and dealt over 200 damage in a single turn using his action surge, completely eclipsing my paladin's best possible turn using barely better than a routine turn of his own! Ladies and gentlemen of the Supreme Crit, I ask you, was I robbed? Was the DM absolutely nuts to have allowed this beast of a character to exist, or am I just being a little too competitive in a team-based game?
2023-09-11 23:10 PANTAGES, Seat U1 Good evening, outstanding and exceptionally attractive Supreme Crit Justices, and also the bailiff, to whom I have no strong feelings for or against, I bring to you the case of the Bug Blender. I was a player in a Dungeon of the Mad Mage campaign with about 4 other players, and I played a paladin for the first time and was absolutely loving the pure joy of expending my divine smite slots and being an integral part of the party in legendary battles. About 3/4ths through the campaign, a new player joined and I found out he would be playing a thri-kreen (a bug with four arms) barbarian/fighter, which was good as I was happy to have another front-liner in the party, but the DM and the new player had homebrewed a way for this character to have a grand total of 12 attacks per round, 24 if he used his action surge! This was crazy! He went on to solo an adult dracolich (CR 17) and pretty much dominate every fight he was in. It came to a head when, during one encounter, the cleric cast a spell on one of two very powerful fiends that caused it to be vulnerable to the next attack. Rolling with advantage, I crit, and used my only 4th level spell slot to deal massive damage, totaling up to 197 between my two attacks, nearly defeating the fiend in one turn, a feat which was the peak of my paladin career! The thri-kreen, however, was unimpressed, and walked up to the other enemy, entered a rage, and dealt over 200 damage in a single turn using his action surge, completely eclipsing my paladin's best possible turn using barely better than a routine turn of his own! Ladies and gentlemen of the Supreme Crit, I ask you, was I robbed? Was the DM absolutely nuts to have allowed this beast of a character to exist, or am I just being a little too competitive in a team-based game?

PANTAGES, Seat U1 Good evening, outstanding and exceptionally attractive Supreme Crit Justices, and also the bailiff, to whom I have no strong feelings for or against, I bring to you the case of the Bug Blender. I was a player in a Dungeon of the Mad Mage campaign with about 4 other players, and I played a paladin for the first time and was absolutely loving the pure joy of expending my divine smite slots and being an integral part of the party in legendary battles. About 3/4ths through the campaign, a new player joined and I found out he would be playing a thri-kreen (a bug with four arms) barbarian/fighter, which was good as I was happy to have another front-liner in the party, but the DM and the new player had homebrewed a way for this character to have a grand total of 12 attacks per round, 24 if he used his action surge! This was crazy! He went on to solo an adult dracolich (CR 17) and pretty much dominate every fight he was in. It came to a head when, during one encounter, the cleric cast a spell on one of two very powerful fiends that caused it to be vulnerable to the next attack. Rolling with advantage, I crit, and used my only 4th level spell slot to deal massive damage, totaling up to 197 between my two attacks, nearly defeating the fiend in one turn, a feat which was the peak of my paladin career! The thri-kreen, however, was unimpressed, and walked up to the other enemy, entered a rage, and dealt over 200 damage in a single turn using his action surge, completely eclipsing my paladin's best possible turn using barely better than a routine turn of his own! Ladies and gentlemen of the Supreme Crit, I ask you, was I robbed? Was the DM absolutely nuts to have allowed this beast of a character to exist, or am I just being a little too competitive in a team-based game?

Josh (edited)

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2026-09-05 07:00 RIVIERA To the esteemed judges and the bailiff, who is good enough in his own way, Up top, I just want to say this story does NOT involve any cannon silencers. I first got into TTRPGs about 10 years ago; a friend from work introduced me to Pathfinder. Soon after, group of us started playing pretty regularly. Some had played before and some of us were brand new, but no one was overly experienced. Eventually, a friend of mine wanted to DM their first session as an exploratory one shot that could potentially turn into a campaign if we were feeling it. They did a great job hyping it up, even sending text messages from their big bad ("The Gardener") through out the day to egg us on. I was pumped when we sat down to play. The session went smoothly at first, but we soon found ourselves up against The Gardener, and the whomping ensued. My friends baddie was just way to powerful for us. At one point, The Gardener teleported a PC 1000ft into the air, and dropped them, which definitely would have killed them. A little frustrated, I asked the DM "How is he doing this? What spell is he using?" The DM replied "It's not a spell, it's just an ability I gave him." I said 'I don't think you can do that, just make stuff up. You've got to have something in the book to back it up.' He relented and ultimately did something different grounded in mechanics. I understand TTPRGs are rooted in the imagination, and it's silly to say "You can't make something up", because at the end of the day everything is made up, but we should still play from the same rules. Judges, was I wrong to challenge my DMs control over the reality of the game, or should even the DM be restricted (mostly) to the same rules as everyone else? I humbly await your judgement. Side note: The DM is one of my closest friends and we have played many campaigns together since.
2023-09-11 23:11 RIVIERA To the esteemed judges and the bailiff, who is good enough in his own way, Up top, I just want to say this story does NOT involve any cannon silencers. I first got into TTRPGs about 10 years ago; a friend from work introduced me to Pathfinder. Soon after, group of us started playing pretty regularly. Some had played before and some of us were brand new, but no one was overly experienced. Eventually, a friend of mine wanted to DM their first session as an exploratory one shot that could potentially turn into a campaign if we were feeling it. They did a great job hyping it up, even sending text messages from their big bad ("The Gardener") through out the day to egg us on. I was pumped when we sat down to play. The session went smoothly at first, but we soon found ourselves up against The Gardener, and the whomping ensued. My friends baddie was just way to powerful for us. At one point, The Gardener teleported a PC 1000ft into the air, and dropped them, which definitely would have killed them. A little frustrated, I asked the DM "How is he doing this? What spell is he using?" The DM replied "It's not a spell, it's just an ability I gave him." I said 'I don't think you can do that, just make stuff up. You've got to have something in the book to back it up.' He relented and ultimately did something different grounded in mechanics. I understand TTPRGs are rooted in the imagination, and it's silly to say "You can't make something up", because at the end of the day everything is made up, but we should still play from the same rules. Judges, was I wrong to challenge my DMs control over the reality of the game, or should even the DM be restricted (mostly) to the same rules as everyone else? I humbly await your judgement. Side note: The DM is one of my closest friends and we have played many campaigns together since.

RIVIERA To the esteemed judges and the bailiff, who is good enough in his own way, Up top, I just want to say this story does NOT involve any cannon silencers. I first got into TTRPGs about 10 years ago; a friend from work introduced me to Pathfinder. Soon after, group of us started playing pretty regularly. Some had played before and some of us were brand new, but no one was overly experienced. Eventually, a friend of mine wanted to DM their first session as an exploratory one shot that could potentially turn into a campaign if we were feeling it. They did a great job hyping it up, even sending text messages from their big bad ("The Gardener") through out the day to egg us on. I was pumped when we sat down to play. The session went smoothly at first, but we soon found ourselves up against The Gardener, and the whomping ensued. My friends baddie was just way to powerful for us. At one point, The Gardener teleported a PC 1000ft into the air, and dropped them, which definitely would have killed them. A little frustrated, I asked the DM "How is he doing this? What spell is he using?" The DM replied "It's not a spell, it's just an ability I gave him." I said 'I don't think you can do that, just make stuff up. You've got to have something in the book to back it up.' He relented and ultimately did something different grounded in mechanics. I understand TTPRGs are rooted in the imagination, and it's silly to say "You can't make something up", because at the end of the day everything is made up, but we should still play from the same rules. Judges, was I wrong to challenge my DMs control over the reality of the game, or should even the DM be restricted (mostly) to the same rules as everyone else? I humbly await your judgement. Side note: The DM is one of my closest friends and we have played many campaigns together since.

Anomalocaris (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-05 07:00 Hey whats up judges and honorable bailif. So my issue is this. We're playing a west marches campaign where the DM changes from time to time. We had one person DM and give the party a cache of incredible magic items they designed themselves. The only problem is the items are so powerful it is hard to balance combat. When I DM I can only hope they forget they have them. If they were just magic items from the DMG I would probably just find a way for them to lose them or take them away but because this person designed the items themselves it feels to personal to either take them away or tell them the items are just way too much for a low level party.
2023-09-11 23:15 Hey whats up judges and honorable bailif. So my issue is this. We're playing a west marches campaign where the DM changes from time to time. We had one person DM and give the party a cache of incredible magic items they designed themselves. The only problem is the items are so powerful it is hard to balance combat (they can firebomb most enemies with a bunch of free fireballs, etc). When I DM I can only hope they forget they have them. If they were just magic items from the DMG I would probably find a way for them to lose them or take them away but because this person designed the items themselves it feels too personal to either take them away or tell them the items are just way too much for a low level party. Is it my fault for letting them to use the items after this person DM'd or should the person who made them stop bringing the items back into the game and see by now that they're way too strong to be allowed?

Hey whats up judges and honorable bailif. So my issue is this. We're playing a west marches campaign where the DM changes from time to time. We had one person DM and give the party a cache of incredible magic items they designed themselves. The only problem is the items are so powerful it is hard to balance combat (they can firebomb most enemies with a bunch of free fireballs, etc). When I DM I can only hope they forget they have them. If they were just magic items from the DMG I would probably find a way for them to lose them or take them away but because this person designed the items themselves it feels too personal to either take them away or tell them the items are just way too much for a low level party. Is it my fault for letting them to use the items after this person DM'd or should the person who made them stop bringing the items back into the game and see by now that they're way too strong to be allowed?

