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Calling for Live Show Cases! (Patreon)

Published:
2023-10-23 18:30:10
Edited:
2023-10-23 18:31:07
Imported:
2026-06
Tags:

Content

Hey there folks! Not That Lowly Bailiff Jake here. The Supreme Crit is convening this week LIVE in Los Angeles and Portland! Please submit your brief (1-2 paragraphs, I do beg) cases on this thread and we will try you in open court.

Don't forget to let us know which show you will be attending! Write LAX in your post if you will be in LA and write PDX in your post if you will be in Portland.

Also, there are a few tickets still available for this upcoming tour.

Humbly,

Jake

Comments

oscarwildin

Im so excited to go in LA!! see y’all there 😌

Michael

PDX! Hello wise justices and special guest Jake Hur-whiz, I present to you the case of the overpowered smuggler! First, a little subtext: throughout our campaign of 2+ years, aside from fighting mindless zombies, we have never outright won a fight. Just as we are getting close to defeating our foe, our DM pulls out some trick. The enemy slips away with teleportation; they bust out some magic item that restores all their hit points; or even once they sacrificed themself to summon a gigantic demon in their place. We just simply never win. Recently though, we had an encounter which was ultimately successful, yet vaguely reminiscent of our other unwinnable fights. Thus begins my case: we were tracking down a drug smuggler named Orlando, to try to find his supplier. After a series of amazing persuasion, deception, and stealth rolls, we made it to Orlando’s hideout, with one player pretending to want to join his operation, and the rest of us hiding invisibly in the room. The situation escalates, and I decide to come out of invisibility and lay the first punch. It’s probably worth mentioning, I am playing a warlock/rogue multiclass that Murph would undoubtedly describe as “crunchy”. I bonus-action hexblade curse, then attack (with advantage) and score a 19: a critical hit because of hexblade’s curse. With eldritch smite, hexblade’s curse, and sneak attack, this amounts to an ungodly 10d8+4d6+8 damage. After explaining this, the DM asks me to guess high or low as he rolls a d20 in secret. I oblige, and he narrates that Orlando phases out of existence just as the blow hits and reappears a few feet over, having suffered no damage. A chase ensues, with us continually attacking so we can subdue and interrogate our quarry. After every attack which would hit, the DM again asks us to roll a d20 and guess high or low, with far less than 50% of the attacks ever dealing damage. Smelling something fishy, our party’s wizard decides to try dispel magic on him to neutralize whatever effect this is. In response, the DM asks him to make five spellcasting ability checks. By the language of dispel magic, this implies that Orlando is under the effect of five simultaneous spells of 4th level or higher. Of course, this raises a bunch of questions like who cast these spells and when? Is he concentrating on all of these at once? Is he just loaded to the gills with powerful magic items? My party-mates and I exchange confused glances, but everyone is still having fun for the most part. Later, we manage to successfully apprehend Orlando with the use of a stinking cloud spell, but I still can’t get past how this seemingly low-level criminal was so elusive and well-equipped. I can’t find any rationale for this guy’s abilities beyond just improvisational homebrew and DM sweat. Am I justified in being annoyed that this random baddie was so slippery, or am I just shameless crunchy min-maxer who should just go with the flow and accept my DM’s word as is?

sad rad

I’ll be at the LA show!!

Court Davies

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

SemiHuman99

LAX To the honorable justices and the curator of shitposts, Jake. I ask if I was wrong for not letting a player roll to persuade an NPC he just revived to his marriage proposal because he was the one who killed her? I was DMing for a group in a homebrew world where they were visiting the elven hometown of one of the players. One player an Orc from the D&D official Swordcoast world that got magically teleported to my homebrew world, went to the local library trying to find a book the war between elves and orcs (there was no war, nor had I ever given any hints towards a war between the races). When he couldn't find a book he asked the librarian who had no clue what he was talking about, he then promptly killed her and tried to run but the party's elf, who’s hometown they were in, cast web to stop the Orc's escape. When the authorities arrived, the Orc told them he could help the librarian and was allowed to cast revivify on her. Immediately after he revived her, he dropped to one knee and proposed to her, saying that he saved her life. She responded with a slap to his face and ran away from him. The rest of the party showed up, heard the story from the Elf, Orc, and authorities and offered to make amends by executing his character as this wasn't his first incident. Afterwards the player was mainly upset that I had not let him roll to get the librarian to accept his proposal as her “savior”. I ask again, was I wrong for not letting him roll to "persuade" his victim into marrying him?

Shea Backes

LAX! If it may please the court, (specifically Supreme Crit Justices Murphy, Axford and Tanner, I’m not particularly concerned about how that guy Jake feels about it) I present unto you the case of Snake Dick Shenanigans. This was back during my first real D&D campaign, we had made it to the end of our adventure and were infiltrating the Yuan-Ti cult headquarters to face the final boss. On our way there, we found a door in the guard’s section and, upon listening, determined that there was someone showering inside. This led to a lengthy discussion at the table about Yuan-Ti genitals, specifically what a snake dick would look like and whether it would just be a second, smaller snake attached to their body. We contemplated this conundrum for so long that our DM eventually announced that we had been having this conversation in character and that our shouting about snake dick had attracted the attention of the other guards, as well as our now very uncomfortable showering enemy, and we ended up in a combat encounter. The whole thing worked out fine and we went on to defeat the boss, but I ask you: did our DM have the right to turn our out-of-character shenanigans into in-character stupidity, or is it our right as players to ponder the questions of the universe free from consequence? Shea (like the hot druid)

Cierra Collett

LAX 💙 Dearest esteemed justices and the once baby, but obviously now in his rebellious teenage phase, bailiff - I present the case of the Twitch Chat Caper. Thrice monthly my friends and I stream our campaign on Twitch. We had a player who advised the group they would not be playing that week so we proceed crawling through a homebrew ancient baddies underground castle when low and behold the player that couldn't make it appears in the Twitch chat. Not just a drop in and hi, but full on playing their character and trying to RP decisions through chat. Our DM actively ignored the player trying to steal the show in chat and kept on with the present players. I ask the court to rule over this quandary, should the DM have acknowledged the backseat player in the Twitch chat or were they right to ignore it and keep moving on?

Alexis Shannon

LAX: Im a fairly new DM, and playing with pretty new players. Only 1 has played before, 1 has listened to actual play, and the other 2 are completely new to it. We had some PvP take place during one of our sessions, where our druid found a magic ring that other party members also wanted. Our paladin tried to steal it first in a dexterity contest, and when that didn’t work, tried attacking the druid. Both attempts failed, and the druid got a punch in. Our paladin gave up, and went off to investigate other things. But at this point, our bard also wanted to jump in, and tried taking the ring as well. She attempted a dexterity contest, and failed. When she failed, she put on a shield that she had found, and threw a boomerang at our druid. I did inform our bard that putting on the shield would give her disadvantage in certain skills, and that she wouldn’t be able to cast spells. She said this was fine, and threw her boomerang at the druid, hitting her for a few hit points. Our druid then attacked back, almost knocking out the bard. At this point, our bard decided to run away, and asked if she could drop her shield. I said that was fine. Our druid pointed out that she was leaving the boomerang behind, and our bard asked if she could instead run back and get it, and drop her shield beforehand. I told her that she could either go for the contested acrobatics check to see if she could run back in time, but taking the disadvantage of still holding the shield, or try and drop the shield, and then see if she still had a chance to pick up the dagger. (I would’ve made it a contested strength check to take the boomerang away from our druid.) Our bard lost the acrobatics context by one point, but said that I rigged the PvP to favor our druid by imposing disadvantage on her. The only reason I said she would have to continue to hold the shield is because donning/doffing a shield typically requires a whole action, and while we weren’t in initiative, I wanted to try and be fair. Really, I should’ve had them roll initiative, but because it seemed like it was only going to be the one player trying to steal from another, and giving up really quickly, I didn’t. That was my bad. Was my decision to make our bard have the disadvantage from holding a shield unfair, or should I have allowed her to drop it and go for a non-disadvantaged acrobatics contest? (P.S. Just in case you’re curious: our bard got a 16, and then a nat 20. Our druid got a 17. But because the 20 was the second roll, it wouldn’t even have happened if she didn’t have the disadvantage.)

Nicole

[LAX] The case of the “celebrity” bard, from Nicole T. (She/Her) Most esteemed and illustrious justices and also Jill’s side piece, I bring you the case of the “celebrity” bard. In a Halloween-themed one-shot I ran for my brother, sister in law and husband (all of whom are here tonight), the party was infiltrating a ghost pirate ship. My brother was playing a Matthew McConaughey-type bard who thought he was famous because he played in his local tavern, so he asked to wake up one of the ghost pirates and ask for their help because his “celebrity status” would impress the ghost pirate. I thought this was insane but let him try to roll a Nat 20 on a persuasion check, which he didn’t meet, but still got something like an 18. The ghost pirate woke up, screamed about intruders and started to fight them. I feel my ruling at the table was fair because a ghost pirate on a ghost pirate ship would have next to no chance of knowing who this bard was, but my brother tried to argue an 18 was still pretty good. So I ask the court, was my ruling fair, or should I have just said “alright alright alright” and let my insane sibling wield his star power over a ghost?

Whitney Ahn

PDX! May it please the Crit and only the Crit and maybe the crowd (not you Jacob; You can go to hell, you know what you did). I present the case of the reverse edgelord: I was getting ready to play a game of Strahd with some seemingly nice people I had met online. I had made some character options before going into session 0, during which I settled on one idea because the other ideas didn't fit the tone. My character was a revenant male stripper warlock who was struck by lightning on the pole, and now uses that pole as his weapon. I was very excited, and had been helping both the DM and the other PCs in building our characters and learning some of the rules, as I had ended up being the most experienced player at the table. I was then told by the DM, the night before our first session, that someone else had decided to use my character concept and therefore I needed to make a new character in the next 24 hours. One hour before the session, for which I had altered my work schedule to fit around, I was told the character I made wasn't "dark" enough for a horror campaign, and therefore should not bother to come. I ask: was I wrong to not come up with a "dark enough" character, whatever that means, in 24 hours, or was my DM being absurd?

Kyle Yett

LAX Row B 15&16! To the Supreme Crit Justices & Amir’s friend Jack, I present to you the case of a justified death? I (the DM), and my 5 college roommates of 4 years have an ongoing home game that’s lasted about 3 years. We play almost weekly during our semesters and everyone looks forward to rolling those sweet math rocks. However, our ice themed Abjuration Wizard (Sleet) slowly became a nightmare to play and live with. Alongside being a terrible person out of game (never cleaning, talking behind all our backs, and constantly playing the victim); he would constantly miss sessions planned out thoroughly in advance, complain when it was his turn to buy snacks, insert himself into others players scenes, constantly berate my NPCs, fudge dice rolls (often turning 1s and 2s into 15s), bend rules, “forget” to track spell slots, and never cast any Abjuration spells (his subclasses main purpose). After being approached on this issues multiple times both outside of and during play, he refused to change his ways. Often claiming that we all “hate him” or “don’t want him to have any fun”. Myself and the rest of the players hit our limit and decided by the end of the semester we would come up with a fake ending as a compromise to no longer have to play with him and continue our campaign Sleet free. A few months before the semester ended we were given a gift. During a battle with a gargantuan construct that the party intended to flee from our Artificer Troy blasted the construct with a significant blow from behind. As I begun to narrate it turning around to meet his gaze Troy motioned at Sleet and said “that was him”. At this point Sleet had left the session early to go out and drink with friends, I told Troy to roll a persuasion check (bam nat 20). The construct womped Sleet for almost half his health, which was no big deal in the moment but would later cause Sleet to fall unconscious and die. When Sleet returned we told him what happened and offered to have him resurrected in the next session. He told us it was fine and that he didn’t care that much. Yet, we soon heard from mutuals that he was going around telling people that we purposefully excluded him from playing with us again. So I ask was I wrong for letting this construct take out all of our tables rage on Sleet in that moment? Should I have shown mercy to the Wizard and continue to look for solutions both in and out of game? or accept this gift from Dice Christ with open arms? I await my humble sentencing.

Jack M

Hey guys, should I let my friends have a portal gun? I’m thinking yes, it’ll be broken but I portals work both ways so I’ll just fuck then up right back

Caiman Corner - Reptile and more

Hello justices and the people of the court… and Jake I am here to bring you the case of “I didn’t pay attention, so I’m going to yell at the dm” Around 3 months ago I was DMing for a group of my friends. One of my players had quit two months prior and another player said that their GF played. We decided to invite them on to our fantasy campaign and our western campaign. While writing for the western campaign we took a month long break between sessions so I could catch up on the writing. When the session started I had given a lengthy summary of what occurred in the sessions before to clear up any confusion during the session that day. This brings us to the problem. While playing the session the GF was being very silent which is exactly how she wanted her character to be so I didn’t pay it much attention. Around halfway through a massive encounter when the gangs camp was raided by 3 rival groups the GF decided ri scream at the top of her lungs and cursing me out saying she had no idea what was happening. This instantly killed the mood of the session and the the session ended shortly after with no apology. I was then met with a text asking to play video games with the original member and their girlfriend. I was shocked with how they treated the situation and have not DMed a session for then since. So am I in the wrong for not DMing since then or are they wrong for cursing me out instead of asking me for help earlier in the session. I leave it up the judges of the crit to come to a verdict. PS. At the time I was 17(now 18) and the GF and the original member were 30+ PPS. I want to thank the judges of the court for their work and efforts to produce these campaigns for us to watch and listen. Your podcast has helped me a lot with doing what I love and not giving up through the tough spots. I’m currently creating my own world and Murph has been such an amazing inspiration to me as a DM. Thank you all!

