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Looking for Live Show Cases! (Patreon)

Published:
2024-01-17 21:43:01
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Heya! Lowly Bailiff Jake here. The Supreme Crit is convening tomorrow evening LIVE in Washington DC! Will you be at the show? If you will be in attendance then we would love to try your case. Please submit your brief (1-2 paragraphs, I do beg) case on this thread and we will try you in open court.

Don't forget to let us know your name and the general area you will be sitting in.

Also, there are a few tickets still available for this upcoming tour if you wanna catch a show!

Lowly,

Jake

Comments

Figgy the Cat

Dear beautiful and attractive justices and the talking cat. I bring forth the case of the Sanctuary vs Command. My party was in a fight where a player was commanded to attack an NPC by the enemy (both within 5ft). I had cast sanctuary on the npc to which the player failed the DC, forcing them to attack the next nearest target or forfeit their action. The only target within attack distance was the enemy that casted command. After a brief debate, the DM graciously ruled that the player forfeits their turn and we proceeded as normal. But we all asked ourselves, what does the court think of this ruling? Would the player run to the next available target? Would they attack our enemy? We await your judgement safely (or not) behind your Sanctuary.

PlausiblyPJ

May it please the wise keepers of the holy crit and that guy who stands at the confessional and announces our sins, I come to you with a confession. 3yrs ago, I started playing in a Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign where I met my fellow players for the first time during session 1. It has been fantastic and we are all the best of friends now. However, I made a bold mistake very early on that has weighed in my conscience ever since. During our 3rd session, we were locked in a depate among the party on whether or not to assist a town in need or to allow the town to turn against the mayor which would assist the medieval Mafia that our party was loosely affiliated with. All but 1 of us was on board to become "made men" and helping the criminal organization. This player (lawful good) was threatening to rat us out if we went through with it. So... I casted Sleep on them. We then proceeded to tie them up, lie to the towns people that he was delusional and a danger to others, and left him on the side of the road penniless and alone, kicking the character out of the party and causing the player to create a new one, which they were happy to do as it was very comical. This was the point that I realized my mistake. I was playing a bard, and I didn't realize bards can't prepare spells each day. So, Sleep was not on my original spell list. I added it after a rest for this plan to work... Luckily, the campaign has continued and has been an experience we will remember forever. Our DM even made the abandoned character an ongoing villain hell bent on revenge! But I always wonder what could've happened if I hadn't accidentally broken the rules and changed my spells... I kneel before you hoping for absolution, but accept any punishment you see fit.

Jay S

Shoutout from Row F Most Honorable Judges, I bring you the case of the terrifying player A few months ago I was setting up an online game with some people I just met, and one of the players wanted to be introduced by the rest of the party fighting him and getting captured by his group of bandits. I didn't want to rig the first combat, so i suggested we start with them captured. He disagreed, and wanted to plan the combat encounter with me (keep in mind I also had to plan the first session). I was busy planning and working my actual job until a day or two before the session he texted me saying, "here's what's going to happen. We are going to get in a call and plan this out, this isn't something I want to half-ass". I told him I was about to go to sleep as I just got off work and it was 11pm. His response was "Sleep Tight. I'll be waiting." Honorable Judges, oh and Jake too I guess, was I right to cancel the campaign from this? He and his friends just didn't give a very friendly vibe in general, but this was the last straw. I lay myself at the mercy of the court.

yumehop (no. 1 ol' cobb fan)

Dear Jemily, Jaldwell, Jurph and Jake, Does it cost movement to pick someone up and pivot? I'm playing a cat magician clown in a circus of clowns doing the Chains of Asmodeus adventure. My fellow clown (my bf) is a barbarian from the new Bigby's Glory of the Giants book where you can turn to size Huge. My question is, at size huge there are no speed penalties for dragging a creature 2 sizes smaller than you. If he picks me up (size small) and Turns Around without walking forwards/backwards, effectively moving me from one side of his body to the other side, does that cost HIM movement? I will have moved over 30 ft but he only turns around in place. Me and my bf's argument is NO, since creatures like dragons do this all the time. Love the show and all of you so much

Nick McCornack

Our names: Nick & Stacey Seats: Orchesta, Row J To the omniscient Justices of the Supreme Crit, Axford, Murphy, and Tanner, and the very special bailiff, Mr. Jake, I present the case of: Death Interrupted (by Chili). Over the past 2 years, I’ve been playing in a home game, with my best friends of several years, that is DMed by my husband. We always have a great time and someone makes food- this fateful night, it was chili. Most people grabbed their food and we began. The session was going great and everyone was engaged; after about an hour, we hit a critical point in our game that resulted in the death of my character. The DM starts describing the death scene with its intense winds, flashing lights, and the music shifts to mournful. I, with tears in my eyes, begin to describe my druid’s final moments (important to note: I was also 3 months pregnant and highly emotional), ONLY to be interrupted by a player- who is one of my good friends- standing, clearing his throat and announcing to the room, “I’m gonna get some chili.” The table and DM go silent, and I, tearfully, look up and ask him “What?” He casually responds “What?? I’m hungry” and proceeds to my kitchen to get a bowl of chili. He then returns completely normal 2 minutes later as if nothing happened. The scene progressed at the encouragement of the DM and we eventually ended our session. We, unfortunately, have not played since. So, I lay at the feet of the Justices my question: Was I truly wronged by this player for interrupting an incredibly important and emotional scene, or was I *more* wronged by the DM, my husband, for saying absolutely nothing, about this player’s intense desire for mid-death chili?

George Koors

Will be in attendance, and am a humble forever DM, but my players are my pals and we get along well. Just wanted to thank the justice system for being there in case things get wild.

Leonard Grasso

Hi justices and the court stenographer Jake, I have a case of 40 crits! My party was introduced to a trio of campy villains who I was super excited about, I even wrote theme music for them (hey Emily!). They got to say some intro villain lines and off to combat we went. My druid and her mom, an NPC who was also a druid, casted Summon Woodland Creatures and summoned FORTY wolves. forty. We were on Roll20 so cut to me overclocking my PC to get all these creatures into the tabletop. It took 10 entire minutes! Anyway I told the druid he could just roll one attack roll for all forty wolves so the battle didn't get too bogged down and slow. Well, he crit and one of my new supervillains was immediately killed. I had dialogue planned and everything, and to this day I am still so bitter that my villain got done so dirty. Was I right to allow the wolves to ALL crit at once, should I have backpedaled, or should I just start calling myself Dances with Wolves? I semi-humbly await your ruling. (Btw my name is Lenny and my party and I will be seated up in the middle balcony, but the druid won't be there, so be nice!)

Ryan Janes

Ryan & Miranda Mid Balcony, Row AA To the honest and all-powerful Supreme Crit Justices Murphy, Tanner and Axford and the perhaps newly minted practicing only in DC for 1 evening? Justice Hurwitz? I present to you the case of the Deceptive Decedent. My son is 7 and has watched D&D from afar; collecting dice and remaining infinitely curious about the game. I recently got him a small mini dice tray at New York Comic-Con and he keeps it in his car seat cup holder so he can “roll on the go.” While I drive, I will make up a “D&D lite” sort of game; simplified checks, no modifiers etc. He will battle things we see on our drive such as trees, other cars, and of course, the BBEG; the dreaded bridge overpass. But being that my hands are safely 10 and 2 and my son is the only one in possession of a dice tray in the backseat, I have to trust his rolls. He’s young, and we’ve discussed how the fun of the game comes from the honesty of the dice and how we react to said dice, but things seem to always edge in his favor. A perfect 24 points of damage on a 4d6 roll of damage in our latest battle with a gas station pump comes to mind. But soon, he will be able to sit down and play for real seeing that we recently acquired his first mini for actual play. As his future DM, I am planning to introduce him to full rules with soft hands and some minor fibbing behind the screen in his favor to allow his interest in the game to flourish. His mother however thinks it is high time to learn the harsh reality of dice christ and TPK this kid. Am I wrong to edge wins his way to encourage his love for the game at his young age? P.S. we usually assume lvl 2 Fighter stats for my son because Fighters are easy for children to understand Jake.

timweather

To the esteemed judges and Bayleaf Choke. I was at a table for roughly 4 years, and we were just about to finish our first campaign. The month right before the final session, I found out that 2 of the people at our table were having an affair (one of their spouses was also at the table). I confronted them about it privately, and they indicated they were not going to say anything and that they expected me to keep it a secret. I decided I couldn’t be at the same table as them anymore, so I bailed right before the final session, telling the DM I couldn’t be there “for personal reasons,” and vaguely alluded to issues going on with people at the table, to which he responded “sorry to hear that” …and nothing else. (Side note: I got petty after his response and went into dndbeyond and deleted my character from the campaign, leaving them without a healer for the final session: Dice Christ Confession…?). How should I have handled this? Should I have exposed the infidels, or was I right to just walk away from the toxic situation? I humbly await your judgement from Row G.