Tom (edited)

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2026-09-05 07:00 PANTAGES To the decorated Judges Axford, Murphy, and Tanner and their dedicated Bailiff, Jarkeb. I am writing you today as a DM torn. A little over two years ago I began my first campaign as DM with a group of five friends. They are all first-time players who expressed interest in playing and at first things were great. I helped them with their backstories, walked through their initial stat rolls, and even bought them each a PHB and set of dice. I fear my initial well-intentioned guidance had unintended consequences. As with all campaigns we face scheduling conflicts, and typically only convene once every three to four months for about 6 hours. As a result, they are still level three (I do milestone-based levelling but sometimes what I think will take one session has taken two, due to… shenanigans*). The party is gold and item-focused, and I have tweaked the campaign to provide ample opportunity for them to earn, including a Thunderdome-style tournament a couple months back providing them with magic weapons. To help them learn the game in the time between sessions, I recommended NADDPOD. Some players started listening and are in the audience tonight. During the week leading up to a session, I ask my players to review their character sheets which I have built on DnD Beyond as well as provide physical copies. This ask seems to often fall on deaf ears. Before our most recent session on Saturday, the players all expressed interest in playing more regularly, and we discussed moving to a virtual tabletop for a shorter session every two weeks. I was thrilled. However, as the session progressed it became apparent that they had, yet again, not reviewed their character sheets. They did not know how many spell slots they had, what damage dice to use for their cantrips, what a bonus action was, or how movement worked. I could go on. The players who have listened to NADDPOD seemed to have a better understanding of the basics but may have been overly focused on how to better get away with shenanigans* (looking at all of you, but specifically Justice Tanny). I am all for shenanigans but when coupled with a poor grasp of the rules, it slows the momentum down pretty significantly. As a result, we made it about halfway through the session I had planned. I love that my players are having enough fun that they want to play more regularly, and I enjoy the sessions too, but I am torn. They are now gold-laden, magic item wielding level 3s that lack the fundamentals. I fear my handholding has created a ratking of bros wandering their way through dungeons. How do I count on them to be any more invested in bi-weekly sessions? Am I wrong to want to TPK this whole group and have them start from scratch, and in the process hope they find their own path? Or do I press forward with these current creations and hope that more regular sessions instill a better understanding of the game? I humbly await your judgement, Tomallama *Shenanigans include but are not limited to: • Using your “prison wallet” to hide fake diamonds from NPCs • Castrating corpses to slide the “family jewels” into an unsuspecting NPCs pack • Visiting Gnomish brothels and insisting that any town lacking a Gnomish brothel is a “one-stoplight” town
2023-09-11 23:26 PANTAGES To the decorated Judges Axford, Murphy, and Tanner and their dedicated Bailiff, Jarkeb. I am writing you today as a DM torn. A little over two years ago I began my first campaign as DM with a group of five friends. They are all first-time players who expressed interest in playing and at first things were great. I helped them with their backstories, walked through their initial stat rolls, and even bought them each a PHB and set of dice. I fear my initial well-intentioned guidance had unintended consequences. As with all campaigns we face scheduling conflicts, and typically only convene once every three to four months for about 6 hours. As a result, they are still level three (I do milestone-based levelling but sometimes what I think will take one session has taken two, due to… shenanigans*). The party is gold and item-focused, and I have tweaked the campaign to provide ample opportunity for them to earn, including a Thunderdome-style tournament a couple months back providing them with magic weapons. To help them learn the game in the time between sessions, I recommended NADDPOD. Some players started listening and are in the audience tonight. During the week leading up to a session, I ask my players to review their character sheets which I have built on DnD Beyond as well as provide physical copies. This ask seems to often fall on deaf ears. Before our most recent session on Saturday, the players all expressed interest in playing more regularly, and we discussed moving to a virtual tabletop for a shorter session every two weeks. I was thrilled. However, as the session progressed it became apparent that they had, yet again, not reviewed their character sheets. They did not know how many spell slots they had, what damage dice to use for their cantrips, what a bonus action was, or how movement worked. I could go on. The players who have listened to NADDPOD seemed to have a better understanding of the basics but may have been overly focused on how to better get away with shenanigans* (looking at all of you, but specifically Justice Tanny). I am all for shenanigans but when coupled with a poor grasp of the rules, it slows the momentum down pretty significantly. As a result, we made it about halfway through the session I had planned. I love that my players are having enough fun that they want to play more regularly, and I enjoy the sessions too, but I am torn. They are now gold-laden, magic item wielding level 3s that lack the fundamentals. I fear my handholding has created a ratking of bros wandering their way through dungeons. How do I count on them to be any more invested in bi-weekly sessions? Am I wrong to want to TPK this whole group and have them start from scratch, and in the process hope they find their own path? Or do I press forward with these current creations and hope that more regular sessions instill a better understanding of the game? I humbly await your judgement, Tomallama *Shenanigans include but are not limited to: • Using your “prison wallet” to hide fake diamonds from NPCs • Castrating corpses to slide the “family jewels” into an unsuspecting NPCs pack • Visiting Gnomish brothels and insisting that any town lacking a Gnomish brothel is a “one-stoplight town"

PANTAGES To the decorated Judges Axford, Murphy, and Tanner and their dedicated Bailiff, Jarkeb. I am writing you today as a DM torn. A little over two years ago I began my first campaign as DM with a group of five friends. They are all first-time players who expressed interest in playing and at first things were great. I helped them with their backstories, walked through their initial stat rolls, and even bought them each a PHB and set of dice. I fear my initial well-intentioned guidance had unintended consequences. As with all campaigns we face scheduling conflicts, and typically only convene once every three to four months for about 6 hours. As a result, they are still level three (I do milestone-based levelling but sometimes what I think will take one session has taken two, due to… shenanigans*). The party is gold and item-focused, and I have tweaked the campaign to provide ample opportunity for them to earn, including a Thunderdome-style tournament a couple months back providing them with magic weapons. To help them learn the game in the time between sessions, I recommended NADDPOD. Some players started listening and are in the audience tonight. During the week leading up to a session, I ask my players to review their character sheets which I have built on DnD Beyond as well as provide physical copies. This ask seems to often fall on deaf ears. Before our most recent session on Saturday, the players all expressed interest in playing more regularly, and we discussed moving to a virtual tabletop for a shorter session every two weeks. I was thrilled. However, as the session progressed it became apparent that they had, yet again, not reviewed their character sheets. They did not know how many spell slots they had, what damage dice to use for their cantrips, what a bonus action was, or how movement worked. I could go on. The players who have listened to NADDPOD seemed to have a better understanding of the basics but may have been overly focused on how to better get away with shenanigans* (looking at all of you, but specifically Justice Tanny). I am all for shenanigans but when coupled with a poor grasp of the rules, it slows the momentum down pretty significantly. As a result, we made it about halfway through the session I had planned. I love that my players are having enough fun that they want to play more regularly, and I enjoy the sessions too, but I am torn. They are now gold-laden, magic item wielding level 3s that lack the fundamentals. I fear my handholding has created a ratking of bros wandering their way through dungeons. How do I count on them to be any more invested in bi-weekly sessions? Am I wrong to want to TPK this whole group and have them start from scratch, and in the process hope they find their own path? Or do I press forward with these current creations and hope that more regular sessions instill a better understanding of the game? I humbly await your judgement, Tomallama *Shenanigans include but are not limited to: • Using your “prison wallet” to hide fake diamonds from NPCs • Castrating corpses to slide the “family jewels” into an unsuspecting NPCs pack • Visiting Gnomish brothels and insisting that any town lacking a Gnomish brothel is a “one-stoplight town"

Delani N Wright

RIVIERA! This is my brother’s grievance about me. He does not have the patreon but he will be at the show. He says shoutout from the mezzanine. Greetings Grand Crit Justices and that little bailiff guy. I humbly offer you the case of the forced last minute character change. It all started when my sister, bless her heart, decided she wanted to DM a short campaign with a few friends. She asked me if I wanted to join and obviously I said yes. This would be my first time playing D&D since graduating college two years ago, so needless to say I was excited. I got to work creating a character about three weeks in advance. I always wanted to play a rogue so that's where I started. I collaborated with the DM to flesh out this caracter. We knew the other players would most likely play wizards and paladins and that the party could benefit from a small touch of fun chaos. I ended up creating a scrappy little goblin boy named Vermin Schitter (he grew up on the streets and thought the expletives that people hurled at him were his names.) I was excited to play this little guy, the DM loved this idea, and all was well… until about two hours before the campaign started. The day of the first session the DM contacts me in a panic, she tells me that she is freaking out because the party has no cleric so there's no healer. I calmly try to explain to her that clerics aren't the only class with healing abilities plus there are always potions… right? It made no difference, she was in a panic. She asked me less than an hour before we had to leave to rebuild my character to be a cleric. We had a quick debate and I decided to relent and with such little time I was forced to make a very basic high elf cleric of the life domain as per roll 20’s default settings. Do I deserve reparations (perhaps financial?) for the stifling of my creativity and the untimely demise of Vermin Schitter? Or is this just another twist in the grand tapestry of Dungeons and Dragons, where the whims of a DM can be as unpredictable as a deck of many things? I eagerly await your judgment, oh Crit Justices, and may the dice of justice roll in favor of creativity, chaos, and the goblin named Vermin Schitter!

Jareth

To the gracious Supreme Crit, and their mascot, Bailee the Baliff. I'm so excited to finally get to see you all live in Minneapolis! Today I bring you the case of Joffrey the Immortal. In the summer of 2021, the DM was handing the reigns over to two of his players (one overseeing the roleplay and the other controlling combat) so that he could enjoy some time in the player's seat. I joined the table as a Dwarf Rogue. Our first objective was to protect a merchant's wagon as it traveled it was inevitably attacked by bandits, and began to overrun our level 1 party. After being brought down to 2 hp I chose to attempt to hide, rolled a nat 20, and the DM described that I hid perfectly underneath an unconscious bandit on the ground. As my dwarf laid so perfectly hidden beneath a freshly knocked out bandit, unnoticed by the healers in the party, I asked the DM if I would be allowed to tie my arms and legs to the bandits, so even if I was spotted the bandits would think twice about shooting at me. The DMs found it funny and allowed it, and in the next two turns, I successfully restrained and tied myself to the bandit. Eventually, our party succeeded and my bandit buddy was conveniently the only enemy to succeed in their death saving throws, so we chose to take him with us for questioning. After entering the wagon to continue to town the bandit woke up, still tied to me. It was then that the old DM (who I'll call Matt) from the previous campaign chose to speak up, saying that it would be much better if we untied the bandit from me and re-tied him in his own restraints. I said that with him awake, and all of our party very low on health, untying the thief would cause unnecessary danger. The party discussed and came to the conclusion that he would remain tied to me until we arrived in town. Matt then spoke up, saying "Oh. I didn't realize we were playing that kind of game." He then had his character jump off the wagon, and announced that he was going to make a new character and later he introduced his new character. An hour later he joined back into the session as Joffrey, a character with a level in every class that could only say his first name. From there the session de-railed quickly. Whether it was a gang of skeletons, an NPC's house, or even forced PVP, Joffrey would immediately run into every situation to try and destroy everything in sight. Joffrey died, and Matt announced that Joffrey was immortal and would pop back up and track down the party. It was our DMs' first time tackling a campaign of their own and they didn't know how to deal with their tyrannical predecessor for nearly two hours. Eventually, our party got to the first central story mission given by one of the legacy characters. Not only did Joffrey attempt to break down the door of this godly man's home, as well as trying to burn it down, but When the legacy character actually was given time to introduce themselves Joffrey attempted to kill him. The DMs finally had enough and described their jolly giant picking up Joffrey and tossing him into a sphere of destruction. With the erasure of Joffrey, Matt was furious and promptly stormed out. My question, dear justices, was I wrong to stick to my goofs? Could I have prevented the terrifying reign of Joffrey by just untying that poor bandit, or was Matt doomed to this fate of bloodshed despite my shenanigans? P.S. When bringing up this story with my brother last week, he shared that Matt is an extremely rules-heavy player who believes comedy has little to no place in Dungeons and Dragons.