Daniel Backal

To the most esteemed justices of the highest court and maybe anyone else who happens to share the stage, I bring forth the case of railroading to the point of a player death. A few years ago, a few of my friends started a game in which I played a rogue, and my friend played an eladrin druid. Everyone else is irrelevant. In the very first session, we went to retrieve someone stolen by a goblin encampment run by two bugbears. With everyone taking out the goblins, I started firing my bow on the beefy bugbears guarding the caged hostage. Apparently I was doing serious damage and this was no good, as they decided to run away with the cage. I gave chase, but the DM didn't want me catching up, so she decided both bugbears would get their movement speed, meaning they would travel 30 ft on one bugbears turn, then 30 ft on the next, and both still had their actions. I argued this was insane, as each bugbear was travelling 60 ft in total per round, but she claimed that it was totally reasonable that as a unit they moved 30ft, but the unit had two turns? I had a bow, and could attack them a little longer, but would have quickly fallen behind, so the druid decided to dash to get in between us (I had gone on ahead) and misty stepped onto the cage. Unfortunately, the bugbears had their actions, so next round the unit moved 60 ft in total, and both bugbears used their full attacks on the druid, who went down immediately. As I physically couldn't catch up to them at this point, the druid ended up dying on top of the cage and the bugbears got away. My friends agreed the math wasn't mathing but basically told me to drop it, and even though my friend playing the druid was bummed, she agreed sometimes you just have to let the DM have their rules. We never had a second session. We don't even talk to that DM anymore, but please, am I wrong for wanting this battle to have made sense or should I have just accepted that we weren't supposed to save the captured girl? I humbly accept all judgement, and will stop holding this random grudge if the court rules it so. P.s. you guys have really helped craft my style as both a player and a DM and I truly love your content. I appreciate y'all so much! (LA if it comes up!)

BrandedNerd

LAX Greetings Supreme Crit Justices and the hardworking Bailiff Jake! I bring you a case from the worst D&D group I have ever been a part of. There are many offenses I could bring forth before the court from this campaign from the first time DM who misunderstood the 6 seconds per round rule as 6 seconds per turn to the time I went rogue and burned town an entire town by accident. However, tonight I bring the case of the Murderous Cleric. We were playing Curse of Strahd and the defining moment of my gnome druid's background was seeing her brother taken by an Oni while she hid cowardly in a nearby tree. She was fueled by his presumed death to become stronger so she would never lose another loved one again. The DM did a good job of taking elements of our backstories and placing them through out the adventure and it turned out that my brother was still alive. However, he had been turned evil and attacked our party. I made it clear both in and out of game not to kill him. The rest of the party didn't seem to like it but one in particular ignored me completely. Enter the murderous cleric. Me and this player did not get along well already and they decided that their cleric wouldn't care and attempted to kill him. Thankfully being a druid I was able to heal him and eventually turn him back to the side of good, but the event kind of created a rift between my character and the others. It was difficult for me to justify continuing the adventure with these people who just tried to kill my brother. To make it even worse after the session the DM disclosed that they fully thought we would just kill him and call it a day. Am I crazy for having my character want to save her lost brother? I await your decision. Thank you!

Talia

PDX! To the honorable justices and their assistant Jack Hurlizz I present my case of the overpowered cleric. I DM a game for my dad, family and friends. My dad plays a dwarf cleric and has always lightly complained he doesn't do enough damage. This is where I fear I made a mistake. I let him find the boots of haste a la Vax from Critical Role and I think I created a monster. Everytime he uses them the group makes a fuss about it bc they think it should've gone to the rogue but he waves them off and says he needs it. His AC with it is 21, and he can have three attacks as a lvl 5 war cleric. I fear the table will come to a real argument about them because he's OP compared to everyone else. But I just want my dad to have a good time. Did I girl boss to close to the sun giving him this item or do I simply let chaos reign whenever he uses them?

Dani Sharkey

LAX ☀️ (On behalf of my friend Scott also at the show!): I address the court humbly. In the last session of my home game, my druid encountered a situation where the party cleric was trapped in an area where a bomb was about to explode and couldn’t get away in time. On my turn, I cast conjure animals to summon eight cows, two of which I summoned 60 feet in the air so they would fall to their near deaths. I then commanded to two more cows to finish them off. A 5th cow grappled the cleric while two more cows spent their actions to unzip the dead cows a la a tauntaun from star wars. The grappling cow then shoved the cleric inside one dead cow, another pushed the two dead cows together to seal the gap, and all remaining cows covered the corpulent pile with their bodies. My question is, the cleric only got 3/4s cover from this maneuver. Should the festering blob of unzipped cows counted as full cover?

HolyFatFish

I have a confession to make that I'd prefer to remain anonymous for. I recently attended to 5th anniversary show at Carnegie Hall. When I purchased the tickets, there was only Wheelchair accessible seating remaining. You could buy up to 3 "helper" seats with the wheelchair spot, So i purchased the wheelchair spot and 2 helper seats for a friend and I in thr Dress Circle. Also, I was able to hear pretty well but I requested a refund claiming I couldn't hear st all.

Dylan C

LAX! (NOTE: me and the player in question will BOTH be at the live show in the balcony so you can deliver real time justice) To the honorable judges and the sweet Bailiff Cake I bring the case of thr "Darth" Mop. In my first long form game I gave my player a +1 mop as a joke for getting a nat 20 on an investigation check where there was truly nothing to be found. He RAN with this and wants it to be a double sided Darth Mop like a star wars lightsaber. I can't stress how much I hate this mop that I gave him and he knows it. But it makes him happy so I live with it and give narrative reasons for why it gets upgraded. The problem is that he wants the mop in every game I run now. Can someone (justice Murphy I beg you) tell this mad man that he can't have his double ended lightsaber mop! I will commit mop seppuku if the court deems me in the wrong.

J. Hart

LA Good evening, esteemed justices and guest on 8-bit bookclub Jack. May I present to you the case of Booked to death. I played a gnome artificer, nicknamed Jimminy, in a campaign for nearly 2 years. After touching a cursed object that made him unable to sleep, Jimminy went to his home base, a prison, and got some inmates to get him close to unconscious. I told my dm I let them fight me until I am at 10 hp, he then rolled a d8 and told me I had 6 hp. It was the end of the night and I was trying to finish the scene quickly so I cast fireball on the inmates to get rid of them. I'll be honest, I am a bit of a menace sometimes but this is par for the course. The dm then told me that the room was smaller than I thought. We usually have maps but this was supposed to be a short scene in the prison library. The dm told me I was hit by books, being level 15 I didn't think he would be trying to kill me with books, I told him I let the books hit me. He then rolled damage, individually, for each book (a day). The first 2 downed me, and then he proceeded to roll damage for 7 more books taking my death saves. Wise judges, was I wronged or did I get the book thrown at me? I await your decision, humble judges. Ps. I worked with my dm after and we made a decision that one of the bbegs kidnapped him and revived him. I also brought another player at the table here for emotional support.

Jacob B.

With the courtesy of the court and the begrudging cooperation of Bailiff Cake, I'd like to beseech the court of my query. Is being "that player" something I should embrace or reject? In a game I play on saturdays we were having a planning session where my parties paladin and wizard were slithering into their bookworm era trying to figure out how to process mythral. My dm ruled that would take equipment and time so in the meantime, my character, a vampire rogue who runs a crime syndicate on a different continent, decided to go and try recruiting some escaped convicts in the city. My "that player" MO is naivety and gullibility so I saw nothing wrong with following some unadjusted criminals into a dark and dingey basement because I wanted to "recruit some big buff vascular men to go down south with me" and how could they be untrustworthy? I'm just trying to get them a job! Right before I lead myself down into a certain ambush my dm said "I know you're going to go but I just dont know why you would" In my defence I needed some big buff vascular men to go down south with me and I was trying be friendly and professional. I survived the ambush and took their cat as payment for my troubles but I felt shook by my DMs comment. What yall think?

Michael K

Los Angles LA Show! Dear esteemed justices and the baby with a baby, bailiff jock- I present the case of the "no guns under water" rule. My first time playing with a particular group of players, I had created a gunslinger rouge (like Deadeye!) who's whole build was built around doing cool stuff with guns and dealing damage. The DM, however, made the first handful of sessions after I joined all take place under water where he said "guns won't work." Here's why I believe I was wronged: - The DM worked with me to make my character - he knew exactly how my character functioned and why I created him - None of my class features would work without a gun, specifically, as my weapon, and the DM knew I did not have any other weapons because, again, he helped me make the character - I was joining a group of players that had already been playing this campaign for a year - the DM knew the story was heading to an underwater local - D&D guns in his world were magic-based and shouldn't have to abide by real world physics - or at least hand waved away for the rule of cool (or the rule of "this guy won't have to sit here throwing rocks under water for 5 sessions") The icing on the cake was that the arc immediately after the underwater arc was in SPACE and he AGAIN told me guns wouldn't work there without oxygen - something I then had to then research to discover to be untrue before being allowed to use my gun in space. Did this DM have it out for my guns? Thanks, -Mikeytime

Chazz

LAX Row S To the honorable Justices and the dutiful bailiff Cake Hogdick. I present the case of the armored cat. I was playing in my friend's campaign that was the two of us, plus three other random players that she found online. Two of the three players were very chill and cool, but the third was a bit off, and set off some light “problem player” vibes. From the start he was a bit off, the DM told me the first character he wanted to play was a homebrew half bugbear, half aasimar, half orc serial killer assassin, who’s only motivation was to quote “eat the sweetest meats” . My DM told him no so he played a Tiefling Warlock instead. During the campaign, the warlock’s player had a habit of bragging about how much better his character was than the other players. Specifically, how his familiar was so much stronger than mine. I had a standard cat while he had a talking flying cat that the DM okayed for him to start with from Storm King's Thunder. (Side note he would role play talking to his familiar and replying as the familiar to himself. Also he did a butler voice for the cat and ended each sentence with meow meow.) He casually dropped the familiar had an AC of 15 which puzzled my DM, she asked “How is its AC so high?” he answered. “Oh when we were in town you said the shop was selling studded leather armor, so I bought the cat some armor.” The DM told him that the shop only sold human armor, and that there was no way this backwater village would just have flying cat armor in stock. He tried to argue that he would have been able to easily modify it to fit his cat. The DM explained that he would have had neither the time nor the skills nor the tools to make custom armor that fit his familiar. He said it was too late to change it since he already bought the armor. The DM told him he could have the price of the armor refunded and we kept playing from there. Justices, was my DM right to say no to cat armor? When buying armor at a shop is it safe to assume it will fit your pet?

Mark B

PDX Hi there the lovely judges and pleasant bailiff who often makes me chuckle. I am here to bring you the case of the cowardly gunslinger aarakocra cleric and the banshees wail. My first 5e campaign one of the other PC's played a gunslinger aarakocra who took the crossbow expert feat(reflavored as gun expert). He did not take any healing spells and focused more on shooting things. when the DM gave us a staff of healing he did not want to take it and our bard had to use it. which is fine for the most part, I understand that a cleric is not a heal monkey and can play how they want to. However, the reason I am bringing this case to the court is our cleric cowardly behavior. We were level four and entered a crypt that was crawling with undead. Our party was comprised with a monk, bard, paladin and a cleric. We fought a slew of zombies, ghouls and revenant. Everything was going dandily until we encountered a banshee. She wailed and my monk, the bard, and paladin all failed the saves and dropped to zero HP. The Cleric was out of range(because he was shooting). Being the only one up you would think that the cleric would try to save the party. If you thought you would be wrong. The cleric began to flee, leaving us unconscious rolling death saves, until I said(in a super annoyed voice) "TURN THE UNDEAD". The banshee failed and fled(I think it was a gimmie by the DM). Was I wrong for being so annoyed by this cleric? Shortly after this encounter my friend decided to retire his character and switch to barbarian. I cant help but feel like it was partly because of me, but it was also super annoying. I humbly wait for your judgement PS he really was an aarakocra, but it is irrelevant to the story, but I know how the court loves aarakocras

Laurel

PORTLAND CASE If it please the court, I bring to you the case of “Are Ki Points considered magical?”   My husband was DM’ing the final session of a years-long homebrewed campaign and the final battle was INTENSE, as the main villain was surrounded by an anti-magic field so only physical attacks were hitting. As a level 20 Way of the Open Hand Monk, I’d spent several rounds running across rugged terrain to reach the villain. As I finally got into range, I attempted a Quivering Palm move, meaning by spending Ki points, the villain had to make a DC 18 CON saving throw or else be reduced to zero damage. ALAS! When describing my character’s sick move, my husband, the DM, told me that since Ki points were magical, my slap had no effect, as it couldn’t get past the magical field. After an intense argument that Ki was NOT considered magical and therefore should easily pass through an anti-magic field, I was over-ruled. I still haven’t recovered and my husband and I debate the decision to this day. Should I have been able to make the death-slap, or are Ki points truly considered magical? Thank you for helping one of us win the argument once and for all.