Allen Baker

I solemnly prostrate myself at the feet of the the holy Trinity of Dice Christ and do my best to remember the divine importance of charity as I witness before me the sorry state of Jake. After a break from the DnD table I very recently returned to DM a group of adventurers! My first encounter was a group of bandits with commoner stats who trained animals to fight in their place. Unfortunately I realized I had made a mistake on the very first attack of the campaign. I had lined up my strongest animal attacker, an axe beak, with the only brand new player in the campaign. I rolled a hit and took his half-elf bard down to very low HP. He was next in the order and used thunderclap. I saved easily but was worried he’d go down at the top of the next round without getting to do anything. I really wanted him to enjoy his first game so I betrayed the light of Dice Christ and lied. He got his cantrip attack on the bird and even killed the commoner bandit giving it orders. Since that first encounter we have played about ten more sessions. Besides a few exceptions I rarely hit any of them with my rolls. I believe I’ve only knocked one player out…maybe two since we started. The only exception to my bad rolls being spell saves against the bard I lied to help. In those situations I have consistently rolled 16+. In lying to attempting to make the first fight more fun for my new player have I doomed myself to a campaign of whiffing, and worse, my innocent player to the pain wasted spell slots? I beg for your guiding words on how to atone for my lie to Dice Christ! Your servant (except Jake), Deceiver in the District (My friend has my ticket so I have no clue where I’m sitting)

Syed the Story Dude

Syed, Victoria, & Junior @ ORCH P 110-112 To the Honorable Judges and the Gonorrheable Bailiff, I bring you the case of the Cucking Cleric. My player's Indiana Jones inspired Knowledge Domain Cleric has forgone the campaign's temples and is instead pursuing a relationship with a succubus. He refuses to use any character abilities to support his allies, instead opting to swing an axe with which he is not proficient to impress the NPC with his combat prowess. He cheekily will not tell the party if he has stocked revivify and in the past 30 sessions, he has healed an ally only once. Since revealing her villainous allegiances, I have kept the NPC at bay from the party both in hopes of giving the cleric time to grow but also in fear he will betray the party the first chance he gets for just one smooch. Am I wrong to be concerned for this holy libido or should my succubus continue negging his ass? I humbly prostate myself before your loins

Connor Bartholomew

From Connor (and her sister, Memes), somewhere in the middle of the mid-balcony, To the most prodigious justices and also existing bailiff: I present the case of my railroading PC. I run a game with my sister and our good friend Steph. Steph is constantly going very grimdark and doing things that seem to almost purposefully screw up things—which would be fine, except in such a small group, these almost always impact my sister, too. I get lengthy messages and emails from her about her character—and not just background, but future arcs or changing plot points that have already been established! I feel like she not only forgets she’s NOT the DM, but also that there’s an entire other player who wants some story beats for her own PC that don’t really line up with this angst ridden story Steph keeps trying to create. Additionally, every consequence I throw at her to keep both PCs in the same game seems to bounce right off. Some of this is great—I love that she’ll roll with anything!—but it still often feels like she’s writing a novel instead of playing one part in a collaborative game. In short: there’s a lot of talk about DMs railroading their players—but what do you do with a player who’s railroading the DM?

Jason Rodriguez

To the hands of the esteemed justices and the Sweet Blue Hailiff Bake. I bring forward the case of the "not at full potential" final session. I played a dragonborn acrobat rogue, echo knight multiclass at level 20 for the final session of a homebrew campaign, (class levels not important). Weeks before, the DM gave me a homebrew ability that let my echo be a large platinum dragon. My pc was corrupted at one point as well as his echo. It would turn on the party if I couldn't control it and it was more powerful corrupted. The corruption was flushed form my pc's body eventually, but when he tried to summon his echo dragon, it didn't work, meaning the rest of his subclass features were not usable. Long story short, I didn't go into the final battle at full power, despite rolling 7 nat 20s in total, I felt like I could have done more. Was the DM right to take away my abilities, or am I just being a butt hurt player who got what he was deserved?

Erika Lee

To the most honorable Judges and beneficent Bailiff, I seek justice for a murder most heinous- unintentional player v. player homicide. Several years ago, I was playing as a wizard in my very first campaign, with all new players and a slightly more seasoned DM. During our third session, the party was tasked with slaying a giant sewer snake that was terrorizing a nearby village. While the encounter started off well, it quickly became apparent that the snake was beefier than anticipated and we were in real danger of a TPK. Despite our cleric’s valiant attempts to keep everyone alive, she went down after only a few rounds of combat and had rolled one failed death saving throw. Hearing the DM’s hints that the snake was close to death and wanting to end the encounter quickly, I cast Ray of Frost in a last ditch attempt to avoid the dreaded TPK. I rolled a nat one. The table then listened in horror as the DM described my Ray of Frost missing the snake entirely, and instead hitting the nearby downed cleric, killing her with no chance for further saving throws. I tried to argue my case that critical failures in combat shouldn’t have such dire consequences on innocent party members, but the DM insisted that a critical failure could impact the entire party, not just the person who rolled it. The campaign dissolved shortly thereafter, but the question still haunts me: should my critical failure have had such critical consequences on other party members? I lay myself before the mercy of the court and await your judgement. -Erika (center row AA)

Lauren

Seats: Balcony, Left Side Dear Supreme Crit Justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner, and that guy they found protesting school cafeterias in front of congress last week, I bring to y’all the case of the owl caught mage-handed. My friends and I have been playing a campaign for the past year (our one-year anniversary is actually this week!). During a recent fight, the party was competing in a Feywild competition to secure a magical coin that could fly around (a la a golden snitch) in order to win a seat at the Unseelie Queen’s table. One of the players in our party is a sorcerer, who cast mage hand on the coin and won a contested check against the coin to keep it held in place. On the opposing team was an NPC transmuter wizard, who I had cast polymorph on the sorcerer; she failed her save and she turned into an owl. “Great, so mage hand drops,” I said with the confidence of a GM who does not realize that mage hand isn’t concentration. “Mage hand isn’t concentration,” the sorcerer said with the confidence of a player who does. We went to the books like good little d&d players and it turns out that mage hand, in fact, doesn’t require concentration. The hand just stays for the duration of the spell (1 minute) and you can use your action to manipulate an object, which I had counted as making those contested checks to keep the coin held in place. I argued that even if a polymorphed owl could keep mage hand up, it certainly can’t control it (it’s got an intelligence of 2 and, with a charisma of 7, it can’t even be a sorcerer). As such, the coin would be able to escape. My players graciously let the NPC redo his turn (in their words, he would know better than me), and he still ended up getting his ass kicked, but I ask the court: Can an owl manipulate a mage hand, or would my player have lost control of the mage hand and let the coin slip out of her grasp?

Jason Rodriguez

As a note, on what happened during the final fight, I got one chance to summon my echo again. When I did, my character became an ancient platinum dragon as part of his backstory. I didn't know if this was a good replacement, but I only did it once we were close to finishing combat and I was below half hp. If this information is useful and changes the verdict, I'd be okay with this case being sent to the lower courts.

Sabrina

[NSFW] May it please the court and the beautiful bailiff: I present the case of the cleric who fucked Strahd. A while ago, I joined a Curse of Strahd campaign with some friends from a Discord server. The DM was our friend’s wife, who none of us really knew outside of the game. Things went okay at first—there were some mismatched play styles and the logistical challenges that come with having lots of new players, but we dutifully played every week for nearly a year. Our game came to a screeching halt once the party was invited to Strahd’s castle. When the session ended, the DM and her wife, our party’s damphir death cleric, opened a private channel in the Discord server wherein they roleplayed the cleric being seduced by Strahd. We all protested this, saying that important plot developments shouldn’t happen outside of game sessions, we should all be aware of huge moments like that, and also, what the fuck guys. Eventually the DM consented to retcon the scene and pretend like it never happened, but the damage had been done. None of us wanted to witness our DM and her wife doing ERP. I quit the game soon afterward, and three of the other players almost immediately followed. To this day, the cleric and our DM refuse to speak to any of us. Our friendship has been totally ruined. They said we ruined the game and betrayed them by mass-quitting. I say they ruined the game by canonizing Strahd fanfic in the discord server. Is there any way we could have salvaged our game? Was our DM valid for using the BBEG to seduce her wife’s character? My dear crit, I await your judgement.