Mads

Thank you notable and gracious Judges of Dungeon Court for hearing out my concern. I am a DM running an Ebberon-style campaign were the villains goals are to control and limit magic use. Slowly but surely, magic is being banned. While all magical species and classes still exist, depending on where the party is within our world called Enhedon, there could be dire consequences for using or showing magical abilities. Those of certain magical species are even banned from certain cities and places in the world. It poses great risks. Our parties druid experienced an intense blow resulting in her players arm being chopped off. Narratively, this was essential for one player in the campaign to lose a limb. I plan for there to be an opportunity in the future for the player to reach out to a specific NPC ally I have created who is an artificer that can create bionic limbs. This allows for the magical world of our druid, being linked to the non-magical or magical limiting world. However, when our druid attempted to use wildshape for the first time after losing her arm, I mentioned that even as an animal, our druid does not have her arm. This does limit flying creatures for now for our druid. My intention is for this ability to be restored, with a bit of a transformer effect, once she has successfully completed a task for my artificer NPC. When I first presented to the party that our druid in wildshape does not have her arm still, this caused great debate. The players intensely argued that I was not following the effects of the wildshape spell and should allow for her arm to be restored in wildshape form. However, I stuck to my plan as my players did not know at the time of the artificer NPC I have created for them. Was I wrong for not listening to my players concern? How comfortable should I be with bending rules and effects to fit the narrative of the story more accurately? My boyfriend, Aidan, and I are here in the crowd now. He was surprised at the start of the show with the tickets. Can you imagine how he feels while you read this?! Thank you for the company your voices have given us through all these years. -Riane (pronounced Ryan) Riviera

Liu

Riviera! To the cherubic, wholesome, family friendly judges of the high crit and the nefarious and vulgar bailiff Spencer, I bring before you a take yet to come, but fast approaching. I’m currently prepping a pirate themed campaign for my roommate and their partner (shoutout to the one piece live action series!). The partner has never played dnd but is very creative and expressed interest in a heist narrative. As a little stinker dm, I agreed and immediately decided to make the objective of their heist a secretly cursed object. This being said, I’m worried the plan is a dick move, since this will be the partners intro to dnd. Should I save cursed items for later in the game? Or do I go boldly forward with my cursed caper?

Kevin P

RIVIERA Section 1R Row: A To the esteemed justices of the high crit and oft maligned baliff, Jake. I bring to you the case of the heartless DM Years ago, I was playing in my first campaign with some friends from college. One of our party members had died and we were on a multisession side quest to resurrect him, with his corpse in tow. We eventually came to a sealed cave that we were told would lead to the resurrection pool. Above the door there was a message written in a language no one knew and there were two columns topped with bowls outside the cave. The party spent a good deal of time trying to figure out how to open the cave. We eventually realized that the solution was to put a heart in each bowl. Animal hearts didn’t work and after debating for over an hour one of the party members cut out his own heart, as he was getting bored. With his heart and the heart of our dead party member, we opened the cave and were able to resurrect both of them before the session ended. After the session, our DM remarked he was surprised that it took so long for us to solve the puzzle. To this day, this has bothered me. I feel that no sentient being would cut out their own heart. Yes, the resurrection pool was just on the other side, but we had no way of knowing that. Justices, Am I right that it is unreasonable to expect party members to cut out our own hearts without question or should I just accept my DM sending the party to the raspberry patch over this puzzle?

Jaime Weaver

RIVIERA Esteemed Supreme Justices of the crit and the baby Bailiff. (He’s not a Justice, this is Chicago, not Boston.) I write in on the case of the (perhaps too massive) golden statue. In the second ever campaign I have ever run, and am still slowly running for a group of my close friends. Early on in the campaign the party had arrived in the religious capital of the country and were scheduled for a meeting with the Praetor, essentially the Pope. I wanted to showcase how grand and powerful the force of this city was upon their arrival. To do this, I described a several hundred foot tall pure gold statue of the god that this country worships standing proudly on a stage. Oh god, this would bite me in the ass. After their meeting with the Praetor, one of the party members, a hyper-capitalist demon of greed industrialist artificer decided that he was going to hollow out the inside of the statue with an army of Scarab drones (which he has had up until this point.) I’m still not the most experienced DM, and I was unprepared for how to handle this, so I had him roll several times for stealth and his success rate. Alas, he managed to sneak away with a perfect cubic foot worth of pure gold. This player, who was also just greedy in general, spent a solid 10 minutes calculating the value of the full statue and eventually the cube. Unbeknownst to me, a cubic foot of pure gold is worth approximately 20.9 million dollars. I had been swindled, flabbergasted, and burned by my own piece of set decoration. Esteemed Justices of the court, was my player in the wrong, or did I simply get what I deserved. I accept whatever punishment you deem necessary, thank you. -Reid Weaver

Lucas Dahmm

RIVIERA To the merciful justices and the bouncing baby boy, Jacob (who is eagerly anticipating his first birthday when he can finally get into cake): The case I bring before you comes not from DND but from another TTRPG entirely, called Raccoon Sky Pirates (I know this is a stretch for the court, but I hope Justice Axford will find the grace to allow it). In this game, you and your friends all play as a group of raccoons, rats, and yes, possums, who fly through the sky in a ramshackle airship looking to break into suburban homes and steal their valuable trash. The game is designed with player improv as the focus, even to the point of not having a DM/GM. I was playing a sophisticated black rat named Ratcliffe and the friend whom this case concerns was playing a possum named Gator, though his special characteristic was that he was secretly an armadillo. The issue came about near the end of the game when we were evading the neighborhood watch. We were at high risk of losing everything we had stolen as our ship was heavily damaged. As the name might suggest, Gator was a very rambunctious character, and even when he rolled well he would often roleplay these as pyrrhic victories -- getting one thing done while hindering us in the future. Despite these roadblocks, we had almost made it back to the junkyard and it was my turn to roll. Gator, who was next in the turn order, asked me to not go back to the junkyard quite yet because he "still wanted to try something out with his character," which he stated with a devilish look in his eyes. I rolled successfully, and after a bit of deliberation, ignored his request and ended our escape sequence with the ship still intact (it would have blown up with one more failure, losing all our stuff). We moved on from that, but I can't help but wonder if I should have given into Gator and given him another chance as he asked. Justices, was I wrong to deny my friend a yes-and to his character fun, or should I live guilt-free knowing that it allowed our party to live happily ever after with our ill-gotten gains? I humbly await your decision. -Lucas D (he/him) in 2L

N. Forsythe

RIVIERA Dearest Lucious Judges and associated hangers on, I am petitioning you regarding a case of what should be simple biology. In our campaign, an NPC asked our party to destroy a clutch of owlbear eggs in a nearby nest. Players in our group objected, saying that an owlbear is clearly a gestational mammal, while the DM maintained that (being somewhat bird) it does in fact produce eggs. Despite succeeding in destroying the eggs and burning down the nest, several of our party still maintain that the eggs did not, and should not have existed. I fear this will become a modern-day Scopes Monkey Trial. Please provide some much-needed clarity. Sincerely yours &c. Nathaniel

Andrew Kruck

RIVIERA To the munificent judges, Axford, Murphy, and Tanner, who are as perfect as their judgements, and the Repellant Bailiff Jork who could do with some self reflection: I come to you with a case of love, devotion, and gambling. A couple of years ago, my now girlfriend (who is here with me tonight) was getting ready to play D&D for the first time. As I was the DM, I was working with her to actualize her character idea. We came up with a very fun Paladin named Bellothe, who served a goddess named "Lady Luck". I thought this was a fun character, and I was excited to teach my good friend (who I was admitedly crushing on) how to play the game. However, there was a disagreement. While going over the character, she said that she thought a fun trait for Bellothe to have would be that she gambled as part of her religion, and always won because she prayed to Lady Luck. I said that it would be hard for us to include this in the game, given that always winning at gambling would be too powerful as an ability, and that even if she was able to use religion checks to get advantage or something, the fact that we were actually rolling dice would mean Bellothe would only be a little bit better than average at gambling mechanically. My not-yet girlfriend relented, and it ended up not mattering much because the campaign only lasted three sessions before it died. Two years since that campaign and a year into us dating, my girlfriend (who has played in multiple much longer campaigns with me since) decided to resurrect this character when she visited me and rejoined an old campaign for a session. Since then, she has continued to argue that back when she first started playing, I should have let her character be the ultimate gambler because it would have been funny. I maintain that even a toned-down version of the ability would have been too powerful if she decided to use it for anything more than roleplaying, which I know she would have done eventually. Was I wrong to deny my girlfriend the punchline of her character being a divinely inspired card-shark, or was I right in holding my ground that there would not have been a way to implement this ability that satisfied her vision without breaking the game? We await your judgement (and severe punishment) with bated breath in seats H1 and H2, -Blythe and Andrew

ThaddeusGigantus

PANTAGES To the monumental, formidable, transcendental judges and maybe that Jeff guy if he's around, I present the case of the halfling, the crab, and the surprise retirement. We were dungeon crawling (White Plume Mountain module), and came upon a room with a chest which was being guarded by a giant crab. Encasing the room was boiling hot water which was being held back by a protective bubble. One player, playing a low intelligence barbarian, immediately stated he was going to use his axe to pop the bubble and boil the crab alive with no consideration to the safety of the party (who all naturally balked at this decision and made a mad dash to the exit of the room because our DM was kind enough to give us a surprise round.) One other PC stayed behind to save the halfling (they had shape water) but nearly died in the process. Luckily in the end everyone came out all right, but the party was very upset with the barbarian whose player, when questioned on his decision, stated that due to his low intelligence score "it's what my character would do." Heinous, we know. What really boiled our blood (wink) was that once we had finished the dungeon and made it back to town, we were informed by our problematic friend that his barbarian halfling was retiring from the party and he had rolled up a new character to play with rather than have the barbarian live with the party's ire, learn from his mistakes, and perhaps come out of this whole experience as a better person. He didn't want his character to deal with our anger and apparently had been wanting to kill him off anyway, but hadn't bothered informing anyone (*cough DM cough*). The campaign didn't last many sessions after the incident (our DM was moving so we had to cut it short), but during the few sessions we had left none of the party bothered much with getting to know his new character due to our displeasure with his decision. Were we right to be annoyed with his choices? Were we justified in shunning his new character? Should he have taken the crab fiasco as a lesson and a chance for character growth instead of tossing his half-baked halfling out for a shiny new firbolg? We prostrate ourselves at your feet and graciously accept your judgement. P.S. I am so sorry this ended up being so long-winded

Maggie!