Johny Dude-Kay

I'm driving solo from El Paso to LA to sit in Row C at the live show, so hopefully I make the cut! To the stupendous judges, and the wee baby baiwiff Jank, I present, The Tale of the 3 Mile Throw. This story is almost 15 years old and has lived rent free in my mind ever since. The short version is that in my 3rd or 4th session of DnD ever, I was playing with the group that got me into the game. My Rogue elected to skip out of a battle between 2 opposing Armies, and instead sneak behind enemy lines to sabotage their reinforcements. Our table had a house rule that a 20 was an automatic success on any check no matter what. After rolling a nat 20 on a stealth check, i was told I successfully reached my goal and began releasing their horses unnoticed. Before my next turn, my DM asked if a comically high roll hit my AC, explaining that the general of the enemy army, an Orc Warlord possessed by a demon, threw his great sword at me and struck me right in the chest, killing me outright. The problem, however, was that the enemy general was about 3 miles away actively in combat with the rest of the party. I argued that my 20 was supposed to be an automatic success and that even if I hadn't rolled that well, he wouldnt have been able to see or hit me on account of the distance and lacking line of sight. He argued that because he was possesed by a demon, he could do all of that regardless. Our disagreement reached its climax when the DM threatened to leave, asking everyone else to agree with his reasoning. When everyone either sided with me or at least refused to take his side, he stormed out, almost completely ending our campaign. I stepped up and became the DM despite my lack of experience since I had caused our DM to quit and I felt bad. Ever since, I have been my group's forever DM and according to my players, I'm really good at it. But I just have to know, was I wrong to advocate for myself even though it turned into an arguement that almost tanked the game, or was the DM justified in killing me, despite the established rules and the scenario itself not lending to his new narrative?

Spencer Young

Portland Show: Balcony Center Back Right Greetings honorable Supreme Crit Justices and the lowly, lowly, oh so lowly, Bailiff Cake. I present to you the Case of the Detached Prince. In my long-running campaign, our Eladrin rogue, Alister, is the prince of the Summer Court in a homebrew world inspired by the fey courts. Towards the end of his character arc, he and the party found themselves in the middle of a civil war between his father, the Summer King, and his uncle, a charismatic rebel unhappy with how the King had been running things. In the climax of the battle, the father and uncle were engaged in a duel to the death on the top deck of a ship, and the party was rushing to stop them before they killed eachother. The bard, a bearfolk named Teddy Bearington, cast Dimension Door on himself and the rogue Alister, and took them right up to the top deck. Perfect setup for Alister to decide the fate of his family and his Court, right? Well, instead of doing that, Alister decided to just hide and hold his action so he could 'see how things played out.' Then, the bard, realizing that his attempted alley-oop wasn’t working, felt forced to do something himself, resulting in an epic moment where he stepped between the father and uncle’s fight and was accidentally stabbed, leading the two of them to have a moment of clarity and stop the fighting. Both the Bard and I still lament this moment to this day, and how cool it could have been if the rogue prince had just followed through with all the very obvious setup work we did. The rogue, though, felt no remorse and would later say that ‘That’s just what my character would have done’ and ‘he didn’t particularly like either of them.’ So, justices, was I wrong to expect Alister to step up and engage in his story’s pivotal moment? Was Teddy the Bard wrong for stepping in and taking the spotlight? I should add that in a previous session, I had asked the rogue prince to describe his ghost mother that appeared to him, and he just said 'ugly.' I eagerly await your fair and just ruling. P.S. Hate the show. Thanks!

Max Barthelemy

(LAX) To the illustrious Justices and the oft-maligned Bailiff, I present the case of the traumatized younglings. My friends and I were playing in a Star Wars 5e campaign in which we each built expressly good-aligned force-sensitive characters ages 16-18. My character was an orphan who was a self-titled Jedi and defender of the innocent, and the other PCs were similarly pure of heart. Our first session was roleplay heavy, comedic, and featured fun, nonlethal combat. In the second session we were immediately descended upon by a police gunship for no discernable reason, and trapped in a small hangar where we were forced to use projectile power tools as guns to defend against the gunship that fired at us comfortably from way outside any of our ranged abilities. We were then also attacked by feral dogs and boxed in by two squads of stormtroopers at the only exit. All of these enemy forces were in no way related, had been given no reason to hunt us, and yet all worked together to try and kill us from all sides. Each time the DM narrated a policeman dying at our hands, I sank a little bit more, and when he gruesomely described the way our bolt gun killed one of the dogs all I could Imagine my character doing was crying. This was an insane battle for our small party of nonviolent third-level teenagers, and I had to dissociate from my character in order to not feel absolutely miserable. The rest of the party was visibly upset as well. When it was over we collectively told the DM that it felt unnecessarily brutal, and he responded by saying “It seems like you guys were looking for something fun and light. I was thinking more along the lines of the movie Logan.” This is not something he had previously so much as even hinted at. This long standing group has not played together since this session of nearly a year ago. Should we have respected the DM’s vision for the campaign and just rolled with it? Or were we justified in our complaints about the way this session was run? I humbly await your ruling.

vicky

PDX! To the virtuous justices and the hot but stinky ballif John, I present to you the case of the gaseous thief. In a one-shot turned campaign my party of adventurers encountered a peaceful colony of grung's (jungle frog people). The paladin of the groups main goal the entire campaign had been to reach the highest AC build possible. They were on the hunt for +3 shields in every store and encounter they went into, finally in the grung colony I relented and said that the leader did own a powerful shield but given that it was the colonies most valuable possession it was going to cost a lot of gold. I don't track my players gold so I wasn't sure if they would be able to afford it but I thought it would be a fun character moment and the party would pool resources or offer to do a quest for the colony in exchange. Instead my player got very annoyed and attempted to steal the shield while the head frog turned his back to brew a pot of tea for the party. The paladin rolled very well on stealth and after successfully stealing the shield they drank a potion of gaseous form to escape. Not realizing that their speed would be reduced to 10ft per round. They tried to float away but eventually came back down and begrudgingly returned the shield and were promptly kicked out of the colony. The party was screaming at the player the entire time and still two years later this thiefs actions are razzed regularly. My question is this, did I make the right call? Should I have never let him steal the shield in the first place, should I have made it cheaper to avoid this interaction? I humbly await your decision.

Andrew

PDX Case of the Cloak of John Cena from Andrew May it please the venerated justices and itch the sphincter of the lowly bailiff Jorp, I present the case of the Cloak of John Cena. I guess you *can* see me! We are just about to wrap up this campaign but the injustice still rubs me raw. At the start of our latest campaign the DM wanted a high level campaign where we did tricky things with losing and regaining experience that has been a fun hook overall. Since we were starting at level 16 our DM let us start with one magic item up to wondrous as long as he approved it. I chose the Cloak of Invisibility for my Warlock because I loved the idea of firing off 600 foot Spell Sniper Repelling Eldritch Blasts which he approved of no problem. My issue arose over time. Our very first encounter we were attacked by a giant golem that had True Sight, I wrote it off because it was the jumping off point for the experience draining curse that was the hook of the campaign. But over the course of the campaign approximately 70% of the enemies we have encountered have had True Sight, the DM claims he doesn't plan it and that the thematically appropriate monsters he's chosen just *happen* to have True Sight. On top of this we only roll to determine any magic items we may find in the world and Dice Christ decided that apparently none of what we've found has been good for me so the Cloak remains my only magic item as the campaign draws to a close. Justices, was I wrong for not assuming most high-end encounters would include True Sight or did my DM rob me of my given Magic Item that he approved?

Jeremy

**LAX! ** To the Honorable Justices and the lowly Bailiff Daddy J… I bring you the case of the “Backstory Keep-Away”… I DM for some friends and one of my friends plays a warlock/actor (think William Shatner as a Tiefling) who is bound to a powerful archfey. The player’s character thinks his quest is just a documentary about adventurers and the other players are co-stars. There have been several clues along the way that the patron tricked the character in exchange for becoming a famous actor. Recently his world shattered when he uncovered all of that was a ruse. Nevertheless, here’s where things get dicey (pun intended)…my other players decided this character was mentally unstable and wanted to go investigate his patron *without him knowing*. Lots of failed/successful rolls led to the warlock player sidelined at the table while the rest of the players were off on small side quests at night, spying on people and investigating clues to find out more about his patron. I even tried subtle hints like “Do you want to share what you uncovered with your other party member? Do you think he might want to know about X? Etc” They always wanting to keep it secret. Eventually, they even attacked this powerful patron in order to try and get answers. The patron got away (of course). Incidentally, this all led to a big boiling point at the table with the sidelined player. He was feeling left out, obviously. They’re off sneaking away on this side quest while he’s sitting there saying “anyone have anything to tell me?” They were finding things out that even his character didn’t know. I know the players had good intentions to “protect him”, but I felt so bad! I’ve since brought in some additional details and new hooks to save the relationships and get everyone back on track. Everything finally got brought out into the open after an intense fireside chat. Things seem resolved with everyone, but I can’t help to think, could I have done something better to encourage my players to stop playing “keep-away” with the warlock’s backstory? I throw myself at the mercy of the Court.

Nic K Poulter

To the most Honorable Supreme Crit, Oh, and also Jake, I’ll be attending the PDX show and I hope my case can make it all the way to the Supreme Crit! My case is from many years ago. A forever DM friend of mine invited me over to join a game he was running that morning, and I was excited to join because I had only played DnD a handful of times at this point and I really enjoyed it. I showed up to their house in the middle of a session with 4 other players and my friend. I was confused as I thought it was a brand new session and we would be building characters. Instead I came into a group of level 6 players with no idea who most of them were or any of the contexts for the game. The DM said that I could just play one of the NPCs he made for the game for this session and then we could roll something afterword. The character was a Crusader class and served as a guard for this town. I agreed, already confused and a little embarrassed that I showed up to something I CLEARLY wasn’t supposed to be at, and I jumped in seamlessly. After a few hours of me trying to learn what was happening, who everyone was, and what their role in the party was as well as my own character, the party decided that we needed a plan of defense for this town that was about to be under siege. We decided that putting a trebuchet on the top of the tallest hill would be the best option. My character, a heavily armored Crusader, was asked to climb the hill to help set-up the trebuchet, and so he along with a couple of the party went climbed to the top using only a rope tied to a rock on the top of the hill. After we set it up, I decided then to head back down the mountain to get into position to engage the attacking army. My DM asked me to make a climb check and I rolled a nat 1. This caused my character to fall down the hill, a 60+ ft drop, and instead of killing my character, our DM offered me a Con save. I passed, so this character just broke nearly every bone in his body and was essentially paralyzed, leaving only partial use of my left arm. The party dragged my broken, limp body to a room close by and set me up on a table. They barred the door and told me to wait it out until the attacking army was defeated. After a near scare where one of the invaders broke into the house and our rogue finished him off to save me, the trebuchet exploded and caused a massive mud slide that stopped the army, but also killed nearly everyone in the town and the party snuck out of town, leaving me to find a way out of the house with one arm and no one knowing where I was. After the session, our DM took the character away from me claiming I “didn’t add to the party at all” and I wasn’t invited back. I did end up playing with them a few years later, but that’s a story for my therapist and not the Portland audience. Did I get screwed out of playing because of an untimely nat 1? Or was my DM trying to save me from the most uncomfortable session of my life? I humbly await the court’s decision. P.S. My DM told me after my character was laying there waiting for everything to unfold, that I “should’ve taken a 10 on the climb check” but that I waited too long to tell him and we couldn’t go back.

Gabriel Babbitt

If it may please the magnanimous Court and her lofty judges, and displease the baby bailiff with a, somehow, older baby: I bring to you the case of the competitive gamblers. I am DMing my first campaign with a group of new players. This happened at 12 sessions in at level 5; I decided to introduce the deck of many things. I'm fully aware of the chaos this can cause and was happy to shake things up in my campaign. I made it very clear that this was a very dangerous deck and gave some examples of some of the best and worst cards hidden within. I knew my ranger couldn't resist a gamble and I thought he would pull at least one or two cards, but what I didn't anticipate was that the party artificer, would want to "keep up" with the ranger. This was at the end of the session and the artificer needed to leave soon for work, but I wanted to get the deck in before the next session because I bought a physical deck and thought it would be fun. So, I presented a shady NPC with the deck. What ensued was a frenzy of drawing cards from the ranger, and the artificer matching every draw, like a couple of frat boys going shot for shot. They drew 11 in total. The artificer kept pulling devastating cards like -3 to intelligence and -2 to all saving throws, and the ranger kept getting lucky. At one point the ranger lost all their magic items but then pulled another card which granted 1 wish spell, which they immediately use the wish spell to get their magic items back. The last card drawn was the Donjon card by the artificer, they were locked in a demi-plane, and the only way to find them was the wish spell that the ranger had already burned to get a few magic items back. This caused quite the scene at the table. It was an upsetting end of the session and our poor artificer was distraught and had to go to work right away before processing or talking about it with the party. My player made a new character and the party is now on a quest to get her PC back, but I ask you: Was I wrong to allow my players to draw as many cards as they wanted, unchecked, or should I have capped it?