Gabagooblin

(Will be attending somewhere in the mezzanine!) To the Venerable Justices of the Critstrict, I humbly present the case of the Noxious Fart. A few years ago, I was DMing a one-shot for my older sister and our friends while home for the hoglidays. When the players took a long rest, I asked them what their morning camp routine looked like. My sister narrated that her character, a gnome named Gnart, was awoken by the sound of our friend's character cutting the cheese so loudly that it jolted everyone from a deep slumber. Our friend indignantly protested that their sexy tiefling, Chad, would never do such a thing. Torn between sororal loyalty and the bonds of friendship, I did the only thing I could in such a situation and told my sister I'd allow the fart if she agreed to take 1d4 poison damage from the noxious fumes. She agreed and eventually the session moved on, but it is nearly five years later and this joke still haunts our group whenever dnd is brought up. This year I DMed a Jersey-themed adventure where the characters had to fight a gubernatorial ogre to return the Sacred Beach Ball to the Wildwood boardwalk. My friend almost didn't join for fear of more flatulent foolishness! Justices, was I right to honor my sisterly bond or should I have preserved my friend's dignity? I lay myself at the mercy of the court.

dani

Dear honorable justices and that one funny guy that y’all should have guest on 8-bit bookclub (I bet he’d be great!) I bring you the case of my HRT (hormone replacement therapy) vs my friend who is sitting right next to me. I’m trans nonbinary and basically going through a female puberty at the age of 24. I was playing as an emo grave cleric, and our party found a magical whistle. Our artificer cast identify on it, learning it was able to cast Raise Dead. Instantly, I was very excited, because the artificer had already gotten a magic item in this mini campaign so I assumed he would give the whistle to me, the one character who it thematically fit perfectly with. So imagine my shock when he said “I put it in my pack,” and refused to explain what it did in character, so we moved on. I promptly cried in the bathroom and was moody the rest of the session. So, who is at fault here? My friend? Or me for being a babybitch? Happy belated hoglidays! Dani (ORCH, Row L)

Drenched in Syrup

Liam somewhere in row ORCH row D Dear Honorable Justices and the little baby boy Jorb May it please the court. I present you the case of the auto gnome Trojan horse. I the DM was approached by one of my players outside of the session who presented me with the idea that they wanted their character (Taco Bell McDonald) an auto gnome gloom stalker ranger assassin to permanently live inside of the Bag of Holding because they did not need air. Additionally this would provide permanent advantage and safety due to them being inside of the bag. I argued that this is not allowed under any circumstances and my player called me a “dirty little freak” I ask you honorable judges was I too harsh in this judgment? Should I let the robot assassin get away with living inside a bag?

Tessa R.

From Tessa (sitting in the front left of the balcony!) To the esteemed Justices of the Court and the slightly less esteemed bailiff: My fiancé (then boyfriend) and I used to play in a mini-campaign with another couple at their apartment. While playing, the tiefling warlock would, at least once or twice per session, step out into the hallway with my fiancé (the DM) to run secret solo scenes. Her boyfriend and I didn't mind too much and would just chill and chat until they came back. After the campaign wrapped, we found out that during these scenes, the warlock had been soliciting NPCs for sex in order to make extra gold and keeping it a secret both in and out of game. I humbly ask the Court: Is it just me or is this unhinged behavior? P.S. While my fiancé and I are now happily engaged, the other couple has since dramatically broken up.

Katherine Kelley

Hello, illustrious Crit Justices and Baby Bailiff Jake! Me (Katherine) and my mom (Trisha) are sitting in Row P! I present the case of the poorly described death trap. The first time I played D&D was an old-school game with my mom and her friends. Our party was trying to gain access to a house in the middle of a strangely quiet forest devoid of living creatures. A lock on the front door had a cryptic engraving that the party took 2 hours debating about. I figured out the clues on the lock meant that we were supposed to check a side of the house, and because I was much more impulsive than my experienced party members, my fighter split from the party. There, the DM described another door with “a key” on the top. I was excited thinking that I had solved the puzzle that had stumped the veteran players, so I said: “Okay! I grab the key!” Then came the dreaded DM “Are you sure?” The entire table was immediately wincing, but I was confused about why it was inadvisable, so I said I was sure. My DM then described my character touching the “engraving” above the door frame, causing me to barely avoid losing my mind after rolling a critical success on my wisdom save. I’m glad I passed and didn’t lose my character on my first session, but I was annoyed by the discrepancy in how it was described. I wouldn’t have touched it if I knew it was an engraving instead of a physical key, as was described, but my DM was unapologetic. Ultimately, we figured out the puzzle and had a really fun session, but I’ve always been a bit salty about this situation. I throw myself in front of the wisdom of the court.

Myles Blair

Good evening to the Justices with freshly steamed robes and the noticeably wrinkled bailiff. My name is Myles, sitting in Middle Balcony row BB, and Tonight I beseech you to hear the case of the Left Behind NPC. I DM for a home game, and early on my players came across an NPC named Tristian, who worked retail. The party fell in love with him immediately and despite him being “just a guy” they took him on their adventure with him. What started as just a funny bit morphed into Tristian having survived his body snatched, a false hydra and a horse with a sword, all while being a level 9 fighter while the party is currently level 12. After realizing this sad boy will be around until the end of the campaign I wanted to level him up in a natural way, ie a training arc that happens off screen. So while the party was escaping from a house fire the BBEG framed them for setting, Tristian was saving the Barbarians sickly sister from a house but sustained massive injuries, 5 levels of exhaustion. The party was advised to leave him behind, but they doubled back to wrestle him from the mob. After they rested there was an out of character debate for around 15 minutes where 3 out of 4 party members wanted to bring the brisket formally known as Tristian with them despite being told by friendly NPCs that they would care for him and make sure he heals up and rejoins them ASAP. They reluctantly agreed after I offered to have the Barbarians love interest fill Tristian’s spot (she’s on the same label as the party) but there I was still some Murph level grumbling form them. Humble justices, was I right to rip this NPC away from my players,even though I have plans of reintroducing him, better, faster, stronger? I humbly await your ruling and will accept any punishment if necessary

Damocles' Teaspoon

Magnanimous justices and min-animous bailiff, I bring to you the case of the Suggestible Shithead: I played in a wonderful campaign with a single ruling that still irks me. I was a half-orc blade-singer wizard in a world where orcs were considered fey and all things fey were viewed with suspicion. Our party was leading a small army on an expedition when several of our soldiers were found killed. As we tracked down the killer, we discovered it was another of our soldiers, one who was afflicted with lycanthropy (werewolfism, for the bailiff) which in this world was also considered fey. The lycanthrope had been bullied by her squad mates, leading to her wolf-side taking over and killing them, and she had fled, horrified, on coming to herself. When we were forced to fight the lycanthrope, the battle was quick but emotional, particularly for my wizard whose dream was to create a place where fey-touched beings could live without discrimination. In the end, my wizard dealt the final blow, which he dealt, weeping. In the midst of all of this heavy emotion, our current NPC companion, a young shithead knight with big frat-bro energy, started celebrating loudly, a la Rust after killing Heurog. As our party tried to explain to him the difference between someone who chooses to become a monster and someone who is magically compelled to act monstrously, he refused to see any reason to pity our vanquished foe. To illustrate, I asked if he had ever been compelled by magic to do something, then cast Suggestion, with the suggestion that he shit himself. Our DM stopped the scene to say that the spell did not work, because shitting himself was not a “reasonable” suggestion, as per the wording of the spell. I contended that if you could suggest a knight give away his horse, the example offered in the spell’s description, that shitting in armor was at least as reasonable. The DM insisted and I didn’t argue further, but the ruling was disappointing, and I have never cast Suggestion since. I appeal to the court for closure: should Suggestion only compel actions that the target would do anyways, or should the shithead NPC have had shit-pants to boot?

Toxic Yobo

Greetings the loveable Jake and the three rats (I don’t know I haven’t caught up) I was playing a devotion oath Paladin and the party was hunting down a druid that was murdering the duped prince of coins(the children of the top merchants in town). Learning that the druids adopted mother was betrayed by the Kings of coin (the parents) the party decided to try and capture her alive. On the fateful session their was only two players out of five and not knowing how much hp the druid had I tried to do a non-lethal sneaky level two divine smite (not having any level one spell slots) The dm ruled that paladin divine smites couldn’t be non lethal and the amount of damage I dealt was the exact number to kill her, furthermore he said I broke my oath and I lost my paladin powers, just as a modified Wraith erupted from the druid which quickly striked down my normal guy. Was the risk trying to quickly take this druid alive before she started slinging spells at us justified or do I deserve to be a powerless hack like Jake? Additional notes, the druid super killed two people and was going for a third so she definitely wasn’t innocent, the dm even let the other player revive the druid with a cure wounds in order to help fight the overwhelming Wraith while I died and went to limbo.