RIVIERA To the magnificent, magnanimous, and mystical Judges and… Josh? I come to you with the case of “obvious” favorites. My usual group wanted to play all together so we sourced a DM to run a Curse of Strahd campaign for us. We spent a few sessions talking about our characters, our goals for the game and we’re relatively excited to get to play, especially with our usual DM (my partner). Then we started to play and the problems began. It appeared that our DM was playing favorites. She would often openly applaud my partner or another player for their ideas, reward they “creativity” and at some points tailored the game to give them some cool moments/weapons. Meanwhile my circle of stars pirate halfling druid with one eye was largely ignored. I would try to drop hints about wanting to explore something with my character and those statements went largely unheard. Another player was openly antagonized by the DM with her flat out murdering his character with her own PC while no one else was near him to help with the fight. She decided to end the campaign for different reasons but in the wrap up made sure that two of the characters actually got something that tied into what their goals were for their PCs. Meanwhile myself and the other player just made our own ending for our characters out of game. My question is were we in the wrong to be butthurt about the ignoring/antagonizing behavior? We sucked it up and dealt but should we have said something during the campaign? I lay myself at the mercy of the court.

ThaddeusGigantus

Oh I say "we" because there's two of us attending, the poor soul that stayed behind to rescue the fool is with me tonight 💗

Patricia Westergren

PANTAGES (row M) To the talented, beautiful and honorable Crit Justices, and I guess that guy with a beard, I've heard his name is Jeff. I submit to you, the case of the Jungle Rocks. A few years ago my adventuring party was traveling through a jungle on the Isle of Dread when we encountered a pack of cannibals (it earned the named Isle of Dread for a reason). I was playing a druid with a new 5th lvl spell slot. Knowing we would be traveling through the jungle that day, I prepped "Wrath of Nature" and proceeded to cast it when we started the encounter. As part of this spell you can use a bonus action to "cause a loose rock in the 60 foot cube to launch at a creature you can see". When my turn came around and I tried to launch a rock at a cannibal, my DM (who happens to be my older brother) told me that there were no rocks in the Jungle... Now, he is normally an incredibly open and shenanigan supporting DM, but as much as I argued he put his foot down and wouldn't let me use my rock throwing bonus action. It has now become a bit of a snarky joke between us and our group. I have sent him pictures of Jungle rocks and will randomly point out rocks when we are in public even still, now 2ish years later, but he refuses to back down. I would like it noted that I love my brother very much and he is an incredible and wonderful DM. However, I would like to hold this over his head for the rest of our lives. Please, wise Justices, settle the argument of the Jungle Rocks once and for all. Regards, The Disgruntled Druid in row M.

Kelsey Wright (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-05 07:00 RIVIERA We are BOTH here tonight and have both read/approved this account Quick Summary: My DM changed my backstory on me and my party won't let me change it back because they love it so much ----------- To the Honorable Justices and Temporary Justice Jake, who is also honorable, but just in a different way I Bring you the Case of the Altered Backstory I started a new campaign with some inexperienced work friends, and my fiancé as our experienced DM. I decided this was the perfect opportunity to dusk off a circle of spores druid/ cleric I made a while ago. I wanted to explore the idea of a sentient fungal network being her god, with her journey based around trying to save fungal network which was inexplicably dying (very inspired by “something is amiss at the crick”). My fiancé talk about my these character ideas little bit, and I start writing my backstory. The first session goes off without a hitch, and our DM decides to start off the second session with flashbacks for everyone’s characters. Most of the flashback are characters saying goodbye to their family and starting their journey. We get to my flashback, and scene described was tense, dramatic, and kept the entire party at the edge of their seats’. My village was attacked by a decaying Leshen and which wounded villagers as we fought back. However, this wasn’t my backstory. It established that my character worships arch-fey through a portal to the fey-wild, and this portal is simply "decorated with inert mushrooms”, which my character gardens to “please the arch-fey.” The problem is, everyone LOVED my “new” backstory. As the session finished everyone told me how cool it was and how it was their favorite flashback because it was so intense. After talking with my DM, I tried to suggest the idea of retconning the flashback to my party members while we were all out at a friend’s birthday party. But everyone essentially said that the backstory was “too cool" and they "wanted to see what happened with it”

 When I asked my DM where the new backstory came from, he said that since no one had submitted written backstories, he just improvised them all. Which as brand new players, the rest of the party was fine with. We have now been playing for several months and I avoid talking about my character’s backstory because I don’t want to contradict what my DM established, or give up my dream backstory. So judges. Was I in the wrong for not submitting my backstory homework on time? Or is it the DM’s right as story teller to introduce backstories in the absence of any? Judge us as you see fit, and please help us untangle this mangled backstory
2023-09-12 17:21 RIVIERA We are BOTH here tonight and have both read/approved this account Quick Summary: My DM changed my backstory on me and my party won't let me change it back because they love it so much ----------- To the Honorable Justices and Baliff/Temporary Justice Jake, who is equally honorable, just in a different way I Bring you the Case of the Altered Backstory I started a new campaign with some inexperienced work friends, and my close friend as our experienced DM. I decided this was the perfect opportunity to dusk off a circle of spores druid/ cleric I was really excited to role-play. I talked to the DM about my character ideas little bit, and started writing my backstory, but I didn't finish writing it in time for our first session. Our DM decides to finish our first session with flashbacks of everyone's characters saying goodbye to their families and starting their journeys. However, when we get to my flashback the tone is completely different. The scene described was tense, dramatic, and kept everyone at the edge of their seats’. And most importantly, wasn't my backstory at all. In fact, it contradicted the basis for my character at many points. I didn't want to call out my DM in front of party during the scene, so I decided to talk him about it later. The problem is, the rest of my party LOVED my “new” backstory. As the session finished everyone told me how cool it was and how it was their favorite flashback because it was so intense. My DM confessed he didn't want to "introduce retconning" to our campaign but couldn't think of another way to change the backstory. I tried to suggest the idea of retconning the flashback to my party members while we were out at a friend’s birthday party. But everyone essentially said that the backstory was “too cool" and they "wanted to see what happened with it.”

 We have now been playing for several months and I avoid talking about my character’s backstory because I don’t want to contradict what my DM established, or give up my dream backstory. So judges. Was I in the wrong for not submitting my backstory homework on time? Or should the DM have waited a few sessions before introducing major character plots points? Judge us as you see fit, and please help us untangle this mangled backstory

RIVIERA We are BOTH here tonight and have both read/approved this account Quick Summary: My DM changed my backstory on me and my party won't let me change it back because they love it so much ----------- To the Honorable Justices and Baliff/Temporary Justice Jake, who is equally honorable, just in a different way I Bring you the Case of the Altered Backstory I started a new campaign with some inexperienced work friends, and my close friend as our experienced DM. I decided this was the perfect opportunity to dusk off a circle of spores druid/ cleric I was really excited to role-play. I talked to the DM about my character ideas little bit, and started writing my backstory, but I didn't finish writing it in time for our first session. Our DM decides to finish our first session with flashbacks of everyone's characters saying goodbye to their families and starting their journeys. However, when we get to my flashback the tone is completely different. The scene described was tense, dramatic, and kept everyone at the edge of their seats’. And most importantly, wasn't my backstory at all. In fact, it contradicted the basis for my character at many points. I didn't want to call out my DM in front of party during the scene, so I decided to talk him about it later. The problem is, the rest of my party LOVED my “new” backstory. As the session finished everyone told me how cool it was and how it was their favorite flashback because it was so intense. My DM confessed he didn't want to "introduce retconning" to our campaign but couldn't think of another way to change the backstory. I tried to suggest the idea of retconning the flashback to my party members while we were out at a friend’s birthday party. But everyone essentially said that the backstory was “too cool" and they "wanted to see what happened with it.”

 We have now been playing for several months and I avoid talking about my character’s backstory because I don’t want to contradict what my DM established, or give up my dream backstory. So judges. Was I in the wrong for not submitting my backstory homework on time? Or should the DM have waited a few sessions before introducing major character plots points? Judge us as you see fit, and please help us untangle this mangled backstory

Mat Anderson

PANTAGES (Row V, seat 7) To the illustrious, seasoned and downright impressive Supreme Crit Justices Murphy, Axford and Tanner and the Stylin', Profilin', limousine driving, jet flying, kiss-stealing, wheeling and dealing son of a gun Bailiff Jake! I submit to you, the case of the accidental ninja turtles. Earlier this year I began my first campaign as a DM with 4 friends. 3 of the 4 were new to DnD and asked for suggestions for what type of character to play. One of them asked, "which class would be the best at skateboarding?" To which I quickly replied, "most likely a rogue or monk, since they are both high in dexterity and could probably pull of a sick kick flip or an insanely dope grind or manual." At this time we dove deep into as much radical 90s speak and cliches as we could and before I knew it they had all decided to play monks. My original plan for the campaign was to attempt to follow place these 4 players in place of the band of boobs in campaign one as I wasn't really sure how to world build in any meaningful way (with plans to add in the band of boobs as NPCs that they would encounter along the way!). We started off in Moonstone and every opportunity they have made TMNT references, including changing their names to each oftheir favorite turtles. I was happy to support this behavior and it has been fun but I think I'm losing the plot a bit in my attempt to "follow" my original campaign plans and am afraid I may not have any good ideas for them to sink their teeth into. Should I put my foot down and stick to my original idea or say "Cow-a-fuck-it" and embrace my new turtle overlords? I patiently await your judgment.

A.J. Z

PANTAGES To the honorable and esteemed judges and Jake the Janitor, I bring you the case of the un-deflectable poison damage. I have been playing in a Curse of Strahd campaign with a longtime friend as the DM (who is also in attendance tonight). A while back our party was fighting an assassin who attempted to shoot my Kenku monk/rogue with a poison arrow. I was able to use deflect missiles to reduce the piercing damage to zero, but the DM ruled that I would still take an absurd amount of poison damage as it was separate from the piercing damage. I asked how I could possibly have taken the poison damage if the arrow didn’t pierce me, and they told me that it was “just so poisonous” that you would take the poison damage just from touching any part of the arrow. We still won the battle, and I absolutely massacred the assassin after taking the hit, but the interaction over whether or not I should take the poison damage was fairly tense with the rest of the table agreeing it didn’t quite make sense. The rules are not super clear on how this should shake out, but it felt like I was denied the full potential of my monk ability in order to raise the stakes in battle where we may have otherwise won too easily. Was it wrong for me to take the poison damage, or am I making too big of a deal out of this? I humbly await your ruling and am prepared to accept any punishment if I am in the wrong. Even death.