Jess

LAX!! ROW E! To the honorable justices Murphy, Axford, and Tanner, as well as that one guy married to Jill, I submit to thee the case of the barbarian who refused to fight. After sharing my love for DnD podcasts and expressing that I’ve always wanted to play but never had the opportunity, an acquaintance offered to DM for some friends and me. He said he had done so before and I was excited. Knowing very little of how to actually play at the time, I made myself a young Dragonborn barbarian, named Vala. Although she lived within a clan of Dragonborns, her parents had died when she was young and she spent much of her time alone, except for the one person Vala had any love for, her best friend. One day Vala went hunting and came home to find her clan members dead. The only clue being a symbol which, in the first session connected to a group of demon worshippers identifiable by their hooded cloaks. Fast forward to our third session and somehow Vala comes across a person in a hooded cloak. I was excited to question or fight someone connected to the murder of my people. Then the DM revealed the cloaked figure was Vala’s best friend! Vala attempted to talk her but it was clear she was somehow corrupted and not capable of seeing or reasoning with Vala. Again, being new to playing the game I simply channeled the “what would my character do” energy. I made the decision that Vala simply couldn’t bring herself to fight the only person who had loved and cared for her throughout her life. My DM expressed if she didn’t fight, Vala would simply die at the hands of her best friend. I begrudgingly fought and killed my character’s best friend and I vaguely remember obtaining some lead from a note on her person. I mentally checked out for the rest of the session and did not return for any future sessions. I ask you, honorable justices, was it wrong of me as a player to try to draw a line that prevents my character from fighting? Should I have gone with the flow of the dm or was I right to be salty?

Stephen Kawulicz

PDX Was I being punished by the cursed dagger in my first session? May it tickle your honors and, if we’re being nice to baby Jake, him too. At the end of my first session as a player, with a DM new to DMing, my tome warlock was ritual casting detect magic on a ship. I found something under the floorboards which was a clearly cursed bright red dagger that I could not put down. In the next session, I was nearly incapacitated and rolled below 5 on a few wisdom saves in a row against the dagger, which led to a cool story beat with my patron getting rid of the influence of the dagger while I was alone in a jade room (in a vision) with the dagger floating in front of me. At the end of the session, after my first successful save against the dagger, I put the dagger away in a party member’s bag, and we haven’t even mentioned it in the few following sessions. At first, I thought the dagger was a punishment but now I miss it and I’m afraid I’m missing out on a fun little arc and the mystery is killing me. Was my DM being nasty or should I follow this curiosity and get into a toxic relationship between my patron and a cursed dagger?? This is hardly a case; I’m just seeking some guidance. PS hate the show (of course)

Hannah Rubinek (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-05 07:00 Hi there! (We will be at the LA live show! Orchestra Right) If it pleases the supreme Crit Justices and the lowly baby bailiff, I bring the double injustice of the case of the bachelor party bards. Many significant things were happening for my friend Henry this past summer. He was about to finish the year-long “oops all bards” campaign he was playing an 11th level glamor bard in. And also, he was getting married. Our friend Billy planned to run a one-shot for the final night of the bachelor party weekend, but the DM of the bard campaign said that since the whole bard party would be at the bachelor party, he should run the campaign’s final session and add Billy and the two other non-campaign members at the party into their campaign finale. Billy agreed, wanting the night to be as special as possible for Henry. About 3 days before the party the DM revealed that the new players would also all be bards — a rival band. That sounded great until he told us (despite knowing each of us were experienced dnd players) that we would all be level 2. We were bummed to not even get a subclass, but dutifully made our characters, planning to bring boy band sass and stacked our spells to mostly buff the rest of the level 11 party. The final insult came when the DM invented a kind of madness to take over each of us. At first this seemed like fun flavor. The DM told Billy that once he popped back up from a healing word he was overcome with insatiable hunger. Billy wondered aloud if going down had turned him into a zombie or something, so to test the theory he narrated that he looked at his bloody, scraped hands and licked his palm. The DM looked taken aback. He replied that Billy’s character was grossed out by this blood and then further determined that that was his action and moved on in initiative. Billy was crushed that his attempt to “yes and” bit him in the “no, butt”. (Not to mention that with 7 players that meant Billy would have to wait 30+ min for his next chance to do anything.) I ask the court: were we wronged to be relegated to doubly-nerfed level 2 bards? And should not licking one’s palms be an object interaction of sorts? Not a player’s entire turn?! I humbly await your judgment.
2023-10-23 19:48 Hi there! (We will be at the LA live show! Orchestra RC Row O) If it pleases the supreme Crit Justices and the lowly baby bailiff, I bring the double injustice of the case of the bachelor party bards. Many significant things were happening for my friend Henry this past summer. He was about to finish the year-long “oops all bards” campaign he was playing an 11th level glamor bard in. And also, he was getting married. Our friend Billy planned to run a one-shot for the final night of the bachelor party weekend, but the DM of the bard campaign said that since the whole bard party would be at the bachelor party, he should run the campaign’s final session and add Billy and the two other non-campaign members at the party into their campaign finale. Billy agreed, wanting the night to be as special as possible for Henry. About 3 days before the party the DM revealed that the new players would also all be bards — a rival band. That sounded great until he told us (despite knowing each of us were experienced dnd players) that we would all be level 2. We were bummed to not even get a subclass, but dutifully made our characters, planning to bring boy band sass and stacked our spells to mostly buff the rest of the level 11 party. The final insult came when the DM invented a kind of madness to take over each of us new joiners. At first this seemed like fun flavor. The DM told Billy that once he popped back up from a healing word he was overcome with insatiable hunger. Billy wondered aloud if going down had turned him into a zombie or something, so to test the theory he narrated that he looked at his bloody, scraped hands and licked his palm. The DM looked taken aback. He replied that Billy’s character was grossed out by this blood and then further determined that that was his action and moved on in initiative. Billy was crushed that his attempt to “yes and” bit him in the “no, butt”. (Not to mention that with 7 players that meant Billy would have to wait 30+ min for his next chance to do anything.) I ask the court: were we wronged to be relegated to doubly-nerfed level 2 bards? And should not licking one’s palms be an object interaction of sorts? Not a player’s entire turn?! I humbly await your judgment.

Hi there! (We will be at the LA live show! Orchestra RC Row O) If it pleases the supreme Crit Justices and the lowly baby bailiff, I bring the double injustice of the case of the bachelor party bards. Many significant things were happening for my friend Henry this past summer. He was about to finish the year-long “oops all bards” campaign he was playing an 11th level glamor bard in. And also, he was getting married. Our friend Billy planned to run a one-shot for the final night of the bachelor party weekend, but the DM of the bard campaign said that since the whole bard party would be at the bachelor party, he should run the campaign’s final session and add Billy and the two other non-campaign members at the party into their campaign finale. Billy agreed, wanting the night to be as special as possible for Henry. About 3 days before the party the DM revealed that the new players would also all be bards — a rival band. That sounded great until he told us (despite knowing each of us were experienced dnd players) that we would all be level 2. We were bummed to not even get a subclass, but dutifully made our characters, planning to bring boy band sass and stacked our spells to mostly buff the rest of the level 11 party. The final insult came when the DM invented a kind of madness to take over each of us new joiners. At first this seemed like fun flavor. The DM told Billy that once he popped back up from a healing word he was overcome with insatiable hunger. Billy wondered aloud if going down had turned him into a zombie or something, so to test the theory he narrated that he looked at his bloody, scraped hands and licked his palm. The DM looked taken aback. He replied that Billy’s character was grossed out by this blood and then further determined that that was his action and moved on in initiative. Billy was crushed that his attempt to “yes and” bit him in the “no, butt”. (Not to mention that with 7 players that meant Billy would have to wait 30+ min for his next chance to do anything.) I ask the court: were we wronged to be relegated to doubly-nerfed level 2 bards? And should not licking one’s palms be an object interaction of sorts? Not a player’s entire turn?! I humbly await your judgment.

Basem H

(PDX) To the 'makes my girlfriend want to listen to NADDPod' justices, and the 'actually, nevermind' bailiff. I present the case of 'Engulf V Fear'. I DM a 5e game for some friends at work and my younger brother (35 yrs old), a rogue. They were in combat on a boat with water elementals that used their 'Whelm' ability to grapple my little brother. Because of the way that it's written, I flavored the ability as surrounding my bro completely, similar to a gelatinous cube. The elemental was forced to run when the bard cast FEAR on it. Because my brother was floating in a magic pool-monster, I had it instinctively run without ejecting him. After the others started arguing that he should be auto-dropped, I gave my brother a free saving throw to attempt to escape. The sessions had all been amazing up till then but that decision seemed to ruin the whole night, and I obviously still doubt myself. Was I right to give in to their bullying, or should I have stuck to my guns? I will say that the 'water' elemental may have become a 'little-bit-of-pee' elemental. I await your judgement! (ps, also don't feel bad if you say my name wrong.)

YungAshley

PDX To the forgiving and honourable church of the one, the baby bailiff in the confession booth and the only dice Christ, I have a confession. While DMing my first session since I was 14 (I’m a whole adult now) my party was battling a fey creature off of cobalt press with a challenge rating of 1 for my level 3 characters. It shouldn’t have been too difficult for the 4 people playing, but dice christ truly wanted me to win that fight so I did something horrible. After rolling 2 nat 20s, I rolled a third nat 20. Not wanting a tpk in what I hoped would be a mini campaign I lied about the third one. Later I rolled ANOTHER nat 20 which I lied about once again. Every since then dice christ has left me with a curse much similar to murphs. I beg you give me forgiveness so I can roll higher than a 13 on any of my attacks in future

Katrina

LAX: To the Supreme Crit Justices, and whatever quantum state of lowliness bailiff Jake exists in tonight, I beseech you -- how far should an enlarged dwarf be able to throw his gnome companion? Two of my PCs have a fun buddy dynamic that predates the party's formation. One is a dwarf runic knight who uses Giant's Might to "get big" during most encounters, and the other is a gnome barbarian named Gnicholas Rage. Gnick has a history of begging the embiggened dwarf to throw him at various creatures, which the dwarf usually refuses. But in one particular fight against a union-busting wizard and his minions, as defeat became assured for the wizard he turned invisible and fled, and the PCs could just see the movement of an empty rail cart speeding out of range. The gnome once again implored his large dwarven friend to pick him up, run forward, then hurl him in the wizard's direction, and for once the dwarf agreed. I was nervous to let this become too much of A Thing, but didn't want to make the wizard's escape a foregone conclusion, and they argued that the attempt should be helped by not only the dwarf's size, but also his 15ft reach shadow tentacles from his Eldritch Claw Tattoo, and his Tavern Brawler inclinations towards grappling and "improvised weapons." So I said they could try it but laid out very difficult stakes to get him the 50 feet needed to close the gap (a DC25 athletics check for the dwarf, an acrobatics check for the gnome to get enough distance from the throw, the gnome taking falling damage on impact, etc). They accepted the terms, since even the max falling damage for that distance wouldn't fully kill the raging gnome. They amazingly succeeded at the throw, but ultimately Gnick failed to stop the wizard after landing (missed on his attack against the spot on the cart where he assumed the wizard was). The gnome still jokingly asks to be thrown sometimes, but they haven't seriously considered attempting it since, and I still question the call I made there. Should I have disallowed such a hefty throw to begin with, or were these reasonable terms for a true Hail Mary pass?

Colee

PDX: To the illustrious justices of the Crit and the newly born bailiff (you're doing a great job, baby bailiff), I present the case of the perpetually split party. Severl years ago, I joined a friend's homebrew campaign set aboard a flying brothel - he presented the campaign as the PCs meeting on the ship/brothel, and joining forces to foil a plot which would ultimately lead into a longer adventure. I said I was in, and after many weeks and many sessions our PCs were very much STILL SPLIT. Despite my trying to create opportunities for our PCs to cross paths (the one time it almost worked the DM had an NPC foil my attempt). Finally, we reached a massive battle which lead to the PCs meeting and fighting together as the ship was crashing. I was stoked because I thought "we're finally going to actually play this damn game together!" Nope! The DM split our PCs again and sent them to various different areas of the world and revealed that we'd all be making new characters for each of the three campaigns he was going to be running for our main PCs. I said I didn't really want to play that way, I wanted to play my PC. This ultimately led to the breakdown of the campaign (and the friendship). I ask the court, did I overreact, should I just have continued playing as the DM wanted? I await your righteous judgment.