Timothy J Hauser

Mid balcony row dd. To the esteemed justices and Jeff. I was playing in a spelljammer campaign as a light domain cleric. Early on my dm had crafted a challenge aimed at my cleric’s devotion to religion. It involved exploring an asteroid shaped like a gnome and climbing into what would be the gnome’s butt. Previous exploration and survival checks made the challenge seem too daunting and deviated from the main quest too much to be fruitful. Rather than risk the party I okayed bailing on the side quest. As retaliation my dm had my character lose his spells and eventually sent him into a coma. I spent the rest of the campaign playing npcs while my character stayed in a coma. Was I wrong to deviate from the challenge of the gnome’s butt? Or was my DM too overzealous and should he have relented in the punishment?

Emma

Quack! from row L! I present The Case of the Transporting Tarrasque Tummy May it please Emily, and only Emily. I come before you to ask: Where does a creature end and their stomach begin? I was the DM for a longtime group, and as part of the finale to a 4 year campaign, I threw a genetically engineered Tarrasque at them. Over the course of the battle, the Fighter was swallowed, and the Cleric’s solution was to cast Banishment on the Tarrasque. He claimed that the Tarrasque would vanish and leave the fighter behind, as the spell only targets one creature. I claimed that even though he was only targeting the Tarrasque, the contents of its stomach would go along, as they’re inside the banished creature regardless of his targeting. The whole table took sides and began arguing for the next 15 minutes. Things started to escalate, and the possibility of a flipped table was looking pretty likely. I finally put my foot down as DM and ruled that Banishment would send the Tarrasque AND its stomach contents. I ask, was I right? Should a banished creature lose the contents of its stomach when it’s transported? Or would who/whatever’s inside go along for the ride? What if it had eaten a sandwich beforehand, would that get left behind too? I await your honorable decision.

Clair Baker

To our esteemed Supreme Crit Justices and Baliff in all 50 states and District of Columbia Jeremy, I present the case of the Curbing of the Costello I am in an online game with a bunch of friends from High School that has been meeting on Roll20 for 10 years or so that meets at best once a month for about three hours. Our latest campaign is Call of Cthulu set in the 1920s where we are all playing investigators looking into the supernatural surrounding the Silk Road. At one point near the end of the session we were talking with a merchant contact to hire a guide for our next location. After money exchanged hands, he mentioned that his son "Hu" would be our guide when we travel in two days. I quickly asked in character, "So who's is going to be taking us to the next location?" in which a fellow player who was not in the scene immediately interjected, "No" I immediately let it go, and wished I had the opportunity to riff off of the GM even if it was only for 60 seconds or so. So I leave my judgment in your hands, should I let sleeping bits lie, or was I allowed to get down to the truth of who was going to be our guide. P.S The Son's full name was Mei Hu which would have lead to even more shenanigans. Clair Baker (she/her) and I'll be in the Center Orchestra up close in Row A

Peter Christy

Peter in Row N Dear esteemed Justices of the Supreme Crit and Schrodinger's Bailiff, who is simultaneously loved and reviled until observed. I would like to present the case of the cruelly cursed sword. My character was Merrick Schoolander, Model slash Actor slash Paladin of Sune, the Goddess of Beauty. In our campaign, my DM gave me the Sword of Gorian Dray, a normal greatsword that when activated became a +2 weapon but the wielder will look like a "hideous pustulated, disfigured piece of human meat." Also my charisma went down by 5. Later, after saving most of the Forgotten Realms pantheon from an assassination attempt, I was offered a boon. I asked for the curse to be removed, even offering to reduce it to a +1 weapon. My DM refused, but did improve the activation to a +3 weapon and made no changes to the charisma penalty. Pleading, beseeching, and begging has thus far fallen on the deaf ears of both Sune and my DM and my beautiful Merrick doesn't know what sin he has committed to be reduced to an ugly killing machine with a reduced spell casting modifier. Am I wrong to be miffed? Do you think the DM has more plans and I should be patient? Should I retire the Sword of Gorian Dray? Or do you support me in my quest of finding some way of removing this curse? I eagerly await your judgement.

Aurora Koch

Kellan in balcony row BB May it please the benevolent crit, mildly inconvenience the “bailiff” Jake. I present to the case of Omicron Vs. Free Will. Within a high magic military campaign I was a part of I played a lawful neutral warforged gunslinger named Omicron. As a part of the military theme, he was put in command of the other players due to my loyalty to following commands, based off my alignment. The group itself involved a lot of secrecy, and some of the players would talk in private with themselves and the DM. After an argument with the other players over the actions of the faction we followed, they decided to reprogram my warforged to change the alignment, without letting me know. At a point in which I assumed the group engineer was installing a microphone in my head so we could silently communicate, they reprogrammed my alignment instead. I obviously felt betrayed and I disagreed with it happening, but the DM allowed it, as I had to make a constitution saving throw for them to work on my head to stay powered on and I failed. I wanted him to have an arc to change, but it was done so quick and without my consent. The question I have is what follows: Can a warforged alignment be changed with tinkering in its head? I can see them as sentient beings, though them being created can imply it is possible. Thus, I leave myself to the justices mercy.

Catherine Meushaw

To the Honorable Supreme Crit Justices Murphy, Axford, and Tanner and the lowly (or lovely) Baliff Hurwitz, May it please the court.. I'm in a homebrew campaign with a group of friends and the DM made a decision that still has me struggling a year later. About 20 sessions in, our chaotic party was exploring and explicitly ignored the DM's instructions not to use magic (forgive us Dice Christ for we have sinned). We managed to save ourselves, but the DM introduced a time loop, sending us back to the beginning (with most of the knowledge, levels, and items we had before). On our second reset (we were experimenting to see if us all dying would reset again), the DM had us make wisdom saving throws and three of us failed. Those of us who failed got a message from the DM instructing us to change something about our character (Subclass, class, race, backstory). I made it work but being forced to make a change to a carefully thought out character still rubs me the wrong way. Especially since we weren't told of the possibility of such a thing happening. Was the DM in the right or should I have pushed back more? I still don't like what ended up happening with my character. I await your judgement. - Catherine (I will be in middle balcony around row ff

Samantha Mayo

From somewhere in Orchestra D: Dear Commander-in-Crit Axford, First Husband Murph, Attorney General Tanner, and lowly but appreciated Hill intern, Jake, I humbly request your official vibe ruling. There is one guy in my online group that I can’t figure out if I’m being dramatic or if this is a bad vibe. He tends to drink every session and makes some poor choices in the game. I love a lil drink with dnd when the vibe is right but no one drinks during this game. Without fail, even if we’ve all worked toward a game plan to sneak around, he will come in eldrich blasting and screw it up and all but says its what his character would do. More than once, he’s messaged the group the next day asking for a recap on what happened because he doesn’t exactly remember because he was drinking. Also, he is notorious for interrupting our DM to redescribe scenes how he think they should look instead of how the DM described. Then, he recently tried to call out the rest of the group for meta-gaming. Specifically, he’s a warlock and he had gotten extra shifty recently. He had cast command on another party member (who has made a point in-game to talk about he hates being under magical influence from his backstory) to give something we had just won to him which started a huge fight amongst the characters and then a full investigation as the rest of the party thought he was possessed. He eventually stormed off into town and ended up murdering a family of 5 because they wouldn’t let the strange warlock on the street stay with them. He burnt the house down and left without taking anything before returning to the party the next morning like nothing had happened. When any of the other characters tried to follow up, the player got mad and eventually called us all out on meta-gaming and said to not look into other character’s backstories so much even though he was not being discrete at all and brought up his batman origins all the time. We all just ended up saying okay and backing off but it still just sat weird with me. Especially after the whole murder thing because this man teaches music to babies and toddlers in real life. So, I humbly submit this case and ask am I the asshole or is this guy a bad vibe?

Bryant

Bryant in mid-balcony row EE Most esteemed Justices of the Supreme Crit and whomever else it may concern, I come before you on this bitterly cold night to seek the warm embrace of justice. A group of internet strangers came together to adventure and for several sessions everything seemed fine, with one exception. Like clockwork about 45 minutes into our 3-hour session the DM would take a quick break to microwave his snack. Said snack was salmon. It was ALWAYS salmon. After a few sessions of dealing with this fishy fog, the player whose house we were playing at suggested we order delivery instead. The dm didn’t have any cash, so a player offered to cover him. In gratitude, the DM gave that player’s character a point of inspiration. Thus began the downward spiral. The DM started giving in-game boons in exchange for real-life resources. Buy him onion rings? You get inspiration. Buy him a source book? Enjoy the permanent feat granted to your character by a passing crone. Things got wild. Eventually one player mentioned at the start of a session that she wasn’t comfortable with the pay-for play nature that had taken over the table. The DM countered that it was only right for him to be compensated for the work he put into running the game and the conversation ended at an impasse. A few minutes into gameplay a group of high-level assassins appeared during our long rest and killed the complaining player’s character, and she spent the rest of the session on the sidelines. That was our final session. I ask you, O arbiters of justice (and anyone else who may read this), was the DM as wrong as I think he was? What is a player to do?