Victoria M

RIVIERA I haven’t been playing dnd long enough to have a good case yet! But my wonderful friend and dm has a case. He lives in Texas and can’t make it to the show bc he is always working himself to the bone so I would like to relay his story to you as an option for the live shows! This was all typed out by him: To the ever dishonorable justices Murphy, Axford and Tanner; to which I have modeled much of my dming know-how off of. (Mostly the Saltiness of Murph). As well as the perpetual special guest and bailiff Jake Hurwitz. I present to you the case of the Flight of the Artificer. A few years ago, during my first ever time dming a campaign, I had painstakingly built out an epic battle for my party to partake in. The session was meant to test the waters on how my party would function during a full scale battle, as well as end with them meeting the bbeg for the first time. We had been planning this session for a while, but on the day of the fighter of my party had decided to bring his friend without asking me and inquire if he could join. This should’ve been the first red flag, but me wanting to make a good impression as a fledgling dm relented and said yes. The new player had mostly played dnd based on anime, which I thought was cool, but explained my games might be a little different because I’m more inclined towards dark fantasy and more unforgiving encounters. He said he’d be fine with that and so we proceeded to create a character for him. He chose an artificer and then asked if he could flavor his sword to be like the sword from bleach. Now I didn’t know much about the show at the time but after looking it up I said it would be okay and we’d just use greatsword stats. I also made sure he knew that if the weapon had any properties in the show we would have to discuss how to implement it down the line rather than just letting him have those abilities. So fast forward, the party is in the thick of the battle. And I described this pillar of light bursting from the middle of the field all the way to the sky. The party drove towards it and this is when the problem began. The Artificer wanted to inspect the pillar and with a high roll he discovered that the pillar was made of hard light and seemed to be sapping energy from a few mages in a trance around it and dispersing a buff to the army. I also explained that the mages seemed to be going in and out with the chaos around them causing the pillar to flicker. The artificer decided out of everything they could do, that the best possible option was to scale the pillar. I reiterated the scene for him exactly as I explained the first time and asked if he was sure this is what he wanted to do, he said yes and so I let him. The battle waged on and all the while my artificer climbed higher and higher all the while I kept making him roll insight to notice the instability of the pillar. He even had to make a couple saves to not fall off as it flickered. That is until the barbarian of my party did what barbarians were best at, got sick of the constant waves of buffed soldiers, and killed the mages in a trance. As you could imagine the pillar flickered and eventually disappeared from the battlefield, leaving the artificer high in the air. He began to fall and the bard in my party asked to prepare feather fall for the exact moment he came into range. With a “hell yes” I told her this was fine, only to be cut off by the artificer who said instead they wanted to use their sword to create a gust of wind to break their fall. I asked where we agree their sword could do this and he explained that apparently the sword in the anime was capable of it. I reiterated that we would have had to agree to this and that I would find a way to implement it down the line. He didn’t like this and began raising his voice in a heated back and forth that lasted 30 minutes until I had enough and left as the game was no longer fun. I would have been fine if he had flavored it through the bards spell but I didn’t want him to think he would just be able to do that because of his weapon, which I tried to explain to him. But he just kept yelling so much that my social anxiety took control. Now its been a few years and I was able to restart the campaign with my current party but I stand at the mercy of the judges to ask, should I have let the artificer cast a gust of wind with his blade or was I in the right to put my foot down and say he could use the bards spell but his sword wouldn’t have that capability.

Bennett Hanson

PANTAGES (Row Q) To the majestic judges and the wittle swimpy baby: I DM’d a level 10 one-shot for a group of 6 friends and had premade characters for the party since most of them had never played dnd before. Two of the players asked if they could use their characters from a different campaign ( a circle of moon Druid and assassin rogue), to which I said, “absolutely!” Thinking that it would be fun for them. The one shot was framed as a dungeon crawl that a dragon had teleported them to as a game for his amusement. What I intended to be a fun dungeon crawl with randomly rolled enemies behind every corner turned into the Druid using their familiar to COMPLETELY map out each level of the dungeon and make sure the coast was clear before allowing the other players to proceed. Seeing that other players were not having fun, I narrated the Druid losing sight through the familiar all-of-a-sudden as something had killed it. The determined druid decided to recast “find familiar”, which ended the same way as the first. The druid did not relent, continuing to resummon their familiar until I gave up and expedited the one-shot to get to the big bad dragon (it had been several hours at this point). The one-shot ended with people saying they just wanted to go to bed and I narrated the dragon killing them all, sending them back to the start of the dungeon. My question is: Who is at fault for this botched one-shot? I humbly await your judgement.

Brian Louchen

RIVIERA This is from Brian L. in Balcony Row H. Please give a Happy Birthday shoutout to my daughter Tayler Louchen (Louch rhymes with couch - chen). It's her 17th birthday today on the show day Sept 16, and she's a huge fan of Emily Axford and Brian Murphy and their Dimension 20 shows! I will give some love to Jake and Caldwell and mention that Jake, you have a sexy beard. And Caldwell you have earned a Badge of Badassery. I present the case of, Did the DM go wayyyyy too far? This story begins in our 1st campaign several years ago where my best friend Will was the Dungeon Master and he sought out to have my daughters character fall in love with one of his NPCs. My daughter Tayler played a Half-elf Druid named Lily Beanstalk who had an overly-crazy obsession with apples. As the party traveled, they reached a tavern in the small town of Greenest. We met a Barbarian gnome with a green mohawk named Zook, who was drinking out of a full barrel of ale. He joined the party and went on a few adventures with us and Zook saved Lily from death a few times. He would always uncomfortably hit on Lily and compliment her on how beautiful she was. At some point we arrived at a nearby coliseum to gather information. Zook always loved to fight so he joined the tournament and participated in a battle with a human Paladin with a trident. I should mention that the DM was using a (d100) critical hit table. Halfway into the combat, the DM got a critical hit on Zook and rolled on the table. He said the roll on the table was an insta-kill and so he killed Zook instantly with a Trident strike to the eye. Nobody at the table believed him, so the DM took the NPC character sheet, lifted it in the air, and tore the paper completely in half and dropped it on the table and said, "He's dead". Our mouths dropped and we sat there in shock. Did the DM, and also my real life best friend Will, go wayyyy too far by tearing the NPC character sheet in half to prove his point? Should we have been provided options for saving or resurrecting our wild gnome friend? I humbly await your judgement. Brian & Tayler.

Woofington Von Barkshire

Justices permitting, if I may weigh in, this is such a cheese way to beat a dungeon and it's not fun and the druid is absolutely at fault for cheesing the entire dungeon, especially since they got their Moon Druid (widely considered to be the most powerful druid subclass, and often the most powerful class/subclass combo in general) from another campaign and were experienced in the game. I feel like they took advantage of you! HOWEVER You as the DM can totally just tell them they can't do that, or you can say something in the dungeon stops the druid from casting the spell. Also, they have limited spell slots, so you could say like "Okay, how many spell slots do you spend?" and then they lose that many spell slots and learn very little, since you made it apparent that it doesn't work. The mistake was when you relented. You absolutely should put your foot down on things like that. You're in charge of making sure everyone is having fun

Nathan Wolfe

RIVIERA May it please the court: greetings and well wishes to the noble justices Brian Murphy, Emily Axford, and Caldwell Tanner, as well as their metaphorical (and literal?) footstool Jamp. I present to you the case of the flour button. I, the enthusiastic but inexperienced DM, Inspired by justice murphy, created a kitted out sailing ship with all sorts of gizmos for my players to have an encounter upon. Our dark elf warlock, vent, decided to go on a solo investigative mission as the rest of the party was aboard the ship partying, sharing potent herb acquired from a lovable Giff named Snurd, and telling stories of their adventures in the recently-escaped underdark. Casting a detect magic spell was discussed but ultimately fell to the wayside as vent in”vent”stigated the ship after making himself invisible. He managed, unnoticed, to find a trap door into the captains quarters from below, avoiding the observation of the partying crew on the deck above. Having forgotten the plan to cast a detect magic spell, he set off an unnoticed alarm spell alerting the crew that nefarious actions were afoot, and they immediately grew suspicious and hostile. I gave vent one opportunity to investigate something in the captains room before everything began to go to hell, and he managed to glean some very important info from the ships manifest. I then had the captain rush into his quarters on his turn and hit a button on the wall spraying flour over the entire office revealing the invisible Vent. He immediately chose to flee, taking some big hits along the way, and eventually he narrowly managed to retreat into a totem he has a result of his pact, basically jumping into the ocean and poke-balling himself, sinking to the ocean floor at 1 hp where our war forged fighter later walked along the ocean floor and retrieved him. I had characterized this captain as extremely paranoid and came up with several countermeasures to deal with any subterfuge they may try with random fun gizmos. This happened over month ago and I am still being regularly roasted for making a pirate ship have a flour button in the captains quarters. Should I have reminded them of their intention to cast detect magic when they had mentioned intending to but forgot to do it? Am I in the wrong for planning goofy countermeasures for expected shenanigans or am I just receiving a deserved razzing for what ended up being a more-ridiculous-than-I-anticipated method of thwarting our warlock’s mischief? Additional details: They keep creating plans for defeating the crew and stealing the ship, but stipulating that they will have to add a sign by the button that says something like “press to wreck your office” or “press to ruin the deck boy’s day” Thank you for your time. Sincerely, Insecure DM

Racheal Donovan

PANTAGES - Row M To the exalted judges, and the stand-in bailiff while that other guy is out on paternity leave: I bring you the case of the metagaming husband and the sleepy elf. Two years ago I started my DM journey with a one-shot for my family & husband over Thanksgiving. It went super well, so when the occasion arose, I decided to run the same one-shot for a small group of friends (all here tonight!): a veteran player, two newbies, and my husband, who assured me he would not spoil any of the surprises for the rest of the party. The party began by descending into the darkened tavern basement to rid it of some mysterious creatures, and the party's elf paladin Raven (veteran player), barged ahead and quickly took care of the one visible giant rat (with the catchphrase "That's so Raven!"). However, on my Husband's turn, even though no other enemies were visible, his tiefling bard, Batswav the Damned* cast Sleep near Raven behind a row of barrels, claiming it was preemptive because of some sounds his character heard. Well this put to sleep not only half of my hiding giant rats, but also the party's tank, Raven. To my new-DM horror, the remaining rats proceeded to decimate the rest of the squishy party. I even attempted to wake up Raven by having the rats bite at her, but with her shield & plate armor her AC was too high and my rats kept rolling Murph-levels-of-low. The encounter ended with basically a TPK in the very first room, and Raven eventually waking up to her dead friends. Only then did I remember that Raven was a high-elf, and elves are immune to being charmed and by extension the Sleep spell. So I ask the justices - Was the veteran player responsible for knowing his own character immunities? Did the party get what they deserved for my husband's metagame blind spellcasting? Or was I at fault for being too lenient with the metagaming and not keeping tabs on all PC abilities along with my own DM notes? -Luella PS Hate the show *(annoyingly inspired by and anagrams to DAVE MATTHEWS BAND)

Caerezosa

RIVIERA (Row F) To the wise and powerful crit judges and that other guy on stage Blake. I humbly present to you the case of the merciless massacre. I was playing a dark-themed one shot with a group of friends that were their first introduction to dnd (Curse of Strahd adjacent). The one shot went well, we were hired to clear out a haunted mansion at the edge of town for the chief of police. Everyone seemed to really get into character and I, myself, played a Kenku wizard with criminal ties to some of the NPCs in town. We decided to continue the story and within about 10 minutes of us exploring the ruined basement of the haunted mansion the DM narrated the clinking of a dropped grenade dealing roughly a 5th level fireball spell on us (we were level 3 and had just fought several monsters in said mansion). The few who weren’t instakilled by the blast were then immediately assassinated by shadowy figures who descended on our party after the detonation. We were all a bit shaken. The DM then admitted that he wanted more of the campaign to be in the Shadowfell and that we had all died and been trapped in that middle plane looking for a way out. I leave it to the judges. Was this too severe for a second session start? Should he have taken it easier on the new players just learning the game or was the best way to the Shadowfell just murdering everybody unceremoniously?