Kiki's Podcast Patronage Service

LAX mezzanine Forgive me Dice Christ, for I have sinned. Many moons ago I started a morning ritual with my buddy at work: whenever we sign on for the day, we’d roll a D20 and report what kind of luck the fates have in store for us, with advantage granted on special occasions (Fridays, new Dungeon Court episode released, etc.). Over the summer my friend announced that he’d gotten a dope new job, so on our last day as coworkers I gave him double advantage, then inspiration. His best out of four rolls was a 9. When it was my turn, I legit rolled two 1’s, but I lied and told him I’d rolled a nat 20 and would share this blessing from Dice Christ on his last day of work. Your Holiness please forgive me for this egregious deception, I only wanted to wish my homie well as he moved on to greener pastures.

Fidget

LAX – to Dice Christ and his Angeles Angels I wish to confess to zealotry in the name of our 20-sided savior – In my early days of 5e, I was steadfast in the belief that the dice tell a story and followed that story to the letter -- how well can my character hold their liquor? – Roll a dice – Should we camp for the night? – Roll a dice. When starting a game with good friends, I rolled a percentile to gauge how my character felt about each player character- one rolled exceptionally high, and I opted to revere them with high esteem – calling them Sir [name], fighting for their honor, really going deep into it— the player character was a timid princeling, who didn’t was trying to escape such a world of formality and live their own life-- and thus did not appreciate these acts. Instead of listening to the character's discomfort, or reading the subtext from my fellow player- I dug my heels in as it was “what I rolled" In my zealous following of the Dice, I chose to overlook the stories being told by my fellow players and denied them moments of character growth. I now know that Dice Christ only wishes to enhance the stories we tell together, and not control our narratives. My friend’s saint-like compassion has allowed them to forgive me, but I am incapable of such– I ask Dice Christ to forgive my transgression, so that I might continue preaching their message of collaboration and communication

Doctor Ransom

¡PDX! (Jon in the Balcony, Stage Right - on your left!) To the most exuberantly beneficent Supreme Crit justices Murphy, Axford, and Tanner, and the infamously unscrupulous bailiff Cake, I bring you the case of “Junkbot: The Smitten Paladin.” I was playing in a heist-style one-shot run by a fellow player from my longtime D&D group while our DM was on hiatus. In the midst of the final battle of the session with the big bad guy, our Paladin named Junkbot got charmed by an Incubus minion. He then turned to the Incubus while pointing at my character, and asked him a little too eagerly, “Shall I Divinely Smite him, Master?” He hit my character twice then rolled super high damage, quickly downing my poor Bard-Barbarian himbo, and we unceremoniously got TPK’ed shortly afterwards. Justices, I beseech thee. What in the hell was our Paladin thinking? Was the Incubuses charm strong enough to make our ally absolutely annihilate us? I await your most sagacious of sentences. P.S. - We’re still good friends (sorry Murph!) and next week is our 1-year anniversary of playing together. But this session still gets me all sorts of spicy. To my friend James, “Fuck you, I love you, eat a rat.”

Jared V

**LAX** To the XXXtremly radical judges Emily, Murph, Caldwell. and their bailiff, I present to you the case of Powder v. Helmet. DEFENSE & PROSECUTION are present. I GM a 5e campaign for my girlfriend and two of our friends. The 3 girls were mingling at a secret underground party, when all of the sudden half of the partygoers began dropping to the floor, poisoned. With an incredible perception roll, my girlfriend spotted a suspicious, heavily armored (with helmet) character looking to assassinate someone. She moved towards the assassin and pulled out a vial of Angel’s Powder (a powder to be blown into the face of the target, if they fail on a Charisma check, they become friendly) As she blew the powder into the assassin’s face I narrated how the powder had no effect as the assassin was wearing a thick helmet covering their face. She said that makes no sense, and as I felt bad for her wasting a really cool item, we modified the item to have 2 more uses. Should I have rolled the Charisma save save even if the assassin was hiding their face with a helmet? P.S she tried the powder a few sessions later on a powerful enemy and I rolled a nat 20 (in font of the table) on both of her tries.

Josh

LAX row D To the honorable justices Murphy, Axford, and Tanner, and also stinky little guy Jake, I bring you the case of the oracle, this story happened in the first dnd campaign I ever played in, it was a fairly serious game, of course there were goofs but the story was pretty grounded (we were pirates who got marooned on a island of dragons) but the session after our first big arc our dm decided he wanted to go full looney tunes. We escaped the island of dragons only to be met by new npc, the oracle. He was this weird self insert silly character who had god like power, in fact he told us that all of the gods had been corrupted and any one with divine power (including my paladin) was now getting it from him. The rest of the campaign became a railroady mess of us getting teleported from place to place killing corrupted gods all while listening to stupid jokes from this oracle character. Eventually culminating in an unwinable final boss battle that the oracle killed for us at the last second. The only problem, out of six players only me and one other had an issue with any of this; the rest of the party was having a blast and still talk about this campaign fondly. So I ask you, honarable justices I am just a big stick in the mud or is this oracle character really as annoying as I think it is? I leave it too you.

John Miller

To the most honorable judges Murphy, afford and tanner, and also I think there's someone else? Anyway I bring to you the case of reverse house. My group was playing curse of strahd and were preparing to camp. We discussed methods of preventing strahd from entering our camp. I suggested a reverse house. We use the druids druid craft to grow a lawn, my gnome has carpentry proficiency so I can build a wooden box around that lawn. Then we set up a "living room" with our camping supplies. At worst it doesn't work and at best strahd is ejected from barovia like a cruise missile. The party and dungeon master all yelled at me and told me my plan sucked. I know Murph isn't gonna side with me here but tanner and afford I ask you should my creativity have been rewarded? Or should I be ejected from this campaign like strahd from barovia?

Scott Wooldridge

LA MEZZ ROW D. May it please the court: To The Wise and Charismatic Judges and that other guy, I bring to the case of the thieves cant controversy. I play in a years long campaign with my husband and two of our lifelong friends. As the rogue of our party I serve as the face of our group and regularly am the one finding out information and doing social checks. To get information for our group my character went to a bar full of thieves guild members and other ner-do-wells. Having looked up thieves cant rules and talked with my DM I thought I could play a hand of cards and get information about our next target. For example, a queen could indicate someone wealthy and a 10 could be a guard. The suit could explain information about allegiances, etc. Obviously to play the card game I would need to ante up money. As each hand was played and conflicting information was presented it became clear my DM was just having me waste my gold. He claimed that these guild members wouldn’t know the information I was looking for and didn’t know the thieves guilds code I was trying to use. I felt literally cheated out of my gold and that this cool feature of my class was being downplayed. So I humbly ask you judges if the theives’ guild members really didn’t know information is it fair of the DM to have them use thieves cant to take my money? Should thieves cant be a regional dialect? I humbly await the courts decision and will accept any punishments.

Fridge

LAX MEZ ROW D To the honorable Justices Murphy, Axford, Tanner & the “When I Say Low, you say Lee” (repeat 3-5 times) bailiff John. I present the case of the 3-D printing Flesh Artificer. I was fairly new to DND and decided to try my hand at DMing with a campaign based on the starter adventure “Dragons of Icespire Peak.” My roommate, a self-proclaimed forever DM, was excited to get to play, along with another friend and my now fiance. As I was new to DMing, I asked my players to stick to standard classes & sub-classes. My other roommate and my fiance were able to create a gnome monk & tiefling cleric. The Forever DM however, had other intentions. After missing session 0, he rolled up to the table ready to play an artificer named Victor. Not just any artificer, but a Flesh Artificer, which as he describes could apparently create pieces of flesh from a 3D printer in his CHEST to build Frankenstein's monster-esque. Victor had just graduated from med school, and was excited to become a doctor. I was already VERY skeptical of this subclass’s legitimacy, but didn’t want to disappoint my roommate as I knew he was excited to play. I figured he’s a DM, he’ll know how to play the character, and he won’t do anything too crazy. That was very much not the case. After smaller problems bubbled up throughout the campaign, like him trying to replicate a magic scepter he was looking at and trying to print real food, we came to the worst of the problems. The party was chasing after some Zhentarim agents in the forest, and Victor came up with the brilliant idea to BUILD A CAR out of parts he made in his chest (which again would’ve been made of FLESH). At this point I had to put my foot down, as there’s no way a guy who went to med school would have any idea how to build a car. Victor disagreed, saying it was part of his class as an artificer that he can build things. The campaign unfortunately fizzled out due to other reasons after that, but I have to ask. Am I wrong for assuming that a mad scientist with a 3d Printer in his chest would have no ability to build a car, based on only things he could print?

Justin Cockrell

Is this Taruk trying to get into another campaign??

Ian Capper

PDX. FLOOR ROW 1. SEAT 1. VIP BINCH. From Ian-tro free, 2023. To the Hogdick Judges: Hi (very flirtatious). To the Cakemonger Bailiff: Hi (mildly disgusted). I saunter up to the stand and seductively lean over the bench, presenting the unusual Case of DM VS. DM. I started a large campaign that is co-run with 3 other DMs! It‘s been surprisingly smooth sailing, as DMs take turns designing and running quests for one another, and respecting each other’s adventures. Enter the defendant DM. Upon running his first session in the game, he proceeded to hijack a key NPC of mine without asking and decided she was secretly the BBEG. To keep things simple: imagine Caldwell suddenly decided Balnor was actually Thiala all along, and then tells Murph, “fuck off, it’s my world too”. I ask the court: Was I wronged by Caldwell DM? He was never told that this move was off-limits, though it feels taboo to change someone else’s adventure like this.

Quinn

PDX BALCONY CENTER BACK LEFT ROW II Forgive me archdiocese of dice christ for I have sinned. I was recently playing in a home brew 1920s mob campaign with a brand new DM. I played a Variant Human Barbarian, named Anya Cox, with a great weapon master feat. My DM, being new, did not realize I could only use this feat ability once per turn as a bonus action. I did not correct him and proceeded to decimate a legion of baddy minions with low HP by taking them to 0 HP one by one. Unfortunately my DM loved it and proceeded to plan encounters around the fact that I could whomp a large number of low HP foes. I proceeded to never tell him. Now some party members have moved and the campaign has fizzled out. I humbly accept my punishment from the church of dice Christ and repent for my sins.

Anonymous

PDX BALCONY CENTER BACK LEFT ROW II To the honorable justices Murphy, Afford, and Tanner and the lowly bailiff Josh I have a case about a mean ex and a silent DM. In a previous campaign I was in with my boyfriend (now ex) he accused me of “never role playing” and “just killing” stuff. I had to retort saying that my min/maxed war solider paladin was a fan of “just killing stuff”. I admit I may have gotten defensive in my rational and role playing and improv was not my strong suit at the time. But my ex doubled down and berated me in front of the table for my playing style. Eventually after a few very tense silent moments with a lot of awkward staring my dm stepped in telling him to leave me alone and let me play my character how I wanted. Another player at the table proceeded to “accidentally” hit my ex in the back of the head with a magic arrow from his cross bow. He then proceeded to get very upset and pissed with the party resulting in a lame ass session. I ask you honorable judges, should I have laid down and kept things copacetic for the party? Should my DM have stepped in sooner? Should my friend have not shot my ex with his magic arrow? I leave it up to the courts to decide.

Quinn

PDX BALCONY CENTER BACK LEFT ROW II To the honorable court justices Murphy, Axfford, and Tanner (also the lowly bailiff Josh). I bring to you the case of the mean ex and the awkward party. In a previous campaign I was in with my then boyfriend, now ex, I played a min/max war soldier paladin named Kara Deez. During an encounter my ex said that I “never role play enough” and “always go in and start killing”. I argued that Kara was a stern soldier who would probably swing first before talking. I will admit I got a little defensive as role playing and improv was not always my strong suit. Also I would never identify as a murder hobo! He then proceeded to berate me at the table as I tried to defend my self. Eventually after a long awkward silence my DM stepped in and defended me telling my ex to be quiet let me play my character. Right after that another party member “accidentally” shot my ex in the back of the head with his magic arrows. Needless to say my ex was pissed and the session ended with a sour taste in everyone’s mouth. Should I have been quiet and kept it copacetic for the party? Should my DM have stepped in sooner? Was it too far for my friend to attack his own party member? I leave it up to the court to decide.

Sam Abramowitz

LAX To the illustrious and breathtaking justices Murphy, Axford, and Tanner, and the milquetoast bailiff: I present the case of the suffering skeletal steed. I’ve been running a Curse of Strahd campaign featuring a lawful good paladin. As suggested in the module, I’ve given many spells a spooky flavoring like zombie mage hands and ghostly familiars. The paladin used summon steed to conjure a noble stallion, and as time went on I had the horse slowly become more and more undead looking. Eventually the paladin used a potion of speak with animals to talk to his mount and asked it if it felt ok with all the changes it was undergoing. Thinking it would be a funny bit, I had the horse express that it was in constant pain and that existence was misery. The paladin immediately apologized to it and dismissed it. I didn’t think much of it at the time, but months later the player expressed frustration that he could no longer use his mount. Out of character he told me that his paladin wouldn’t use a spell that causes suffering to the summoned creature, no matter how useful. So I ask, did I take the bit too far, or is my player roleplaying a little too hard and ruining the game for himself?