Ford

Ford in Row O! To the esteemed judges and also Bailiff Jeek: Please help us decide the case of the exhausting deaths! Our DM has a homebrew rule where every time a player is downed in a fight they suffer a level of exhaustion, even if revived immediately. These levels of exhaustion stack as well - get knocked back down after being brought back by a healing word? Now you have 2 levels of exhaustion. Our DM does not frequently give us long rests, so players may have to play much of a session (or even two or more!) while under the effects of exhaustion. This rule makes us afraid to commit to combat, because we are worried about how exhaustion essentially neuters your ability to interact with the game in many respects. We have asked the DM to consider relaxing this rule a bit, and proposed some compromises, but were turned down. Is our DM in the wrong for making us so tired, or are we being whiny little babies?

Colin Keele

I bought a ticket to this show on accident. If someone wants it it’s available. I’d need an email to transfer it to you though

Dalton Cahill

To the Supreme Crit Justices and their lowly lowly lowly ... lowly lowly Balif Jake From Dalton Dorky Delaware Dad, and Ray. The Case of Humberto's Humiliation. Some time ago in our Wildmount campaign a Character Humberto died at the hands of a Revenant. The Revenant cited the crimes of Humberto who had killed him disgracefully and caused the spirit to manifest. It appeared quickly in an ambush after a pivotal battle in our campaign where our level 4 characters were low on everything and did double damage specifically to Humberto. The Revenant killed humberto (permanently) then proceeded to dissappear its revenge Fullfilled. Ray later revealed his character Humberto had challenged the NPC that would become the revenant to a duel (one night when only the DM and Ray were available so they had a solo session) while the party slept they fought on the outskirts of town and Humberto prevailed. He then buried the NPC with His sword and shield as a grave marker to give him a "warriors death" in what he thought was a respectful way. Was a Revenant warranted when he fought a fair duel and gave the NPC a warriors burial or did Ray need to learn a lesson on the repercussion of the murder hobo path. P.S. it's worth mentioning mistakes were made during the fight. Directly before the Revenant finished Humberto off our Cleric, who was drunk in real life, said "I'll heal you next round I'm going to attack the Spirit with an axe first."

Michael Huff

Mike Huff, Balcony Stage Left Dear most festooned and regalia-ed Supreme Crit Justices, If it may please the Crit, and vilify the Lowly Bailiff Hake Jurwitz: I present to you the Case of A Road to Hell vs. A Well Intentioned One Shot. One of my office mates at work and I both DM for our respective friend groups, and enjoy discussing DND when we have downtime during the day. He’s in a group with rotating DMs (being his turn at the time), and I’m usually a DM for two campaigns with my friends. I don’t often play as a PC and kindly invited me to a one shot he was running that weekend to play with some rookie roommates of his. The start of the evening was awesome, I was a Dwarf cleric, and played dumb as everyone worked their way through the story and got acquainted with the rules, trying to help the other players when the they were shorting themselves damage on their attacks, going way off the rails on puzzles, etc… it was a pleasant experience until the BBEG. The party was riding a high off solving a hard door puzzle, but things got pretty somber when the DMs homebrewed Oathbreaking baddy started thwomping the party. As one of the rookies was rolling death saves, I decided to use a bit more Pizzaz on my attacks. I didn’t know the BBEGs AC or HP, and decided to do a chunk of damage that may let everyone else take her down in a round or two: little did I know that she was a glass cannon. I took her down with a couple of hits and did more than double her HP in damage, ending the fight there and skipping the dying redemption scene the DM had planned for his Oathbreaker. Everyone was quiet for a while and all the rookies seemed confused as to why I hadn’t been dealing that much damage the whole time. Everyone seemed fine with it after a couple more drinks, and my coworker told me this outcome was better than a TPK, but I still feel bent up about the whole thing. So Justices, I ask: in trying to sandbag myself to make the event more even keeled for new players, did I accidentally do the opposite? When playing with people of differing experience levels, should I try to restrain myself, or leave the level matching to the DM? I humbly await your decision. PS: Coincidently I was invited to another One Shot with this group this weekend, plz help

Andrew Burgess

To the Extreme Supreme Crit Justices and thier former astronaut accountant Ace I bring you the case of the bonus scroll. During a boss fight, the bad guy cleric was grappled by our warlock. On deaths door on his turn he suddenly vanished. Our DM said he used a time stop scroll and escaped. We argued that time stop breaks if he uses his action to break the grapple. We all agree to rewind and let the dm attempt to break the grapple. Our warlock rolls a nat 1. The bad guy escapes using the scroll but I wondered.... can you use a spell scroll as a bonus action? I stayed quiet as to not rule pound on my DM but now I have a chance to razz him in the high court. Was he wrong? From Dante the Trash Satyr

Kelsey W

Kelsey in Row HH, mid balcony To the Jaunty Justices and the Boss Baby Bailiff, I present to you the case of the Guest PC Assassination Atempt. May it please the court. A few years ago, my DM invited a stranger to guest in a session. We were hunting a hag coven, and the guest PC made a Wizard reskinned as a Hag who was trying to get revenge on the hag that stole her boyfriend and said things like "children are my favorite food". The session ended with the defeat of the hag coven. At the top of the next session, after the guest player had left, the first thing I did was attack and try to kill the now-NPC hag with my purposefully saved warlock spell slot. My DM said I couldn't get the spell off, instead narrating that she teleported away. We didn't have 7th level spells, and a somewhat prolonged argument ensued. She became a minor villain and had a very satisfying death, but the incident left me questioning the fairness of my DM in resolving conflicts. Was I wrong for wanting to kill this guest's character enough to argue with my DM? Or was my DM wrong for not letting the dice decide? (Note for context: This was an overall awesome, years long level 3-20 campaign. I ended up making a new character more aligned with the DM's narrative, which solved a lot of problems.)

Ian

Meghan in Row D Center Orchestra. Are lungs an open container ? I say no. In the first combat of a campaign I was running, one of my players who was a first level druid had stocked Create and Destroy Water and really wanted to use it. She asked me if lungs were an open container she could spawn water in to drown the goblins they were fighting. I said no. She disagreed and said that if someone was breathing the lungs would be open. I said no fucking way would that work. And she took a different action but still brings it up saying she was in the right and was being creative with her spells.

Charles

Charles: Left Orch, Row P. To the most resplendent reverends of our lord who sits upon the Saving Thrown, I submit a confession of shame and woe. For this transgression was not against Dice Christ themselves, no. This is a sin against you, the Cardinals of Crit. So yeah, last time y’all came to DC I was so excited I got two tickets as close to the front I could reasonably afford. For the show I brought my wife, who (although not exactly into DnD) is always very supportive of my goofy interests. Cut to 15 mins into the show, I look over to see if she is enjoying her time only to find her sound asleep. To which I thought “that’s too bad” before accidentally falling asleep myself. I should probably mention here that a few months prior we had our first kid. So this was our first official date that didn’t end by 7 PM. Anyway I hope you can forgive two tired and weary parents and take no offense to what I knew to be an awesome show (when I was awake). I’ll take whatever penance is due.

Rob S

Rob, Orchestra Row Y - To the CrunchWrap Supreme Crit and the Burrito Loco Bailiff, I present to you the Case of the Inconvenient Zone of Truth. After vanquishing cultists of Tiamat, my rogue, a small-time document forger, invited the party back to his humble abode in Baldur's Gate to crash for some well-deserved R&R. I agreed to hide a valuable artifact in my secret cache under a floorboard, which a perceptive member of the party saw contained (among other things) several poems and an unfinished play. When my rogue tried to deny he had written them, the paladin cast Zone of Truth on him. I countered by saying that since he was wearing a Ring of Mind Shielding, he was immune to magic allowing others to know whether he was lying. Our DM ruled that Zone of Truth took precedence, and after a failed Charisma save, the razz-fest began. Years have passed, and my rogue can no longer lie for Avernus spoiler-related reasons, but was I right in my argument that the ring should have negated the need to roll a save and spared exposing my rogue's mediocre attempts at poetry, or was the DM right in dropping the beat and letting the party back that razz up? I throw myself on the wisdom and mercy of the Crit.

Katie Wilde

This made me wheeze thrice. So glad this is the way the court takes submissions - I fucking love reading them all. I hope this gets picked so I can hear the punishment

Brian P.