Katie Gunn

RIVERIA main floor, row D seat 4 Forgive me fathers, mothers and newborn baby bailiffs for I have sinned before Dice Christ! I come before you with a shameful confession. I have been DMing a campaign with my friends once a week, and have been for the last 3 or so years. It’s been going very well and everybody has been having lots of fun; however, I have a dark secret. You see, I’m not very good at doing math in my head, and while I do have a calculator on my phone, I am usually too occupied by notes or monster stat blocks to switch over in the middle of a tense fight. For over 3 years now, I have been rounding off the damage players have been doing to their enemies - not as part of some cruel plan to prolong my enemies lives, mind you, but simply out of laziness. For instance: if a player does 26 damage to an enemy with 82 HP, it’s so much faster to just bring the enemy down to 60 HP rather than the correct 56 HP (which I had to look up by the way). While this is harmless in the short-term, I do have to wonder if I have not added entire rounds of life back to bad guys that should’ve died sooner. All because my dumb math brain cannot compete with the pace of my storytelling. Please forgive me of this grievance sin and take pity on a poor DM such as me!

Rj

Pantages To the incredible judges and bailiff. I dont actually have a case, I just wanted to say I'm so excited to see you all. I brought up doing Dungeon Court Live during a live stream with Jake and I am thrilled that you all starred doing it AND that I get to be a part of one the day before my birthday!! Thanks for an incredible birthday weekend! See you in Millwuakee as well!

Justin Nichols

To the beautiful judges and bailiff, I present the case of the ban before the table. My fiancee is planning on running a Greek demigod high school campaign, and was talking with one of the others players about it in a game chat with another friend of hers present. The friend proceeded to build a character to counter the player in which she was speaking, creating an abomination. He combined the stats of Gem Dragonborn and Tabaxi, using the size and movement speed bonus of the Tabaxi, and the resistance, breath, flight, and stats of the Dragonborn. When she and I corrected him and told he could only use the stats of one, and not combine them into a new race, he proceeded to say that it should work in this manner, as that how it works in reality, and got pretty heated. He wasn't invited to the table at any point. We're we in the wrong, or is the player trying to power game and take over the table?

Pibman Jr.

[Riviera] Row C, seats 13-14 To the esteemed judges of the Supreme Crit (and… Bailiff J), I present to you the case of The God Damn Rubies. Our characters stumbled upon a religious offering pot. Mama ain’t raise no little baby bitch, so of course I took the contents of the pot for my own pleasure. The DM, with hesitation, described it as (and I quote) “filled with rubies”. I took them all. And that’s where things go wrong. The next day, in my inventory sheet, there were no rubies. But instead, bits of jade, amethyst, and more. In total, this amounted to 30 gp. Obviously rubies are worth way more, so I questioned it. My DM’s response was “I meant gemstones in general. Not just rubies. I didn’t mean to say that.” After some back and forth, it was clear he wasn’t going to give in, so I did the only logical thing: figured up what I was owed. Based on the weight of the gemstones I got and the cost of an average hamburger in the United States, I converted the USD value of rubies into our campaign’s monetary system. The result: 167,058,419 gp. Was it wrong for the DM to go back on his word, giving me these worthless gemstones? Or am I entirely out of line for demanding that he stay true to his word and give me the 167 million gold pieces that I am owed. We await humbly your decision. PS - My DM is also my husband, so your decision will weigh heavily on our marriage. Thanks.

Zac smith

Pantages - Row N Seat 8 To the holy crusaders of the one and only Dice Christ, please hear my prayers for a baptism of dice rolling. I have been playing in a campaign for about 9 months now and my luck on the dice rolls is at an all time low. Imagine you combined all of Murphs bad rolls with all of Caldwells bad rolls, mine would still be worse. I consistently roll a 1-3 about 75% of all our sessions and this is with all 6 of my D20's. Meanwhile my DM and one of the players sitting next to me constantly roll an 18-20. Are they sucking the soul out of my dice or is there no hope for me, am I doomed to constantly let my party down with failed attacks. Mind you I am a wizard so most of my turns end up being "bonus action - cloak of bellowing". I fear one day my plasmoid wizard may be the downfall of my party. So, I am reaching out to you holy clerics of the realm, please hear my prayers, bless me and my dice for I fear I may be losing my faith in our one and only Dice Christ, amen.

Andy H

PANTAGES (balcony right row Q) Hello honorable justices and cake-interested bailiff Jerb! I present the case of the greased up giant. My dm was running a campaign for me and a group of friends where the party started in a tavern with a large “bottomless pit” in the center (like from “tales of the yawning portal). A giant then crawled out of the hole and started causing chaos. Trying to end the fight quickly, I cast a grease spell at the giant’s feet hoping that he would fall back into the hole. He then failed his dexterity check and fell prone. My case starts when I asked the dm during my next turn if I could try to shove the prone giant into the pit. He just gave me a look and told me that I couldn’t do that. I argued that the grease would allow the giant to slide easier than normal ground. My party also jumped in and said that they would help push the giant too, but the dm said it would still be too heavy. We ended up killing the giant normally and pushed his corpse back into the hole to satisfy me. Justices, I ask you this, should my dm have allowed me to push the giant into the pit, or is he right in denying my caldwell-esque shenanigans? P.S. I hate the podcast and just came here to boo.

Wil Josephson

PANTAGES, balcony C. If it should please the exalted members of the land’s highest court (& the bailiff, if he’s allowed to come to these things): I come before you to present a case of two “Minnesota Nice” players inhabiting one PC. Years ago, on an amiable trip with some friends, I persuaded the group to try the still-fairly-new Lost Mines of Phandelver. This was the first time any of us had played D&D, so I volunteered to DM—this was, after all, my idea, and it seemed appropriate that I should take on the heaviest lift. I encouraged everyone at the table to be creative and have fun, as we were just getting a taste and would therefore likely play a little fast and loose with the rules. Most folks were perfectly happy to pick up pre-generated characters, give them a silly voice, and let it rip. Until, that is, the Princess. Our two youngest players (to clarify: still fully adults) decided that two heads would, of course, be better than one, and asked if they could run a character collaboratively. I assented, as we already had five PCs at the table. They then asked if they could modify their class a little bit, and, hoping that they would engage more with homebrew than prewritten content, I gave another ill-fated “yes.” They basically settled on a no-magic bard, with high charisma and low…just about everything else, and insisted that their class was “Princess.” Somehow I didn’t foresee that this would lead to each player devoting only 50% of their attention to what was going on and enormous indecision as neither one was willing to take the character’s reins—never debating or disagreeing, but just—in truly the most Minnesotan way possible—refusing to assert their opinion in any way. After reaching the tutorial-level goblin ambush that opens the campaign, they proceeded to try to sweet-talk, charm, and even woo their goblin assailants, leading to an overlong encounter that ended with a horribly maimed Princess, a split party, and a kind of surprising amount of Things On Fire. I am almost certain the eight of us have not all been in the same room at the same time since. After many years of somber reflection, I seek clarity at the very seat of wisdom. Should I have been less flexible with these first-time players? Or done more to adapt to their colorful choices? Or do Princesses go to the guillotine? I can happily accept whatever punishment the Court sees fit to dole out if it means I might actually play D&D again…someday.

Robin Tedford

PANTAGES (I don’t know where I’m sitting) Good eve, most honorable of justices and that other guy (baby?). I present the case of the Ruined Rogue’s Redemption I was a player in my first ever D&D game (we were playing 3.5) and I was a Chaotic Stupid rogue half king named Millard Goatjumper. I fully admit that I had much to learn about playing TTRPGs and being a decent human being. I’d made a lot of dumb choices in this game frequently putting myself at odds with my fellow party members. That is until my DM threw me the biggest, most delicious bone. We came across a dark book on a dais in one of the BBEG’s lairs, my rogue being Chaotic Stupid, took the book without investigating and was semi-possessed by a sliver of the BBEG’s soul (or an artificial soul or something I’m not 100% on the details here) My rogue made friends with this sliver finally finding someone to bond with. As a player this was a fun dimension to my character and somehow balancing this soul sliver made my character less awful to the overall roleplay. Or so I thought, because as soon as the party caught whiff in-character that this was happening, another PC, the nearly nude gnome barbarian General Gno, killed my character in a single strike. Seeing that I was bummed this happened, my DM threw me yet another bone having the spirit offer my rogue a chance to save himself. But before I could accept, the gnome barbarian captured Goatjumper’s soul in a magic item and destroyed it. My question to this most tasty of courtrooms is simply, was I wronged by this player and should I have been given the opportunity to continue this thread. Or was this long-due Justice being served. I bow so low as I await your divine judgment. (P.S. I played a fighter/bard character and finished the campaign. It was still nice and my DM from this game is still one of if not my best friend)

Zenith Dreamer

Pantages - Row N, Seat 2 To the four glorious arbiters of Dice Christ’s wonderful grace, I come seeking guidance in the face of a terrible curse! For background, in the last 3 campaigns I have played in starting between first and third level, I have had my character die, without fail, at level 3. First was my glamour bard satyr, who, after failing an athletics check to escape into a tree, was killed by a ahnkeg; rolling a failed death save followed by a natural one. In the next campaign, it was my rogue-monk bugbear who was killed brutally after 4 consecutive turns of being subjected to a combination of Tasha’s Hideous Laughter and several cultists repeatedly casting Burning Hands on him. He also died rolling a failed death save followed by a natural one. Lastly was my swarmkeeper ranger monkey-folk who died after being knocked unconscious and every other party member failing a Wisdom save against fear that made them run away. This time I didn’t even get to roll any saves as the monsters we were fighting ate my character as my friends ran in fear. I humbly ask; is this some sort of divine punishment from Dice Christ? Is there any way I can repent and be free of this level 3 curse? Do I just need to find new friends?! Or am I forever doomed to lose my characters at level 3? Dice Christ’s humble adherent, Zenith

Zenith Dreamer

Pantages - Row N, Seat 2 To the honorable judges, Smurph, Worm-wife, and Big Blue Hole, and to the lowly bailiff Crabster (You'll never live it down), I come with the case of the Burning Bugbear. In this case, I am looking to seek justice from not only my DM, but also a fellow player. A couple years ago, I was playing in a campaign with four of my friends, being run by a second-time DM. I was playing a bugbear multiclassing rogue and monk. When we were at 3rd level, our party attempted a raid on a cult’s hideout. After we got into the basement of the hideout, my character chased the cult leader into an adjacent room while the rest of the party were fighting other members of the cult. Upon entering the room, my character was subjected to 4 consecutive turns of the cult leader casting Tasha’s hideous laughter, followed by 3 cultists repeatedly casting burning hands on my poor, prone bugbear, ultimately knocking him unconscious. The party’s ranger in the other room, saw the whole thing go down. He had the chance to cast cure wounds on my character after I had already failed one death save due to the excessive use of burning hands, but he instead chose to “save the spell slot.” On the next turn, my poor bugbear died after I rolled a natural one on my death save. I ask the court; was I unfairly treated by my DM who refused to let me do anything for 4 turns in a row? Was I wronged when the party’s ranger chose not to heal me despite the circumstance? Or was the brutal end of my bugbear merely the will of Dice Christ? I leave it up to the court to decide.