Eric Callahan

PDX To the Venerable Justices Murphy, Axford, and Tanner, and the rat bailiff Jake, please preside over the case of the Poo Poo Bandits. Recently in our Redwall meets Game of Thrones campaign, the party freed a pair of hostages from a military fort. The party succesfully saved the hostages without raising a sword by poisoning the Spaghetti Night with a powerful diarrhetic. They rolled well, played smart, and totally whomped me (the DM). During this pasta passing apocalypse, one of the players jokingly referred to themselves as the Poo Poo Bandits. We all laughed and later on, in the recap, I said that the survivors of Spaghetti Night would remember the Poo Poo Bandits. This caused contention because the players argued that a single instance didn't warrant such notoriety, and that only if they did it again, could I deem them the Poo Poo Bandits. Justices, is one cursed caper enough to establish the infamous Poo Poo Bandits? Or must I wait until it becomes a pattern?

Sabria Marlayne

LAX- REAR MEZZ To the honorable justices Murphy, Axford, and Tanner along with the actually pretty rad bailiff Jake: I present to you neither a case nor a confession, but rather a simple request; a birthday well wish to my wonderful partner of 10 years. Adriano is an exceptionally thoughtful, talented, hilarious, and passionate person whom I’ve been so lucky to share this past decade with. His wit and charm have brought so much delight to not just myself, but all those around him. Please help me honor his love and tight bod, I not so humbly ask with a shameless bribe of two dozen cookies. (Yes, I made cookies, yes they are gluten free.)

TallishCard643

Not a case but an update about my cross-campaign session this summer! I ended up taking the advise of I believe Emily or Caldwell who suggested I don't do an direct combat. So I made the event a gathering of all the known BBEGs and major plot characters. They're all parsons basically they represent some ideal or virtue that they naturally embody. While the meeting was being held the party plotted to steal the Maguffin-type item from. The bbeg of the highest level party. But xould only be handled by the lower level party due to it being cursed and them having protections from such things

TallishCard643

Overall it went great and they managed to steal the artifact and nearly kill the lieutenant of the higher level parties bbeg. Knocking him out as he telephoned away and everyone had a great time. Though I ended up needing to make it a two-parter

TallishCard643

Want to say thank u again and keep inspiring!

Jared V

LAX - Q45 & Q46 in Orchestra Left To the honorable and sexy Justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner, plus that other random guy that’s with you on stage right now I present to you the case of Powder V. Helmet (prosecutor’s edition) I play in a DnD 5E campaign with my two best friends that is GMed by my partner. During a secret underground party at our magical school, almost everyone got poisoned and started dropping like flies around us. My 3 ft tall Tabaxi named Beans is not often very perceptive, so you can imagine my excitement when I rolled well and perceived a heavily armored figure trying to assassinate one of our NPCs. Luckily, I had an Angel’s Powder potion on me, which can be blown in the face of a target and turn them friendly if they fail their Charisma check. I dashed over and blew this powder into the armored creatures face, only to be met with a disappointing “it didn’t work”. No roll or check or anything. The only reason given was that the assassin was wearing a helmet and the powder wouldn’t get through it. My argument was that a fine powder would definitely be able to infiltrate any helmet that was not fully covering a face without seams/cracks I humbly ask the court if they think Angel Powder potion could go through an armored helmet and the assassin should have rolled a charisma check or if my GM was right to deny my cool idea with little explanation? (P.S. I was given 2 more uses of my potion so it wasn’t fully wasted, but our GM crit both times I tried to use the potion later in the campaign which felt personal.) I await your ruling, Olivia

Jared V

LAX - Q45 & Q46 in Orchestra Left To the honorable and sexy Justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner, plus that other random guy that’s with you on stage right now I present to you the case of Powder V. Helmet (prosecutor’s edition) I play in a DnD 5E campaign with my two best friends that is GMed by my partner. During a secret underground party at our magical school, almost everyone got poisoned and started dropping like flies around us. My 3 ft tall Tabaxi named Beans is not often very perceptive, so you can imagine my excitement when I rolled well and perceived a heavily armored figure trying to assassinate one of our NPCs. Luckily, I had an Angel’s Powder potion on me, which can be blown in the face of a target and turn them friendly if they fail their Charisma check. I dashed over and blew this powder into the armored creatures face, only to be met with a disappointing “it didn’t work”. No roll or check or anything. The only reason given was that the assassin was wearing a helmet and the powder wouldn’t get through it. My argument was that a fine powder would definitely be able to infiltrate any helmet that was not fully covering a face without seams/cracks I humbly ask the court if they think Angel Powder potion could go through an armored helmet and the assassin should have rolled a charisma check or if my GM was right to deny my cool idea with little explanation? (P.S. I was given 2 more uses of my potion so it wasn’t fully wasted, but our GM crit both times I tried to use the potion later in the campaign which felt personal.) I await your ruling, Olivia (sorry that I share a Patreon account with the accused)

Chad Haley

PDX This case is brought to you by Marcus H and Josh G in row N seat 23&24 May it please the three spellbindingly fragrant judges, and… “you.” I present the case of the open door genocide. After suffering as a forever DM for a couple years a friend of a friend invited me to play in his first campaign he was starting. I passionately agreed. The world he created was a steampunk world with a faction war of vampires vs werewolves. Our party aligned ourselves with the werewolves and hid in their secret underground society. After a very wholesome roleplay heavy session where we camped out under the stars and all bathed together, the secret werewolf society was ambushed by vampires. The DM’s reasoning for this ambush was that we never explicitly said we closed the entrance behind us. The DM then proceeded to commit mass genocide on these werewolves with only a single, now orphaned, wolf surviving. The party razzed my character as I was the last one through the entrance so I should have closed it. A couple sessions later the campaign ended due to schedule conflicts, never to be touched again. Was I wrongfully razzed? Is it just to kill off an entire civilization because the players didn’t explicitly say they did something? Or am I just a bitch who should have chimed in with closing a god damn door? I await your judgement.

Neal Cragg

PDX: Neal C, in Floor Row L Seat 4! To the taste-making Justices and their cake-tasting Bailiff, I give you the Case of Holly v. Canyon! In my first ever d&d campaign in high school, our DM started the campaign by giving us a shopping list to pick starting items and equipment from. Our party’s Druid asked for a mule and a large covered wagon which the DM agreed to. En route to our first ever dungeon, we came up to a canyon with no clear bridge across. The Druid quickly jumped in and narrated opening the covered wagon to reveal a “astronomical” amount of Holly sprigs that he had packed into every inch of the wagon, and dumping them into the canyon to create a pile we could cross on. When our DM protested, the Druid said that the sprigs of Holly were on the item list as weighing 0 lbs and therefore he could theoretically pack a “near-infinite” number into the wagon. The rest of the party found it so hilarious that our DM (also a first timer) gave in, and the Holly-Filled Canyon went down in our campaign/friend lore. My question is this: should the party have backed our DM’s initial ruling and preserved their canyon puzzle? Or were we right to celebrate the party getting one over on our DM with a stupid technicality? I humbly await your merciful judgment.

Adriana B

LAX: Gold Circle Left Row H Seat 45 To the honorable crit justices and the other guy (Im sorry, Jake, I'm just trying to honor the rules of the court). I bring you the case of DM v. Gummy I'm the DM of a campaign about the PC’s entering cursed games. In a past session, PCs managed to rescue the soul of a young dragon (Linda) who was wrongfully killed in the material plane and harnessed as a glitch. To save her, the players put her soul into their pet axolotl, Gummy and took her out of the game. Gummy happens to be a tiny dragon that hatched recently. Next session, I wanted them to find Linda a new body, and to put some urgency in this lead, I decided to make Linda’s soul to be too much for Gummy to handle. At the start of the session, I started to do 1 hp of psychic damage to Gummy every in-game hour. I had the PC’s do perception checks, starting at a DC 25 the first night, and lowered the DC by 5 if they didn’t pass. By the time the party found out, Gummy’s scales had lacked luster and appeared fatigued at 10 HP (27 hp total). My players were DISTRAUGHT at the fact I had the nerve to hurt Gummy. All things considered, I don’t think 1 HP of psych damage per hour was all that much. I ask the court, am i the asshole because I hurt a little tiny guy for the sake of plot? or are my players in the wrong for grilling me?

Jasper Edwards

PDX, Balcony. To the highly regarded Justices and the regarded Bailiff Jake, I submit the case of the Witch who stole an adventure to Pyria. I, the DM, run a campaign for a group of 6 evil adventurers who agreed that they eventually wanted to go to the land of Pyria, a realm of dragons in a YA Fiction book. At the start of our 4th session the party was about to travel to a new city, and since our sessions are only an hour and a half we always fast travel. Today the party insisted they wanted horses. I describe a meadow with horses tied up, easy to steal and run off with. Instead, they find the kind old man who owns them, he tells them they aren’t for sale, and they kill him. Feeling a little sorry, the party decides to revive him again. They kill him again, they begin to bring him back to life again, so I have his wife emerge and tell the party she’s willing to sell the horses. The party decides to kill both of them, but now we only have 20 min left and actions require consequences so it turns out she’s a powerful witch that the party must run from. She bestows a curse on them as they run away with the horses. It takes two sessions to shake the witch’s curse and the party only gets 1.5 sessions in Pyria as a result. My party complained a LOT about not getting more Pyria time, and accused me of using the witch and curse to stall. I argue that I took their request, improvved an hour, and created a consequence driven story. Was it unfair of me to give them so little time in Pyria? Was I justified to curse them when they couldn’t take my easy outs? P.S. I run this campaign at an afterschool program for 6 middle schoolers which is why we didn’t have time for more sessions and sessions were only an hour and a half.

Bxyzst

LAX REAR ORCH LEFT I come before you at the Church of Dice Christ asking for a blessing on my first campaign. I have been playing in a home game weekly for about six months with a group that used to get together every week at the local bar for One-shots. As a player, my characters have been out right killed in a mini campaign and the main campaign. The first on was blown up by a grenade and a truck and the other had their head smashed with a crit.

Bxyzst

**Oops. ...To continue... After being killed a few times I've decided that I want to take a stab at running a session to turn the tables on the DM. I had an idea for a one-shot set in a magical movie theater where you get a fully immersive experience by being transported into the movie. I have ADHD and was having a REALLY hard time finding a setting that made sense for the story I have planned. This led to many roadblocks on the planning side and not knowing where to start. I had made very little progress in months until the recent episodes of NADDPOD released. I realized that campaign 3 Ezry is the perfect setting! From there I was able to pull together all the loose strings and put together what I hope is an epic adventure for my table. I am hereby bow my head and humbly ask for the blessing of Dice Christ to use this setting for my home game.

Eddie Ordaz

LAX 2 part submission (Pt. 1) From Melissa O. Seat R 46. Orchestra Right To the illustrious supreme crit justices and the bailiff, who I guess is okay too 1. The case of the butler and the honeypot I am DMing a campaign set in Avernus. One player was playing a human fighter who was previously a butler. My players came across a mysterious market. Unbeknownst to them, the market was run by a powerful devil, and several of the shops were honeypots, offering services designed to make the players spend more and more until they became indebted to the devil. The human fighter went to the spa, where he received several treatments. They offered to also polish his equipment. I did not mention that this was an additional service that would cost extra. When he tried to leave, he was told he needed to pay up. He refused to pay the extra charge and, at knife point, forced the attendant, who was under the effects of a geas spell, to let him leave. Having gone against the geas spell, the attendant immediately died and the fighter attempted to flee. The devil and his entourage pursued, and downed the fighter in 2 rounds, right before he reached a getaway vehicle. After he was captured, the player said “great, next time we can have a courtroom session where my character can plead his case.” I said “no, there are no courtrooms in hell, and you need to roll a new character because your character is going to be enslaved by the devil.” Was I wrong to enslave the player's character and not wanting to pause the campaign for a murder trial side story? P.S. he had enough money to pay the extra fee. P.P.S. This was the player's second character. The first was imprisoned in Candlekeep after robbing someone in front of an archmage. Pt. 2 From Eddie. O (The husband) Were me and my fellow party member in the wrong for going to get drinks, and going to bed, while our other member was getting arrested and put in jail? PS: Several sessions later, the same player with his new character, tried to skip out on his bill with a devil and got enslaved, and we, being annoyed at the player’s shenanigans again, chose to go to bed instead of going to look for him. I even added a “Oh hey, don’t forget to lock the door before you go to bed, who knows who's out there.”

Eddie Ordaz

LAX From Eddie O. Seat R 45. Orchestra Right Dice Christ Confessional: I come before you in the church of dice Christ (Dice be with you) with a confession. I was DMing a campaign with 3 friends, who we’ve played with before, and one newcomer. The newcomer ended up having major main character syndrome and always took over conversations and shut down ideas from the other players. At the beginning of one session, I noticed that the problem player was accidentally muted on the discord call. I knew that she was muted, but I pretended that I didn’t notice. I thought it would be a good opportunity to let the other players roleplay without getting steam rolled. And this continued for 20 minutes. The other players were having a great time. Did I commit a sin in the eyes of dice Christ by purposely ignoring my problem player? Or was I right to give my other players some time to participate without her? I humbly await your judgment.