To the Honorable Supreme Crit Justices Murphy, Axford, and Tanner, and their plucky animal sidekick Furwitz, I bring to you the case of the Druid That Almost Stole Christmas. While journeying through the winter lands of the Feywild, my players rolled a nat 20 on their random encounter check. Naturally, this meant that they stumbled upon the North Pole and Santa's workshop. While being shown around by holiday gnomes, one member of our party, a dwarven druid, decided to sneak away and try to find the Big Guy himself, which was against the workshop tour rules and was explicitly forbidden. Through a combination of wildshape and Pass Without Trace, the druid made his way stealthily through the workshop until he stumbled on the hangar for Santa's spelljammer sleigh and the massive Bag of Holding used to carry presents for all the good little girls and boys of the multiverse. The druid then tried to take a present from Santa's bag, which caused alarms to go off and guard gnomes to try and hunt down the thief. He was eventually caught and returned to the group, with no consequences except that he had missed the entire workshop tour, and therefore didn't receive a free gift like the rest of the party. While everyone had a great time and thoroughly enjoyed this festive random encounter, the druid seemed just a little peeved that his hijinks led to him missing out on receiving a souvenir from the North Pole. So I ask: was I right to play out the druid's attempted Santa search and gift grab according to reasonable North Pole security protocols? Or should I have overlooked his Naughty List status and found a way to reward him just the same as the rest of the party, despite his Grinchy actions? I lay myself humbly, and festively, at the mercy of the court. Brian P., Orchestra, Row L.

Miranda Chabot

Miranda, Midbalcony (Row EE) To the actual highest court in the land, I'm here representing my party’s druid - and though I’m not technically the one on trial, I fear I created this situation by making a joke at the table. We play as the crew of a riverboat. Our DM is very old school (think 2E) and adds a lot of homebrew mechanics, including a custom encounter table. Whenever we enter a town or keep watch overnight, we roll percentile dice which he cross references to determine how rare the situation will be. One session, we docked near a caravan and rolled for encounter. The rolls were low, so our druid saw a baby bear in a cage. Naturally, she broke him out and smuggled him back to the boat. After she named him (Spike), our DM congratulated her for getting an animal companion and said he’d get a stat sheet for him. Later, we rolled a nighttime encounter. This time, the rolls were high. While the DM checked his table, I joked that a mama bear was about to wander into town. To my surprise, he looked up and immediately described exactly that - and made it clear that she was searching for a cub. By this point we were way too emotionally attached to Spike, so our druid hid the him and tried to gently encourage the bear to leave. After a full hour of moral turmoil and failed attempts to persuade mama bear, the DM narrated a pack of dogs chasing the bear away. Spike is still a member of the party, but are we within our rights to sue for emotional damages? Am I at fault for joking in the first place? Or should we chalk it all up to the whims of homebrew Dice Christ? Also, hey Jake! You look different in person.

Casey

Casey, 2nd row of the pit (those ticket prices last minute are *real* nice), to the clever-way-to-refer-to-y’all-so-that-you’re-more-likely-to-rule-on-this Full disclosure, this was 8 years ago, and seemingly open and shut…but we’re petty and want further ruling hopefully affirming that a toxic player indeed was just being obnoxious. So, my first (and, to date, best and longest) campaign, there was our DM and his buddy, who were the only two experienced players, and about 5 or 6 of us who were basically brand new to D&D. The DM was really great to all of us newbies. *very* helpful, patient, made sure we had a great time and understood what was going on. His buddy, while certainly generally helpful, would get a bit annoyed anytime he felt the DM was letting something slide for the rest of us, and was a toxic player/person in other ways. So, we got to pretty high levels, and got prestige classes (this was 3.5). The DM’s buddy ended up, somehow or other, becoming quite a powerful lich. At one point we went up against a number of vampires, and we were *strugglin*. Finally, my partner, who was a cleric, decided she needed to turn undead, in spite of the fact that our lich was going to be in the line of fire. It turned out to be the right move, and the battle was soon over. DM’s buddy got super whiny about how my partner didn’t have any consequences for attacking a party member, *even though* not only did we figure out that there was no way for her to do enough damage to him to kill him, but EVEN IF IT DID, he would end up respawning anyway. The rest of the session went well enough, but he was still salty about it and apparently kept complaining to the DM outside of the session. The DM let him know that not only did she make a smart decision in terms of game play generally, but that she absolutely played her character correctly in turning undead in spite of the collateral damage. What say you?

Charlie Brown’s Best Friend

Matt in Orchestra row G To the highest court and thick-cocked bailiff. I play a rune knight goliath who has the cloud rune. During a battle my sorcerer friend casted a fireball spell towards an enemy that I happened to be unfortunately near. Via the cloud rune description, when I am hit by an attack I can see within 30 feet of me, I can direct the attack towards another creature within 30 feet of me. I argued that I could target the AOE spell that hit me towards the enemy, effectively doubling the fireball damage. The dm ruled this was "broken" and I ended up taking the fireball damage, but am still curious if redirecting an AOE spell towards an enemy could double the spells damage. Love my dm, this is just out of curiosity but if you punish him I understand and will enforce

Toast

Alex in orchestra row E To the Supreme Crit and the bailiff in that ugly ass shirt. I present to you the case of the secret time stop. I was playing a crocodilian beast master named Stiv Erewin in a campaign that we did not take overly seriously but had a lot of fun in as it was most of the players first game. Our DM had been playing for a few years so whatever he said we generally accepted. The campaign went on for about 15 months and we ended up fighting the BBG in his lair as one does. As the obligatory monolog happened the DM checked his phone and kicked out all players except 2. After waiting an hour in a separate room we were allowed back in. Turns out one player cast Time Stop and allowed another player to move freely with him. While the other 3 of us waited all that time, these 2 defeated the BBG and ended the campaign. He told us because we didn't have the spell we weren't privy to what was going on during it and we immediately claimed bullshit but backed down because he was a more experienced player. To top it all off we discovered he was having mini sessions with those 2 players on their own and min maxing them. Did we have the right to be pissy or was he correct in that we wouldn't have known what was going on during the time stop? I gently piss my pants at the mercy of the court.

Phill Pearson

Demi in Orchestra Row C To the Supreme Crit as well as the bailiff Jimmy John and his surprisingly successful sandwich chain. I present to you the case of Blue Rat. Last Critmas I ran a 4-shot based on the first arc of campaign 3 for my sister, my girlfriend, and my good friend (who was playing for his first time). Just like in C3 episode 1, they encountered a team of rat-folk rogues trying to steal a shipment. in the heat of roleplay and doing my best "Murph little rat guy" impression, I ended up giving the rats likable personalities and nuanced family dynamics. Naturally, my players fell in love with the rat-folk team especially one affectionately named Blue Rat (because the die I used to mark him on the map was a blue d10). When Mothership came to clean up the crime scene and take the rats to jail, my players vowed to free them from the obviously shady corporation. This was great because it gave us a fun side quest before breaking into mothership but it is also why I write to you. My new player had so much fun he recommended that his wife join our game. I'm happy to have her but the issue is that he (and all of my players) insist that she join AS BLUE RAT... the NPC. They will not take no for an answer and have devolved to sending me voice notes with her "Blue Rat audition tapes" where she does an impression of me doing an impression of Murph doing his little rat voice. I've told her repeatedly she could play another rat-folk, or even another member of the rat family we had yet to meet but she just says "I am Blue Rat". I ask you, do I deserve to play my NPC through to the finish or does Blue Rat belong to the people now? I readily await your judgment.

Olliever Susie

Carolyn row AA To the angelic justices and the beaudatious bailiff, I come to the court with a philosophical dilemma. I am a note taker for several games I am in. 3 of my storytellers stopped taking notes all together when I joined their games differing to "The Notebook" because i always matched theirs. One however continues to take notes which is his process. No shade on his process. But here is the issue his notes are often different than mine, particularly when he's had a few drinks. As a player I find my self saying "wait i thought xyz" and have rolled with it. But the inconsistencies make it hard to engage in the game. I would appreciate the courts perspective. Thank you

Nathan Robino

Nathan in Row CC To the aptly located supreme Crit justices and lowly bailiff Jersey Mike, I bring to you a case of a campaign turned one-shot. I started a new job roughly 6 months ago, and a group of my new coworkers (freshly out of college) learned we all liked DnD and planned to start a campaign. A few days after our successful first session in early December, our DM sent a mysterious discord message saying that one of our players would no longer be joining us and kicked her out of the server. I soon learned that the DM and player had been secretly dating for the past few months and had just broken up, causing both real office drama and our campaign to be put on hold. A couple weeks later, the group was planning our to finally hold our second session, all other parties settled on Thursday, January 18th. Only after I told them I couldn’t attend because I would be here tonight in DC, the DM decided to cancel the campaign indefinitely, citing that DnD “wasn’t bringing him joy like it used to.” Who is at fault for this failure to launch? My NADPOD fandom, or my heartbroken DM? P.S. This is my fourth “campaign” that has only lasted one session.