Miles W

Pantages Hello Esteemed Justices and Jorf. I don’t have a case to try because I’ve only ever played a single one shot with people from the headgum discord, but I’m psyched to be spending my 21st birthday with the band of boobs!

Rachael

Pantages row B seat 8 (balcony) I’m here alone and I just want someone to walk with me to my car lol

William Lambertz

RIVIERA First balcony Row L I come before Dice Christ, fresh from the Tuesday table, to confess the sins of the Candy Hoarding Cleric. I, the cleric, brought some starbursts and peanut M&Ms as personal snacks/dinner. When I opened the starbursts, the monk sitting next to me offered me 1 gold piece for 1 candy, I obliged and took my in game reward. Later, the monk offer 50 silver for another starburst and again, I obliged and felt good about a trade of 2 sugar cubes for 6 GP. The night continues and I’ve had some good rolls up til now. I break out the M&Ms and again the monk asks for treats, offering 1 Copper for an M&M, I decline to share at this point. The monk continues to ask for treats and I deny sharing, my share size bag, of peanut chocolate bliss. Every roll after the hoarding of these goodies, I fail horribly with a 2 (shout out), 4, and nat 1 rolled. I fear that Dice Christ has forsaken me for my gluttony and I present my sweet, sticky hands for cleansing if the church deems fit. What must this cleric do to bless his dice, one is a Paw Paw dice, once again?

Patricia Westergren

PANTAGES Thank you wise and supreme Crit Justices for allowing me to hold Jungle Rocks over my DM/brothers head for the rest of his life. Such a great show, thank you!!

Joe North

PANTAGES Thank you so much for a great show and absolving me of my guilt! Confessing to Dice Christ really does unburden the soul. Love you guys, and long live the boonicorn!

drednauht (edited)

Comment edits

2026-10-05 21:00 I planned it and I am still not sorry
2023-09-14 03:29 I planned it and I am still not sorry. Amazing show. I thought for sure the hammer of justice would get me. But I got away, the tragedy of it was the perfect smoke screen.

I planned it and I am still not sorry. Amazing show. I thought for sure the hammer of justice would get me. But I got away, the tragedy of it was the perfect smoke screen.

drednauht

They did it! They did the thing! Well done!

Joe North

Cleric here. I appreciate the supportive barks from the crowd, and I may have to change my deity to dice Christ and spread his absolution and grace across the Underdark.

tony boccia

RIVIERA Seats E3 and E4 For the always radiant Justices, and for the fairly dim Bailiff Crate, I bring the case of The Main Character Monk. Our friend group have been playing in the same DnD campaign for over 3 years. At one point, we permanently lost one of our PC’s and the player had to make a new character. This new PC is a Cold and distant monk, who some people might describe as a bit edgy. Nevertheless, the party welcomed them with open arms. However, since we've met them, the character consistently advocates and acts against the party, reminding us how they doesn't really want to be there, damaging the team environment and furthering the distance. They repeatedly denies engagement or leaves the current party, quest, or plot to advance on her own intuitions. As characters, we've attempted to strengthen the friendships between them but are shut down. We eventually bring this up to our dm, which prompted him to ask the player if their character wanted to be in the party. The player responded by saying they were fine with the character leaving, but they expected to have solo sessions with the DM to continue their story. I ask the court this. Should we indulge this player in their lone wolf behaviour, or would it be best for the player to find a way to get the character to mesh. I humbly await your sentencing

Quincy Collins

I don’t think that’s enough “lowly”s, jake 🤪

Justin

RIVIERA – (Row B) Esteemed Crit Justices and lowly (or maybe exalted) Bailiff Jake, I give you the case of the Short Rest Spoiled. I DM’d for the first-time last Halloween in a themed one-shot for my husband and a visiting longtime friend. Amid trick-or-treaters and candlelight their barbarian werewolf and warlock headless horseman battled through an evil clown’s fun house of dark magic. Upon reaching the ultimate battle my husband nearly one-shotted the BBEG on the first turn. Realizing what a ridiculous let-down an easy battle would be, I began playing the evil clown fast and loose by fudging dice rolls and even making up a few spells and attacks to make the encounter feel worthy of a final flight. With one player down and the other knocking on death’s door I let them have an epic finishing move securing their place as heroes. The next day, during an excited re-cap of the session they expressed how much fun they had and began re-living details of the epic final confrontation. They are both more experienced DMs than I am and began asking mechanical questions on how I home brewed the boss flight. I initially gave a few answers but played it coy by refocusing the attention on their sick moves but to no avail, they kept digging. I asked them if they were sure they wanted to know, and after they said yes, I ended up fully disclosing what happened behind the screen. They were visibly let-down and said I shouldn’t have told them. Should the DM keep mum about what happens behind the screen, or should players only ask questions they really want to know the answers to?

Jameyrae Swetman

RIVIERA Seats F 401 - 403 To the steamed wet judges and the dry as a toad bailiff Jake. I bring you the case of a DM Canceling a Campaign That's Not Theirs. Let it please the court. My friend group had 2 sessions going on at the same time. In the first, we were playing the Curse of Strahd. It was our DM's first time being a DM and 2 out of 4 players' first time playing DND. The second started after a few sessions of the first and was a Homebrew by one of the Strahd players. He was so excited to DM for the first time and envelop us in the world he created. All the players were the same, one being the DM of the other session. We rotated sessions for each meet-up. Due to schedules we hadn't met in a bit but were trying to schedule our next session when the DM of Strahd said and I quote "Hey guys, was thinking we could just end the Strahd campaign, I've been looking for more high-level DND. As for the other campaign, I think that one is over as well." I reached out to the Homebrew DM saying we didn't need to cancel his, and we'd just continue on without Strahd DM, but his confidence had been shattered. To this day (it's been a year) he will not DM or revive his homebrew. I plead to the court, did the Strahd DM have any right to do this, and what could I do to bestow confidence on the Homebrew DM as he was an incredible storyteller who made props for each session because he was so passionate?

ChromaticMars

Hello Benevolent Esteemed Shining beacons of absolute perfection: Judges, Axford, Murphy and Tanner, and the teenie tiny little pocket sized lowly lowly lowly lowly SO LOWLY bailiff: Jonk 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)

Audri Svay

RIVIERA (Second Balcony, Seats T 306-308) To the all-knowing judges and the baliff Jake, who I can't be mean to since he said happy birthday to me two years ago on the painting livestream. (P.S. this show is my birthday present this year). I bring you the case of Zombiegate. I played a druid in a year-and-a-half long campaign over discord with the group we played with in college. During the second-to-last session, my husband, playing a divine soul sorceror, used finger of death, resulting in two zombies he said could aid the group. Our grave cleric argued this was morally wrong. The sorceror asked the zombies for their consent, and the DM said they were ok with it. The cleric prayed to his God who told him to maintain the balance of the universe, so he swore to kill the zombies to restore the natural order. Our sorceror fled into the woods. The party decided not to go after him but to continue on to the cultist hideout we were traveling to. The sorceror claimed his character would not return to a party where he was not wanted. Next session, the guy playing our cleric was absent but gave the DM permission to play his character. The cultist hideout turned out to have several waves of cultists and cultist mages who summoned a dragon. Our cleric died very quickly even though he could have taken health potions he had in his bag. Without our cleric or sorceror, three more of our party members died. My character managed to escape seriously traumatized. Our DM told us he wanted everyone who died to make a new character, and he would run a mini session for the survivors to give us some finality. That was the last message we got from him. We never finished the campaign. Three years later, we found out the other people in the group had started a new campaign without us. Were we wronged by our DM who let our party face a slaughter? Or did we deserve our near-TPK? I anxiously await your judgment.

Barbara Williams

RIVIERA. To the esteemed judges and SIR baliff Jake, (why not?). Bring to you the case of the case of the long distance counterspell. Our group the mystic misfits just ended our 5 year campaign, yet there is still a debate between our crew with a certain counterspell. We were facing our big bad for the campaign, and litch and wannabe god Sluuvious. Our wizard took the meta magic feat so he could use distance spell, with the hope of using it to counterspell more than 60 ft away. It came down to a very clutch moment, when our wizard was counterspelling a power word kill to protect another player from over 70 ft. When our DM looked up the rule, the wording for counterspell says “a creature you can see with 60 ft.” Other spells that you can increase the distance from do not have the exact wording in the spell that states the distance. When our DM looked it up, people online seemed to indicate that counterspell did not work for distance spell. Our DM did allow the player his moment that time, but didn’t allow him to counterspell from over 60 ft again. So I ask the court. What was the right call on this? This seems hella murky, and our player had a good idea. I await your judgement and will let the DM and player know your ruling so I may inform them of their punishment.

Allie

RIVIERA (First Balcony Row E 309-310) From Emily O: Sultry Justices of the Supreme Crit! I come here today to present The Case of “Misallocated Funds”. ..Oh, by the way, you guys should really hire a bailiff or something. Years ago, my friends and I were playing a custom Pokemon-themed TTRPG we homebrewed together. The setting was a custom region the DM came up with; one where corruption and villainy are outrageously intense. Our party was inside a local Hospital/Pokemon Center when the BBEG learned where we were. Shortly after we left, he came by in a helicopter and blew up the building with missiles, hoping we were still inside. Later, we found ourselves at a tournament with quite a high cash prize for first place. A player character named Ellen decided to join. She is so generous she never has money for herself, and she constantly has horrible things happen to her- but despite that, she actually won pretty easily! When the commentator asked her what she’d do with her cash prize, what she tried to say was: “I’m going to donate it to rebuild the local hospital!” ..But when she said “I’m going to donate it”, the announcer cut her off and screamed with glee, “SHE’S DONATING IT!!!”, before throwing all of her earnings into the crowd for them to take. This frustrated Ellen’s player so much that he left not just the voice chat, but the Discord server entirely. I sent him a new invite, and twenty minutes later, he returned. The DM was adamant that what had happened would not be undone, and so it stuck. Justices, I ask you, did this go way too far? Or does it make sense as a laughably stupid thing to have once more happened to Ellen, a famously unlucky person stuck in a place where most people are extremely horrible people? P.S. Among other things, Ellen has also been struck by lightning, had her pokemon go on a union-mandated break during a pivotal moment, and even had her mom be chased across the country by a bioengineered murder pokemon.