Z

Really buried the lead with the fact that it's a group of 12 year olds lmao

Hanna

PDX, from row M: To the venerable justices and the Timbers army understudy baliff, or - based on your judgement - the most holy messengers of our lord and savior Dice Christ: I seek a fair judgement from the court on behalf of myself as both plaintiff and defender. I am a forever DM and, in this role, have found myself guilty of many deeds the court has previously ruled against. I have arbitrarily reduced and increased enemies' HP and AC; I have even lied about rolls, including adjusting numerous nat 20s to a lower number. All this, I have done in service of providing a good experience for my weekly audience of players, who are tweens and teens that play D&D after school at the local public library where I work as a librarian. I have always justified this behavior due to the unique nature of this arrangement. Each of our sessions lasts exactly 2 hours, and as you can imagine I am often very busy managing both the game and the kids behavior during this time. However, I have noticed myself once or twice implementing some of these same techniques in moments of extreme DM sweat when I get a break twice a month to play with my adult friends. Should I slow my proverbial roll in the interest of fairness to the game and myself, especially given the risk of it creeping into my regular DMing style, or is Dice Christ okay with cheating when it's to avoid making an eleven year old cry?

Portia J (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-05 07:00 LAX To the Honorable Supreme Crit Justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner; and , I present to you the case of the Tears for Fears. I joined a campaign with a friend who was DMing for the first time. He warned us upfront that it was a horror module, and when we sent him our character ideas, he asked us to add in one of our character’s greatest fears. Then, he asked us to also send him one of our personal greatest fears in real life. Some players were a bit resistant to the idea, and this sparked a debate over whether this was ethical, or fun. The DM caved in the end by the argument that this method could be seen as the “long covid” of D&D game construction. But this is the Crit’s jurisdiction. Should we have sucked it up and faced our fears? Was it best to leave that to our characters? Or should we have opted for the compromise that was floated, wherein we faced our fears in game and then billed the DM for cognitive behavioral therapy? I humbly await your punishment. P.s. When the DM requested it, I sent him my greatest fears immediately before the debate sparked. I had not yet come into the knowledge that he had an unrequited crush on me. Uh-oh.
2023-10-25 05:44 LAX To the Honorable Supreme Crit Justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner; and , I present to you the case of the Fears for Tears. I joined a campaign with a friend who was DMing for the first time. He warned us upfront that it was a horror module, and when we sent him our character ideas, he asked us to add in one of our character’s greatest fears. Then, he asked us to also send him one of our personal greatest fears in real life. Some players were a bit resistant to the idea, and this sparked a debate over whether this was ethical, or fun. The DM caved in the end by the argument that this method could be seen as the “long covid” of D&D game construction. But this is the Crit’s jurisdiction. Should we have sucked it up and faced our fears? Was it best to leave that to our characters? Or should we have opted for the compromise that was floated, wherein we faced our fears in game and then billed the DM for cognitive behavioral therapy? I humbly await your punishment. P.s. When the DM requested it, I sent him my greatest fears immediately before the debate sparked. I had not yet come into the knowledge that he had an unrequited crush on me. Uh-oh.

LAX To the Honorable Supreme Crit Justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner; and , I present to you the case of the Fears for Tears. I joined a campaign with a friend who was DMing for the first time. He warned us upfront that it was a horror module, and when we sent him our character ideas, he asked us to add in one of our character’s greatest fears. Then, he asked us to also send him one of our personal greatest fears in real life. Some players were a bit resistant to the idea, and this sparked a debate over whether this was ethical, or fun. The DM caved in the end by the argument that this method could be seen as the “long covid” of D&D game construction. But this is the Crit’s jurisdiction. Should we have sucked it up and faced our fears? Was it best to leave that to our characters? Or should we have opted for the compromise that was floated, wherein we faced our fears in game and then billed the DM for cognitive behavioral therapy? I humbly await your punishment. P.s. When the DM requested it, I sent him my greatest fears immediately before the debate sparked. I had not yet come into the knowledge that he had an unrequited crush on me. Uh-oh.

Kelsey Griffiths (edited)

Comment edits

2026-09-05 07:00 [LAX - mezzanine!] May it please the court, I seek to be absolved of responsibility for killing my party. We were locked in an antimagic room, with one round before the floor was going to vanish and send us falling into a deadly pit. As the rogue, I needed to lockpick the door so we could escape. I got the door open and ran into the next room so my friends could follow to safety. However, next turn, the DM said the door swung shut and relocked because I hadn't held it open! All the characters inside plummeted to their deaths. The DM showed us that the adventure we were playing said the door was on springs and thus would close and relock unless held. I contend that surely my character would've felt it was a spring-loaded door or had a chance to grab it as it closed. Was my DM being too bloodthirsty, or did I let my party down?
2023-10-25 06:08 [LAX] From Kelsey in the Mezzanine May it please the court, I seek to be absolved of responsibility for getting my fellow party members killed. My group was playing a deadly, prewritten adventure and we were trapped in an antimagic room, with one round before the floor was going to open and send us falling into a giant meatgrinder. As the rogue, I needed to pick the door's lock for us to escape. On my turn, I did it!, opening the door wide and moving into the next room so my friends could follow to safety. However, after my turn, the DM said the door swung shut and relocked because I wasn't holding it open for them, even though he never asked or hinted about that! Everyone inside plummeted to their deaths, including my rogue's best friend. At our protests, the DM showed us that the book indeed said "the door has springs that cause it to close and lock automatically unless it is held open." I contend that my rogue should've noticed the door was on springs, or at least had a chance to catch it before it closed! I ask you, was my DM being too bloodthirsty, or should I have remembered my manners and just held the door?

[LAX] From Kelsey in the Mezzanine May it please the court, I seek to be absolved of responsibility for getting my fellow party members killed. My group was playing a deadly, prewritten adventure and we were trapped in an antimagic room, with one round before the floor was going to open and send us falling into a giant meatgrinder. As the rogue, I needed to pick the door's lock for us to escape. On my turn, I did it!, opening the door wide and moving into the next room so my friends could follow to safety. However, after my turn, the DM said the door swung shut and relocked because I wasn't holding it open for them, even though he never asked or hinted about that! Everyone inside plummeted to their deaths, including my rogue's best friend. At our protests, the DM showed us that the book indeed said "the door has springs that cause it to close and lock automatically unless it is held open." I contend that my rogue should've noticed the door was on springs, or at least had a chance to catch it before it closed! I ask you, was my DM being too bloodthirsty, or should I have remembered my manners and just held the door?

Kate Oldham

PDX (from Kate O in row F) Dice Christ confession!! To the saints Murphy, Axford, Tanner, and Hurwitz, May you and Dice Christ forgive me for an online game crime I committed. We were playing on Fantasy Grounds and were getting DESTROYED by a monster who we were having no success in doing any damage to. With one of our players on his first death save, and our barbarian reaching critically low HP, I (the party wizard) muted myself after my turn of a failed magical attack and looked up the monster in my own Monster Manual, quickly checking its resistances and immunities. I changed my plan of attack and we managed to get the upper hand after a round of tailored to the monster buffs. I have not done this since, and so I’m hoping Dice Christ and the Holy Rolling Clergy can forgive me.

Ali Dunn

LA (B37 front row babie) I have a half Dice Christ confession, half case. Look, let’s be honest, Emily is the fave. But not today. Emily, my confession/potential crime is resentment. For you see, once upon a time in Portland, you so threw a magical dice into the crowd, to which my companion caught. But something is amiss. It has the uncanny ability to roll a natural 20 whenever it’s needed, helping us troll our DM or otherwise astonishingly succeed. So I beg of you, how do I find favor in dice christ like this magical Emily dice? I roll natural 1’s like it’s my job. Help.

Giancarlo Provo

Portland, Floor Front Row 4 Giancarlo (John-carlo) To the honorable supreme crit justices Murphy, Axford, and Tanner. And to Amir's secretary, Jake. I bring to you the case of the PC expiration date and the angry fire god. Background/Context - We played in a pretty shenanigan filled rules-lite campaign that's 100% virtual. The DM built his own universe with multiple campaigns running within and lots of cool homebrew monsters, mechanics, and resources. One of these resources is called Chaos, which essentially allows some insane shenanigans with a high risk and high reward twist. My understanding is that Chaos is old magic of the elementals that first inhabited the continent in which the campaign takes place. Situation - My character, Rhyleth, and most other party members had garnered some Chaos throughout the campaign by killing a variety of fire elementals. We just finished a boss fight when, after defeating the boss, all of the Chaos in the room was sucked out of us and out of the felled enemy and was being vacuumed into a portal. The DM said we could try to grab the chaos before it disappeared if we wanted to. The 3 other party members who had Chaos previously started grabbing at it, but Rhyleth decided to take this opportunity to be free from the dangerous Chaos and show that he was no longer the power hungry kid he used to be. After all the chaos was gone, the DM informed me that Rhyleth would die in 7 days now that he lost his Chaos. A few in-game days later, Rhyleth decided to try to get some Chaos back, to prevent my impending death, by "absorbing" my huge fire centipede mount that had some Chaos. In doing so, I angered the fire god by messing with the natural way of things and the God appeared in a portal and pretty much insta-killed Rhyleth. I rolled a new character and we continued playing but I've always been a little salty that my first ever DnD character had a "cutscene" death after essentially being given a death timer. Do I just need to get over it and accept the fact that the world is harsh and dangerous, or was Rhyleth unjustly murdered by our DM? P.S. our DM also listens to DnD Court and knows we're bringing this case for the live show.

Rolling Kenna

LAX (Row E) To the esteemed, righteous judges and the lowly, infantile bailiff, I lay before you the case of overindulgence. I was in a party of three with all of us having been DM’s and playing in my daughter’s first campaign as DM. We were having an awesome time. My daughter was DMing like she was a pro; making up fun side bits and scenarios – including ice cream that tasted like the memories of a lost childhood (yes, let THAT run around in your heads). One thing that happened early on was that our party happened on a small keep, where a young dragon had taken residence while terrorizing a nearby village. We dispatched of the dragon, relatively handily, and after clearing it we got the idea to turn it into a mall. At the time it seemed harmless and kind of fun. We even continued to joke about turning every uninhabited keep we came upon into a mall – this is important. One day, while traveling, our party had came upon a keep that was actively guarded. We were barred from entry, and really had no need to go in, so we continued on and camped a couple hours away. Two members of our party decided that they just had to go back and lay siege to this keep, so that they could “incorporate the castle into our growing empire.” My daughter explained, again, that this was a closed and manned fortress. They didn’t care and continued their advance – 2 PC’s against a fully armed keep. She once again explained that the guards were not going to let them in as this keep was already in use to maintain peace across boarders. She even had the keeps Archmage appear atop the keep and tell them to turn back or face the consequences of their commitment. They ignored the warnings, and declared the castle the property of our Mall Empire. Finally, beyond frustrated, my daughter had the Archmage cast a spell that hit the two and they appeared back in the camp, relatively unhurt. The rest of us thought that this was EXTREMELY generous (I and others agreed that she should have killed them outright, but we’re blood-thirsty like that) and wanted to move on. The two party members in question though were incensed and wanted to return to take back what they saw as their own. They were exceedingly upset at the DM, my daughter, for not allowing them to take over the castle, and continued to downplay her choices and decisions throughout the remainder of the campaign. The campaign did last a little while longer, but it never felt the same following this attempted attack. I place this case gingerly at the mercy of the esteemed judges, knowing that even the lowliest bailiff could provide his opinion on this case. Was the DM, whether first-time or life-long, in the wrong for not allowing the party to continue on their reckless ways off acquiring as much property as possible? Or were the two players in the wrong, and let off too easily by a benevolent DM, for overstepping their bounds and claiming too much? I humbly ask for your declarations of judgement and punishment where deemed.