JazzyRushesIn

Julia- Orchestra Row H Esteemed justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner and also Jake whose current status I will allow to be set by the mood of the court— may it please the court! I present to you the case of the giant squid in handcuffs. Our party was enjoying a leisurely day in our home city when our Druid, fully unprovoked, decided to wild shape into a giant squid in the middle of a crowded street of a relatively low-magic setting. The citizens in our city were understandably alarmed by the sudden appearance of said giant squid and many screamed and ran away. This led to our party being approached by city guards and having to use political connections to avoid being arrested. Our druid was upset to be faced with the consequences of her actions and argued that people know magic exists and shouldn’t have freaked out at the appearance of a giant squid in the middle of town. Justices— it has been over three years and our Druid still sometimes brings this up whenever the DM is looking for feedback, as she feels punished for doing a bit, and wants to be allowed to goof more without fear of consequences. Was our DM right for maintaining that a giant squid suddenly appearing in the middle of a city street would cause alarm, or was this the death of comedy? Moreover, how long is this situation allowed to be brought up and rehashed before we ban the topic entirely? I leave this to your wise and careful consideration.

The Broox

Sup fam. I am the DM to a large group, eight, of mostly first time players. I had a player reach out and express to me that given the impending birth of his daughter he would need to pull out of our game with no warning, effective immediately. I get it. I made an in-universe reason to "write" him out of the campaign, his PC got captured and taken to Hell. Rather than kill him I captured him so that he could potentially return as a PC or I could spin him into an NPC enemy down the line. I intentionally left things open ended. Good thing I did because a number of months later (IRL time) he reached out and we co-developed a plan for him to return for a few sessions and we could provide closure to his character; an arc that could end in a few different ways depending on how the dice fell but that would provide a satisfactory early send off for this character. His return was also kept a secret from the other players so it was a big deal. Everything was going swimmingly until what was supposed to be the final session of his "encore tour" when he swerved and rather than take any of the "outs" we had concocted he choose to stay with the party thus necessitated an on the fly re-write of the arc's ending for me. He later reached out and apologized and said that he had been having so much fun he wanted to continue playing full time and would prioritize it. I was surprised but very happy to welcome my friend back to the game permanently. That was the last session he joined for. He never made time for our game and I again had to concoct a way to gracefully remove his character from the narrative. Am I wrong to feel put out by this player after having to rework things thrice due to his (un)availability? OR is that just reality of playing D&D as an adult and I need to move on?

Courtney F.

Confession from Row G: Bless me Dice Disciples for I have sinned. It has been 20 tepidly tormented years since the events of this confession. At the tender age of 15, I inadvertently ended a campaign when I quit because....well, essentially because my fighter wasn't cool enough. I can recall neither the rolls nor the reasons leading up to my leaving, but I remember the breaking point well: when MY strength check failed to save an ally teetering on the edge of a cliff but the FUCKING WIZARD pulled it off. I couldn't take the embarrassment. I left and the campaign ended. Dice Christ has walked beside me through these past 20 years when I have played any other class but a fighter. In my most recent campaign when we hit level 16, I - a full Life Cleric - briefly contemplated multiclassing into Fighter...and then the DM abruptly ended the campaign citing familial duties. Oh wise Disciples of Dice Christ herself, please, tell me, when will I have paid my dues for my 15 year old table flippin' 'tude? When do I get to be.. A super bad ass fighter in a D&D campaign?

Matthew Tripp

Esteemed justices, lowly bailiff and second most cherished parasocial friend group, I come for judgement today regarding the case of the playerless PC. I've been running a long-time campaign with three of my good friends. Two years ago, we had a fourth player who has since been 86'ed from the game. To rewind, our fourth player had been playing a PC, let's call her Amadán, who of course was a bard. I'm going to omit the accent on the alias from here on out but have fun running that through Google Translate. Amadan was the sibling of another PC and had an intense romance with one of my NPCs, to the extent that the player and I were handwriting each other letters in between sessions and making playlists for our character's romance. To no one's surprise whatsoever, said player and I ended up dating IRL and true to sapphic form, the relationship ended both dramatically and poorly. The rest of my players will back me up (testimony can be found in Appendix A) in saying I justifiably booted the player from the game. While IRL, I have moved on, I am turning myself in for potential mistreatment Amadan the playerless bard. Amadan was the sibling of another PC and had an important role plot-wise, so I had to do something about her to keep the plot running. At the time I was still smarting from the breakup but also am a lofty bitch and high-handedly decided not to kill her off, but instead said that she cravenly ran away from the party and its duties. Since then, Amadan has become a punchline (and is literally a verb for whenever someone engages in fuckboy behavior) and my players will ask for updates about what she's up to. I await your judgement on whether or not I have mistreated Amadan the bard and should have just killed her off once I knew that her player would not be returning to the table. Signed, Time cast a spell on you but you won't forget me APPENDIX A: "I'm literally only attending this show to see you vindicated. ***REDACTED**** could not come back to play because she would have been at risk of bodily harm from the rest of us."

Matthew Tripp

From Spurned and Ornery in Orchestra J

Sophie Buijsen

To the resplendent justices and that guy who hangs out with Amir sometimes, I present to you: the case of the unwanted uncle, coming from the midbalcony. I'm a player in a long running party (coming up to 5 years of weekly play!) and we started our second campaign last year. When we built our characters, our DM (my partner), encouraged us all to have a connection to at least 1 other member in the party. I play a tiefling rogue whose parents run a jazz bar, and another player, a kenku cleric, suggested he could be a regular at my parents bar and was a family friend. I agreed that this could be a nice connection. Fast forward to our first session. We all get opening scenes, and our cleric proceeds to have a whole scene in which he visits my character's dad in the bar, who then gives him the call to adventure: telling him to join the adventuring guild we're all joining, specifically to keep an eye out for my character. I did not know that this would happen and the DM fully assumed I had discussed this with the other player. I was a little taken aback by this move, and contacted the player afterwards saying I assumed their character had another more covert reason to be an adventurer, and they laughed it off. However the next few months of play this character spent the entire time belittling my character (who is meant to be in her mid-20s, so certainly not a child) and telling the other party members that 'she's always getting herself in trouble' and keeping me from taking action in order to 'protect' my character. The cleric character died a few months ago, but now my character arc is suddenly impacted by a deceased uncle she never asked for. Judges, am I right in feeling miffed that my cool tiefling rogue's style was cramped by suddenly adventuring with her uncle? Or was this an inspired move by my fellow player and I should've been glad to have an uncle figure in my fantasy life?

Daniel

Confession from Daniel C in Orchestra Row F: Dear divine Priest-Justices of the Supreme Crit Church and that guy Jake who seems pretty cool when he occasionally guests on NADDPOD, I write to you with a confession to unburden my heavy soul. My friends and I were playing in a short, horror-based campaign over Zoom, in which the DM warned us that PC death was a definite possibility and also encouraged tragic or sad backstories. I rolled up a 4th level, deeply traumatised elven gloomstalker ranger with the sharpshooter feat hoping that she might make it out of the adventure alive. Imagine my surprise when the combats (run out of a module that my DM adapted) were shockingly easy & our encounters were fairly survivable. It got to the point where my DM told us that she would have to beef up the encounters were she to run the module again for another group. Cut to a few months into the campaign, when I said, after taking my customary two attacks: 'and can I use my bonus action...', to which my DM responded that I couldn't use my bonus action because I'd already used it to take my second attack. It turns out that I had accidentally been taking twice as many attacks each turn because I was confusing it with a different build (Crossbow Expert instead of Sharpshooter) that I had rejected during character creation. I apologised profusely and started actually playing my character correctly. Cut again to a few sessions later, when my friend playing an eldritch knight also said: 'then for my second attack...' and we all asked how he had gotten a bonus action attack. Turns out, he had made the exact same mistake with his character sheet and not realised it when my own mistake had come to light. As a result, for the first third/half of this challenging horror campaign, both primary damage dealers had accidentally been taking twice as many attacks every single round. May Dice Christ and their priests have mercy on my soul and cleanse my sins in the light of the full moon. P.S. Gloomstalkers also get an extra attack on their first round of combat (that does an extra 1d8 damage), so I was taking 3 attacks for the first round. *If* all three attacks hit *with* the +10 sharpshooter damage bonus, I would've done 4d8+42 (avg. 60) piercing damage in my first round. At Level 4.