Collin Ball

RIVIERA MAIN 4 ROW 3 SEAT 1-2 Howdy to the Rootin' Tootin' Judges and the Rascally Scoundrel Bailiff Jake. I ask: are force fields horse fields? In our current campaign, our first sessions started as an homage to the Magnificent 7, with our party defending a poor village from a group of vampire cowboys. These vampire varmints all rode normal mortal horses. To keep them from riding into the village, my Oath of Crown Paladin used my once-per-day Channel Divinity "Champion Challenge", forcing creatures within 30' feet who fail the save to be unable to move away from me. Of the 4 vampires, two of them fail. The two who passed however had their horses fail the Save. During the next round when the 2 successful vampires ride in to attack my party, I remind my DM that their horses failed and couldn't move past me. He said that their horses failed but because they were in charge of the horses, they could make them move past the 30' feet. The party defeated the vampires and rescued the village, but the horses trampling over my character's ability left me feeling drier than a tumbleweed. So I ask the court: does a field of force affect a horse or was my DM right to say NO-sferatu to my action? I humbly await your judgement.

Jesse B.

RIVIERA To the Baby Lotion Greased Judges and the Beautifully Bearded Bailiff John. I bring you the case of the panik revivify. A couple years back I was DMing my first campaign with some friends. The party, 3 level 4 PCs was taking some odd jobs to make gold for their travels, and after narrowly defeating a CR 6 troll, the party's Paladin was down with 1 failed death save. I told the party they could attempt to stabilize him, but due to initiative, he needed to roll another death save first, which came out to a natural 1. Slightly distraught as this was just a side encounter and the characters had extensive backstories, when a party member asked to roll a religion check to try and save them, I agreed stating only a nat 20 could help here. Well, they rolled a nat 20, allowing a god to revivify the Paladin. Everything seemed fine, until afterwards the third player told me that pulling a move like that wasn't taking the game seriously, and quit the campaign on the spot. So I ask, was I wrong to allow the panicked religion check, or did dice Christ show the true path this player was supposed to take. I humbly await your decision and the punishment if it comes.

Natalie Warneke

RIVIERA Second Balcony Row V Seat 404-405 Hear ye! Hear ye! To the almighty supreme crit justices that reign from their almighty pedestals of power. and jake low-itz who sits in the shadows of the supreme. I had recently just started a campaign with some friends and we were in the midst of our second battle against a small camp of bad guys. They had a small wooden fence surrounding their camp with a small entrance. As the skirmish started, my character, Veil, casted invisibility on her partner, Void. Void then decided to run up and get in the center of the camp with all of the bad guys as the rest of the party stayed closer to the entrance. Void got hurt very fast in the middle of the group but remained invisible. Another character in our party then decided to cast a 3rd level AOE spell that would have killed Void. The other player argued that it was true to her character to do this and that it would have been meta-gaming otherwise. Was she in the right here? I am humbly bow and seek your sentencing. Natalie W.

Lukas Carlson

RIVIERA To the Magnificent Midwest Cutie Judges and the covered-in-cake baby bailiff, I seek your judicial jug judgment. I started my first campaign about a year and a half ago. Wanting to avoid giving out a Murph-level amount of powerful magic items for my first go around, I gave the party what I thought was a fun, dumb item in an Alchemy Jug. Moments after explaining what it did, one of players my whispered "Mayonnaise" at the jug, filling it to the brim with white liquid gold. I figured they would have some fun with it, use it creatively or more likely just forget about it. Well, every session after they have filled the jug with mayo, even when they know it'd be better to fill it with something better (like water when going through a desert). Recently at least once a session they bring up abandoning the campaign they're on and going into business where they can sell their endless mayo and build an empire. I told them I refused to run a mayo campaign. They spend at 10 minutes every session trying to sell me on this idea. I even pulled the classic Murph line of "okay, is this what you really want?" and yet they still seem genuinely interested in running a mayo stand. Judges, am I wrong for not wanting to run Mayonnaise Market Mayhem for these Maniacs? or should I acquiesce to this demand and live with the consequences of my own creamy actions?

Laura !

Riviera! (Dice Christ Forgive Me!) I come to you to beg forgiveness for a sin I committed yesterday (15 SEP). My most recent campaign with my long running group has seen some changes to our house rules including switching Spell slots out for the variant Spell Points, which can offer some more flexibility with casting. As a ranger, I have some spell points available to me since I'm half caster. I have thought before that I had a lot of spell points, and I have used them very liberally, getting us out of some tough situations. Now, the article we have always referenced features a table with character level and the corresponding spell points. I have always followed this chart, and it was mid session yesterday, literally the day before this show, that I finally read the paragraph of text above the table and realized I should have Halved my level and gotten that many spell points. Instead of 13, I have been using 35 spell points, and thus casting way too many spells and being generally OP. I throw myself before you to seek forgiveness.

Chrimzen

RIVIERA (First Balcony, Row D) Dear Supreme Crit Justices and the bailiff with his fly down, Jakeathan, I bring a case asking for a Supreme Crit Ruling. In my group, alongside many others I assume, there are arguments about how a d10 and percentile should be rolled for a d100 rolling (i.e. Treasure tables, wild magic effects, etc.). Our DM argues that a d100 should be read with the d10 being the ones spot (unless it is a 0 or 10) and the percentile is the tens place (with 00 making the number single digit). So in his case, a 0 or 10 on the d10 and a 90 on the percentile would be read as 100. (7 on the d10 and 30 on the d00 equals 37) One of our players agrees with how the numbers should be read, but argues that triple zeros (0 or 10 on the d10 and 00 on the percentile) should be read as 100. As such, the only way to get multiples of tens in their case is by having a 0 or 10 on the d10 and the result of the percentile is the result (10, 20, 30, etc.). So I ask for you all to bring down the righteous hammer of Dice Christ on how a d100 roll should be read.

WreckBadger

Riviera! (Mezzanine Row C) May it please the Supreme Crit Justices, the Baby Bailiff, and his baby, I give you the case of the egregious passive perception: Our campaign hinged on a very important map that was wanted by different factions across the wide world. Our party had taken turns carrying the map and as we entered a busy and gritty city, we decided that I, the surly, suspicious dwarven Druid, should hold the map for safekeeping. I narrated putting the map inside my shirt, robes, and leather armor against my stomach, repeating that I would be hyper-aware of the map at all times, checking it frequently and regarding everyone around me with extreme caution. A few in-game days later, we hunkered down in a hotel and I narrated taking the map out to be sure it hadn’t been damaged in a recent fight. The DM told me it was gone. I asked when it had been taken and he said, “You don’t know. That’s how passive perception works.” I insisted that I had been aware of the map and had it buried under numerous pieces of clothing - it would have been impossible to pickpocket! He relented and told me it had been stolen by someone in the street the day before, but that he had rolled against my passive perception and I hadn’t noticed. He maintained, however, that the map had been taken and there was nothing we could do about it now. I beseech the court to tell me - must I accept that my grizzled and grumpy dwarven hermit didn’t notice someone pulling a map from under the multiple layers of her clothing and let the whole party down? Or has justice been denied by my DM?

Meapyboy1234567

That Strahd DM was an absolute butthole. Also have you shown Josh the video yet?

Tim Scanlon

Howdy Supreme Crit Justices and the No good, rotten, two-timing bailiff, I seek the judgement of the court. Our party was trying to save a fellow party member who had been captured by a slaver and taken to a slavers market. We snuck in undetected and once inside, our DM described the market as a bunch of wealthy individuals and slaves in cages. Seeing this as my opportunity to do something truly heroic and live out my dreams as Spartacus, I casted earthquake to surprise the market and try to jostle a few slaves free to stage an uprising. However, this is when my DM decided to inform me that the cages were actually stacked on top of each other like a giant Jenga tower. The earthquake caused all the slaves to fall on top of each other and they all proceeded to die in a pile of sharp edges and bodies. Supreme Crit justices, am I in the wrong for assuming my DM would know how to layout a slavers market to avoid this catastrophe?

Brandon Boling

To the lovely justices, I must apologize in advance for my tardiness to your most auspicious court hall, as my alarm was set to JST (Jake Standard Time). Regardless, I bring you a case of flavored death. I play a Hexblood Eldritch knight named Briar Thornewood. I joined this specific group via a Reddit thread requesting another player to an ongoing campaign. During the session, we find ourselves in combat against a group of baddies. Things seem dire, but I luckily cast a fireball in the group, specifically selecting a spot where enemies within 5 ft of me would be hurt, but not me. This helped lower the numbers, and with the chieftain of the baddies right next to me, I as a bonus action attacked with my sword to deliver the finishing blow. This is due to the War Magic class feature of Eldritch knight. For flavor, I described how as I cast the fireball, the chieftain was knocked by the explosion, allowing me to swiftly skewer him with my blade. As I thought we were ready to move on to the next person in initiative, the DM stops and goes: “that didn’t occur”. Bewildered, I asked if someone cast counter spell or something? He simply responded: “no, you killed him, but he wasn’t knocked closer to you for you to do that blow”. I was confused, as I told him I just said that as flavor, and on the map, the chieftain was already 5 ft away so I just described it in a way that seemed cool in the moment. He simply sighed, and said: “this sets a bad precedent so let’s just move on and say he simply died by a slash as you moved forward”. For the first time, I felt really awkward for a session, despite usually feeling really confident in role play. He even later sent me a DM letting me know to ask him ahead of time for “cool flavor ideas” for finishing blows, as he didn’t want his longer term players thinking what I did would be the norm going forward. I ask justices, was the way how I described the scene really deserving of such a dramatic talk down? Does this actually set a precedent going forward? I leave this in your gentle hands.

Mr Jonsta

To the lowly, lowly, lowly Justices and the wonderfully talented and handsome Bailiff! My case today is of a distracted and lazy brother! I am DMing my first campaign, side note I have never played as a player before this either. Two of the five players are also new to D&D, I have tried very hard to make it as easy as possible for them to play by helping them build their characters and even printed out a little pack of info pages to tell the what they can do on their turns. I also help them each time their characters lvl up, the problem that occurs however are two separate things; The first, the first being that the two players are my brother and his 6~ months together girlfriend. They often spend time between rounds chatting to each other giving little kisses and just generally not paying much attention, it's quite annoying but I've been able to put up with it since the other three players are great role players and heavily make up for them! The second issue is their inability to try and learn what their characters can do or even what dice is what and almost every turn I'm asked what dice to roll despite me saying that unless your doing damage you'll basically only roll a d20. So they get to their turn are shocked its back to them and then spend literall minutes just to find their characters sheets and such and sometimes even ask me what spells they have! Judges do these distracted lazy lovers need to be put in line? I await your judgement 🙌