Patience Ziese

[LAX, Row K] Grif & PK To the delectable justices Axford, Tanner, and Murphy, as well as the bailiff who’s name was Jerk Bird-Shits or something, I present the case of “The Butt-Chugging Drider” Context: My wife and I were party members for a one shot where we were a coven of witches trying to gather components for a powerful potion. We needed to obtain Drider (Drow spider hybrid) venom, which our DM referred to the action as “milking” like it would be for getting cobra venom. We had a sleeping potion on hand and it was just a matter of getting it in the Drider’s system. We knew the Drider would already be asleep, but needed it to stay that way to “milk” its stinger. The dispute: The DM had ruled that the sleeping Drider would not drink a potion willingly in their sleep. My wife immediately then stated that since she had pass without trace, she should be able to deposit the potion into the Drider’s ass and have its effects take hold before they could wake up. She also theorized that since it is a “large” sized creature, it should have a large asshole to slip the potion in. Without the DM giving his input, I immediately shut that idea down and stated that it would be like not waking up with someone shoving their finger up your ass. We went on to a different idea and were ultimately successful in milking the Drider’s venom, but I am left wondering if I was in the wrong for shutting down her idea. Should a forceful butt-chug empowered with pass without trace be considered as a legitimate plan? I humbly await your judgment

Justin Rankin

LAX (Row H) Justin and Neville To the supercalafragilisticexpealadociously delicious justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner, and Bailiff Jorf (please say Jake if we like him this show), I bring to you the case of The Big Ol’ Shatter and The Second Dinosaur. Me and my party were in a magic potion shop in our campaign when we heard screams come from outside, and chaos ensued. The city we were in had an exotic animal zoo, and some dangerous creatures - namely dinosaurs - had broken free. A T-Rex entered the shop, and combat ensued. We were not in great shape from an earlier combat, so the fight proved difficult, but in an effort to do big damage I upcast a Shatter spell on the T-Rex. The potion shop walls were lined with potions. While the area of effect of Shatter was not near the walls, but instead on the T-Rex, my DM ruled that because the sound is audible up to 300 feet per the spell that the Shatter would effect the potions on the walls, despite being out of range. Dozens of potions fell and caused several negative effects, including but not limited to opening a portal to the Plane of Water. I argued that the spell would only effect something within the damage radius, but he remained firm. He then proceeded to introduce a second t-Rex to the combat. Judges, I humbly ask - was I wrong to think my Shatter would be confined to its radius? Was the second T. rex an appropriate judgment on me for gamifying a big thunder damage spell? I humbly await your judgment.

Scott Mazzapica

LAX To the breathtakingly beautiful justices Murphy, Axford, and Tanner and the 6/10 Bailiff James. Just this week, my Level 4 party went into combat with a fire giant who was capturing people to make a human shield and human armor. At the start of combat, the DM explained we could either attack both the giant and a civilian at the same time, and if we wanted to try to hit only the giant, his AC would be higher. Additionally, we could try and remove a person from his armor as an action at a DC of 15. There were NINE people attached to the giant. It would have taken 9 full turns to remove everyone, so we decided to accept the higher AC and try to hit the giant and avoid the people. We announced this before each swing, and despite rolling as high as 21, it still was not enough to hit only the giant. The DM then told us we can still hit with that roll if we decide to also hit a civilian. This put the party in an uncomfortable state as it seemed like the DM was forcing us to attack the civilians if we wanted to take down this giant THEN accused us of being immoral for deciding to hit innocent people. I claimed it was a lame mechanic for combat and the DM claimed we should just use our actions to remove the people from the armor. We eventually compromised by having our cleric use Scorching Ray to burn the ropes tying everyone to the giant, and we continued combat as usual. Judges, I humbly ask, should we have accepted the obstacle the DM provided us or is the DM a dill weed for including such an obstacle in the first place? Yours truly, Scott in Row L

CuteMomo42

(PDX VIP ROW 1) To the honorable Justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner and to the Bailiff who’s doing his best I hope, I bring to you the case of Homebrew Theater starring myself versus another player. For the sake of this let’s call the other player Kal. I am currently a part of a homebrewed campaign that has been going on for three years now. The DM is my dearest older sister and the forever DM of currently three homebrewed campaigns that she is running simultaneously. The table of players consists of me, her three coworkers in which Kal is included, and the wife of Kal. Context: When this campaign began the DM, my sister, worked with each of us to give our characters a place in the world that felt like their very own. Because she rolls like Murph and it isn’t getting any better, a lot of her DMing style is based around role play scenarios and situations that have developed from the unintentional holes we left in our backstories. And so, we played for three years with no problems. Until now. Which brings us to why I’m escalating this issue to the Court. At the start of this year, Kal and his wife got a house, which led to his desire to make this home game a Broadway theater production starring only himself. In Kal’s attempts to be an award winning director up for a Tony, he has attempted to hand and force the DM to read a script for interactions with his character that he wrote, ensured his scenes have the perfect lighting and music, attempted to change NPC names, pronunciations, and storylines that were connected to his character and the world, suggested to other players to change their backstories to match or connect to his, and rewrote his character’s society when the society had already been written three years prior by the DM and him. Additionally, there have been moments; such as, interrupting the DM mid explanation for what he believes is a better one, five hours of just him talking at the DM as the rest of the players just stared into space, micromanaging to the point of pulling up character sheets, degrading our choices, even the DMs and his wife’s, in combat, insisting that the DM should always remember all the characters abilities in order to remind the players what they can do all the time, and worse of all telling the DM that combat should be over when he is bored and his character is almost dead. Judges am I wrong to be so upset with Kal’s actions and his blatant disregard of the DM and all her hard work along with my friends' creations? Or should I accept Kal’s attempts to bulldoze over the world we created together in his pursuit to be the main character in his theater production? Thank you and I humbly await your judgment.

Grace Wilson

LAX (VIP ROW D): to the esteemed judges Axford, Murphy, and Tanner (and the lowly but still charming Jake), I bring you the case of the alcoholic awakened shrub. My partner (here with me tonight for his birthday AND our anniversary) is the DM for me and two of our friends in a campaign we’ve been playing in for almost every week since January. One of our first adventures involved investigating a moon elf shrine, where we ended up fighting a baddie that had enchanted an awakened shrub. After defeating said baddie, the awakened shrub was confused and frightened, so we took them home. Kale became a member of our party that travels with my hexblade warlock tiefling (that wears assless chaps) in a papoose, and they have a chaotic energy, a drinking problem, and a strong fear that everyone wants to steal their berries. Here lies the problem: our entire party has grown attached to Kale so much that, when we wanted to know if Kale had a face, we argued for at least 20 minutes with our DM that they, in fact, should. Our DM is adamant that awakened shrubs don’t have faces, but the description of the awakened shrub in the manual is unclear on this issue, and like, how would they talk then? I pictured him having a Korok face. Who is right about this? Should Kale have a face? Should he have a drinking problem??? In defense of my tragic adventuring companion, I await your decision on this critical matter with a particularly charged glower that my character would surely be providing in this moment :) -Grace

Michael K

[Los Angeles] Dear the highly respectable judges Axford, Tanner, and Brian. As well as the lowly little guy Jake. I have a short one: My players ask for inspiration points. Not only that, but if I forgot to remind them that they will take damage at the end of the turn due to some ongoing effect, they will remind me that I forgot, take the damage and then say something along the lines of "Do I get an inspiration point for being honest?" No! You don't get rewarded for *not cheating* and you don't get rewarded for playing the game fairly. Are they menaces, or am I just being up tight? Thank you, -Mikeytime PS: I brought one of my players here tonight to shame him on the chance you selected my case.

Andrew

(Los Angeles) the case of Bastard Sword Backstory Hey judges... Jake OMG hi! That a new shirt? Looks great, anyway I bring before the court the case of the bastard sword backstory. My friends and I started a Pathfinder 2e campaign, but our GM has been a little strict about about lore accuracy. Before our first session, myself and the other players were discussing our characters. I'm playing a Magus Grippli(frog people) from the Mwangi jungle. I was sharing the backstory of how I found my sword. I said that my little frog man found it while going fishing in the swamp, and coming across an ancient battlefield, the sword was among the wreckage, so he kept it. It was a small inconsequential head cannon for my weapon, that would probably never even be brought up in the campaign. My GM however said that no battles would have ever taken place in the area I originate from, so this backstory wouldn’t make sense. We began arguing about this, and almost got into a bit of a shouting match. He said he wasn’t going to just change the lore to accommodate this backstory. Ultimately for the sake of peace, I acquiesceted and settled on saying that my character found it at a store and bought it. Was I asking too much? Or was my GM being too strict? I lay myself and my little frog man's sword at the courts feet, and await your judgement.

Justin Nichols

To the hilarious high crits and the inspiration for my first D&D character Bailiff Jake, I present the case of the repeate session retcon In my very first campaign, I was playing a champion fighter, and some out of character drama caused the group to split. We ran the final fight down three players, and the only negative we took was one of our characters got trapped in a gem. After about a month the group patched up relations and we reran the session. This time around, I lost my arm due to our wizard firing a disintegrate spell that was reflected back at me. I thought the moment was cool, but it made to where I could no longer wield my primary weapon, a maul. I was upset, but rolled with it due to our cleric having access to the regenerate spell, but my DM said it couldn't work on me. At that point I got pretty mad, feeling singled out. The party got to vote for which session would be cannon, and they chose the one where I lost my arm and could not regrow it. Was I in the right to be mad, or was did I overreact to the admittedly cool scene?

Anonymous

Portland: Floor seats, 4th Row Dear Supreme Crit Justices and other guy with the badge. My wife started her first campaign as DM this year and she’s gone balls deep into it. Buying a small library of books, figurines, etc and everyone my wife talks to about this and her various other campaigns (Labyrinth mixed with Suicide Squad, Haunted Disney Cruise Ship, Ninja Turtles etc) wants in just based on her enthusiasm. I haven’t seen her this happy since planning out pirate themed wedding two years ago. It’s been amazing. I say all that cause what she did to one of our players was cold, calculating and quite insidious. She set up a kidnapping plot involving bullywugs and as we traversed their lair, we stumbled upon a large group sleeping. We could have bypassed them or gotten an advantage on them BUT the Dragonborn Bard of our group decided it would be a good idea to cast Tasha’s hideous laughter! This woke the entire room and during the fight, he went into another room and alerted those bullywugs!!! His lack of strategy upset my wife (he also DM’s a campaign we’re playing in and she doesn’t love how he DMs) so she devised a plot. On the next session, we killed the remaining bullywugs plus their king and as we collected our treasures and the kids, a creature called a Babau came out of the shadows and took a surprise attack on the Dragonborn. He went down instantly. She told everyone she rolled and it was a die roll to determine who it hit. But she told me it was specifically him cause she was grumpy. This stressed him out terribly but he didn’t die. It was a hard battle and we managed to defeat the Babau and revive our Dragonborn companion. Ever since, he has played a lot smarter but this whole thing revealed a side of my wife that I can only describe as finding out your partner is secretly a hitman. I never expected this of her. Was she in the right? Do you all think she could plan something like this in the real world and should I lower the payout on my life insurance? Thank you for your consideration.

Zach A.

PDX: Esteemed Justices and tiny wittle infant Jeff in your Playskool play pen, I come to you today to present the case of the hafling's cheeks that could be heard clapping from space. I play in a homebrewed 5e sci-fi campaign, where I am a halfling college of eloquence bard that runs an MLM selling our barbarian's bathwater as a nutritional supplement (Sorry Murph). Our party was exploring this ancient temple detailing a long forgotten war between celestial dragons and aboleths. In the midst of our dungeon dive, my bard fell victim to a magical effect that made him, a fairly lithe halfling, gain 40 pounds. The DM never dictated how this extra weight fell upon my form, so I took the liberty to state that he was now "dummy thicc." She, the DM protested and said that he wasn't, though never clarified nor specified how he was carrying this newfound weight. I ask you, should I be allowed to state that my bard was now so dummy thicc he could clap his cheeks in celebratory fashion of his newly realized curves, or is my DM right to doom me to cheeks so flat they may as well be a month old opened can of soda and never provide any further flavor?

Anonymous

PDX: To the sage justices and also baby, may it please the court. I present the case of the live hydra delivery. I GM for a level 10 5e campaign. The players came across a cave of wonders, which would gift wondrous items in exchange for offerings from the players. The idea was for the party to exchange items they already had for new, improved items. The players, however, decided that the best possible gift they could give was a still living hydra. They had already encountered one in a nearby swamp, so they simply returned to the swamp and brought the beast to zero hit points. The trouble came when it was time to transport the unconscious hydra. The crew had a truck-like vehicle, but I argued that a 20 ft long and 4000 lb hydra would not fit on the back of their truck. They then claimed they could tow the hydra by tying it to the rear of the truck with some rope, to which I said that their rope would not withstand the weight. They then said they would use shape water to freeze the water in the mud below, making it more slippery to drag the hydra across. I said that shape water is for water, not mud. In the end, I acquiesced to a series of enlarge/reduce and levitate spells. I ask you, judges, was I wrong to be so staunch about hydra delivery logistics? Should I have allowed the players to just throw that bad boy on the back of their truck? I await your magnanimous judgement.

Noah Muruve

Ah sorry just saw this we will be in PDX tonight!!! To the honorable justices and golden mic winner, absolutely jacked, super smart and handsome bailiff Jacob Baby Boy Hurwitz, I plead you to hear my case. I DM a campaign where recently one of the players wanted to approach an encounter via stealth. He proceeded to role-play his elf making a game plan, but the encounter wasn’t really built for it; I can tell you right now his plan would not have worked. Meanwhile our gnome big boom artificer, read the situation correctly, and ran in blowing people up, ignoring the elf’s plan. This pissed off the elf’s player, but we had a healthy discussion about it the next session and decided that I need to make more stealth encounters as my encounters thus far have been pretty one dimensional, the gnome has to consider other players’ wants and inputs in the game, and the elf’s player can’t will a plan into existence from nothing. But, we want blood. Who was wrong?