Matt mckenzie

To the new Resident Judges of Washington, DUNGEON COURT and...that guy. You know, the guy with the thing? Who does the stuff? Yeah that one. Anyways, I present to you the case of The Scaredy-Cat King. My now 2+ year campaign started with Fey terrorists attempting to blow up a ship with the King and his Mage Advisor on it. One of the players tried to warn the King; after he couldn't get the King's attention, he decided to SHOOT A FIRE BOLT AT THE KING. The Mage advisor put the player in a Force Cage, thinking he was an assassin. The player managed to Misty Step out of the Force Cage and convince the King he was under threat. Because of this, the Mage Advisor teleported himself and the King away. My player is still angry that the King didn't help, since the King's citizens were at risk. Working in government (of course I do), I know that first priority is to protect the Head of State. Who was right, and why was it me? -Matt McK (in the balcony, with the angry player)

Lewis Deisler

Cam & Lewis in row V To the bountifully resplendent justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner, and that guy Jake who may or may not be in good standing with the court at the time of this reading. I come to you with the case of "That's What My Character Would Do". At one point, my friends and I were between campaigns, so I offered to DM something silly until I had our next campaign prepared. Enter our problem player, let's call him Jake. He has always had his "quirks", and this time was no different. He informed me he wanted his character to be a Jedi from another universe, who somehow got transported to this plane of existence. I didn't care at first because this was supposed to be a fun session, but I did not know how badly I would regret this. After a few sessions, in the middle of a fight with multiple Owlbears, the party slew one and moved on to the other 2, who were now even enraged. When one of our players was about to deal a finishing blow on another Owlbear, Jake declared he was going to use his Protective Field ability as a Psi Warrior Fighter to shield the Owlbear, reducing the damage done by the player, therefore, making it no longer a killing blow. When we all looked at him like he was insane, he stated that his character was a Jedi, and would not harm the innocent Owlbears, even though he just participated in slaying an Owlbear on his previous turn. When the rest of the party turned on him, he simply responded with the classic "I'm just doing what my character would do". Later on in the dungeon, the party ran into a group of Perytons, and this time Jake asked to make an Animal Handling check to "tame" the final Peryton. I told him that not only was this an evil creature but they had just slain its friends and family, so this was going to be highly unlikely. When he failed his check, he told me that he was going to keep making checks until he rolled a Nat 20, and was not going to do anything else until then. The party left him in that room, and we ended up starting our next actual campaign a few weeks later. I throw myself at the mercy of the court, should I have straight up told him he couldn't do what he wanted to do, or been more creative with the outcomes of his actions? P.S. Mr. Hurwitz, you will always be a justice in my heart.

Nathaniel F

To the Tantalizingly Terrific Two Crew and.. those other terrible two, please hear the case of the greedy Canadian Master: On a quest to stop a mad goddess in the desolate Icewind Dale, 1.5 real life years ago, our Greedy Canadian DM presented us with a Simulacrum of a wizard who wanted to be a real boy, and an illusion made real machine that was sort of broken. The artificer and wizard examined it and determined solidly that it "might" work. To test it first, we made an illusion of a pile of platinum bars worth some stupid amount of gold. And rolled a 99 on a d100. The DM, who views handing out artifacts as normal DMing, but takes a decidedly Marxian view of gold pieces decided that the bars would degrade over time. In essence disappearing with a half life of 12 hours. By the time we got back to town we had barely 150k left. DM reminded us there was a pocket dimension style bank in town, so we went there. The teller offered to deposit the money for us, knowing it was fake, in order to pocket a commission. The idea was that we would be able to withdraw it later and the bank would simply make good. But just as we signed the paper work, the time devil who was in the Wizards Pocket Watch of Undead Protection jumped out, murdered the teller, and jumped into the interdimensional vault to cause mayhem. We later got word the devil was killed, but the bank is holding our money for arbitrary reasons, despite us having the IOU. This is but one of many greedy acts, and we humbly ask for your validation that this should not stand. Thank you. (We are all great friends and laugh about this stuff all the time. However, his greed continues to have no bounds and we must try and put a stop to his power hungry nature.)

Anne Marie Bullington

To the most honorable Supreme Crit Justices whose judgment I heed more than that court of justices down the street and lowly little baby bailiff James Bond. I present the case of the broken variant human and the antimatter rifle. A few years ago I was playing in what was going to be a short campaign through the Curse of Strahd (starting Level 3 for the Cursed House intro). I decided to make a human variant Fighter with Weapon Master and Gladiator background. In what was a possible bug, I was able to have one random weapon in my arsenal by choosing Gladiator. One such weapon choice was the Antimatter Rifle which deals 8d6 damage, far more than any other level three turn could. I spoke to my DM who said that given the other three players were first time D&Ders I could choose that weapon but would only be able to use it with a Nat 20 luck check and only three times throughout the full play through. A party saver if you will. Cut to the final boss battle in the intro Cursed House, two of the four players are rolling death saves including the party healer, I am at 2 or 3 HP and seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. In what should have been maybe the coolest moment of my D&D career, I rolled a Nat 20 on my luck check and was able to take down the final boss with mostly 5s and 6s on the damage dice. We healed up our two fallen party members and were set to continue at a later session. What an exciting moment for the party, right? Wrong, two of the other players got angry and claimed that the antimatter rifle did not fit my character or the vibe of our party. Truly they got so angry that they left the session saying that the rifle took them out of the fantasy aspects of the game and we never finished the mini-campaign. Was I wrong to have this antimatter rifle and use it in this moment, the DM is also wondering if she was wrong to allow me to have such an item? Or were the other players overreacting? I throw myself at your feet and await your judgment, from: Anne Marie in Orchestra Row N

LUCAS RODRIGUEZ

Dilemma from Lucas and Elianna (seats R120 and R121) To the esteemed and mighty justices and perma-intern Jim, We seek your advice in great earnest, for the issue at hand is quite grave. We recently joined a campaign that was just starting up. Unfortunately, we were not so easily accepted among a party of strangers. Although our DM is welcoming and helpful towards new players, there is one player in the party who is accustomed to being in control of the story and the center of attention as the DM of a separate campaign. He rarely has much patience for us as new players who are still learning the complexities of D&D and often makes us feel guilty or stupid when we role play in a way that is not entirely logical or what he had in mind. (Needless to say, he is not properly appreciative of goofs, which is a true crime in our book.) It is quite discouraging when he mocks our attempts to participate, even if his actions are not intentional. What ever can we do? How shall we proceed? We beseech you, please advise us on this dreadful matter, for it weighs heavily on our hearts. Awaiting your response with hopeful puppy eyes, Elianna and Lucas

Gweedo Skeptic

Mid balcony row bb. To the Exalted Supreme Crits and the Lowly Bailiff Rock Star🤘! I confess to have started a game of D&D or girlfriend and coworkers, however I hate DMing from a set story. I chose to do this becuse everyone is extremely new to D&D and I am new to DMing. But now I want to abandon it to do my own story. Is wrong to abondon the story? Or can I phase it in to a new story and allow the plays the change up characters if they want? I throw myself at the mercy of the court!

Izzy R

Ellie and Izzy on the upper balcony! Dear Supreme Crit Justices, and the lowly bailiff Joe Biden I have been playing a campaign with my dm which she’s been homebrewing for the last 3 years. She has a website for keeping the world’s information, but it is severely outdated since she’s in college. Most of the world’s lore and kingdom names are kept track of by us, the players. She is passionate about the world and the characters and describing everything so we (the players) tend to let it slide. However, there are a few problems. She has admitted that both the new and old world building is supplemented using Chat GPT. She says she uses it to come up with ideas and to fill out descriptions. I also feel that the DM is railroading, as she has told us she plays each encounter alone prior to each session (i.e: playing each PC and NPC in a mock battle) to make sure the outcome will push the story forward, going as far as to put 30+ enemies on screen to make sure we’re captured. She also tends to push certain NPCs for the characters to interact like interrupting conversations we made with not “favored” NPCs and pushing romances onto PCs, which I don’t think is normal for a dm to do. Should I bring up my concerns with my dm, or should I let it slide? I await your swift and terrible justice.

Anonymous

We won’t be at the live show but we will be at the Boston show tomorrow night. Last year, the church blessed the engagement of myself and my then-fiancé after we had gotten engaged and caught Caldwell’s d20 he’d thrown into the crowd after critting at the Boston live show in 2022. We got married on January 6th, two weeks ago. We rolled initiative on our vows and my wife rolled a 19. Crazily enough, I rolled a natural 20. We thought this was Dice Christ speaking out to us, further affirming the court’s blessing. We would love a shout out from the 2-crew as a wedding present from our favorite dungeon crawling crew. See you tomorrow! RJ & Meghan

Eat Your Art Veggies

This was the greatest show of my life. Thank you so much for coming to visit us in Washington, Dungeon Court before going on a touring hiatus. Your show has brought me so much joy and gotten me through some of the hardest years of my life. I'm eternally grateful to you for your creativity, humor, jubilance, and, how to put it, just being solid, great people? If you ever come back to DC, I'll be there to cheer (and voraciously boo, when appropriate)! Much love, and here's to what comes next!

Morrighen

Not a NADDPOD live show related question but if someone was going to one of the D20 liveshows in the UK, unfortunately not with a VIP ticket, is there a way to give Emily or Murph a gift at the show?