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Cases Please! (Patreon)

Published:
2024-02-16 16:53:53
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Greetings! Lowly lowly Bailiff Jake here to let you know that the Supreme Crit is convening this very afternoon. Please submit your brief (I beg!) case on this thread and we will bring you sweet justice.

Comments

witch_doctorate

To the Exalted Law Clerics of Erathis, as well as the Bailiff Jort, who I imagine sleeps in the court bathroom, I bring to you the case of the impromptu hair cut. My players were recently shopping around at a gnomish tailor, when our rogue decided her outfit would look better if her hair was short. She then describes pulling out a dagger, and giving herself an elaborate haircut, with no mirror, there at the tailor’s counter. I thought this was insane behavior, but the player seems to think otherwise. The rest of my players had almost no reaction to this, and I’m not the best judge of social norms, so I ask esteemed justices; is this as weird as I think it is? I throw myself on your mercy

Omnis

To the Honorable Justices and that guy I either Hate/Love depending on how Justice Murphy is feeling this week, I bring you the case of the unintentional player killer: It was my first time playing D&D with a group of friends from college, in a campaign affectionately dubbed "Kevin's Souls" as the DM was known for making things incredibly hard - all players except for me had played with him before and were bracing themselves for chaos. During our second dungeon diving expedition, we encountered a group of cultists who, alerted to our presence, cast a Dominate Person spell on our Dwarf Warrior. Through a series of errors, failed rolls, and poor insight checks, my character was lead to believe he had been permanently turned and couldn't be saved. Thus, when the time came to choose between fighting our friend or allowing him to harm another, I fought back - and with a Nat 20, I did enough damage that he fell, along with his death saves. My friend insisted I did nothing wrong and the DM later clarified where I had misunderstood, but the campaign soon fell apart just due to adult life taking priority - even so, I have been racked with guilt ever since that my poor thinking caused the end of the campaign as well as my friend's Dwarf And so I submit myself to the mercy of the court - was this a case of an inexperienced player just trying to do his best, or a negligent murderhobo in the making?

Fuzzboxx

Hello my Honorable Judges and the nubile Bailiff Jack Horowitz I present the case of the deadbeat Dad My cousin joined my already running campaign and his character's goal was to rescue his kidnapped 6 year old son. In real life he is an incredible father. I had the fun idea of making the boy vital to the main plot of the campaign. He however never brought his missing son up to the rest of the party. After about 6 months and 25 sessions it finally got brought up. Everyone in the party was obviously shocked that he never mentioned it. He said there was more pressing things to do. There were not. After another 6 months they finally beat the person capturing the son and he was free. My cousins first reaction was to get rid of the kid immediately, he wanted to put him in an orphanage, a school for magic, even a brothel?? The party was obviously shocked by his deadbeat dad behavior. I had made the son a vital part of the campaign and he was meant to travel with them everywhere but he wants no part of the boy. Am I wrong for having made the 6 year old boy a major part of the campaign expecting my cousin to be all for it or should I have waited to find out what kind of relationship with the boy my cousin wanted to have?

Noah Kyle

To the great Bishops of the Christ that oversees dice, I come to you with a most heinous confession: I messed up Bahumia. I was running, as an in-between game, Bahumia for my players. Since I knew so much I was able to do it with minimal prep. I told the players all about the world and they seemed excited. One player in particular really wanted to play a crick elf. Very exciting, I said. She said she wanted to be half crick elf, half orc. No problem at all, I said, we can homebrew that right up. She said she wanted to do a Russian accent. This, beloved bishops, is where I made my folly. Oh no no, I said, crick elves have southern accents. She said she’d been practicing Russian. I said she would have had to grow up in the frigid north to have a Russian accent. After much naysaying on my side, she finally relented and said she would do a southern accent. Great clerghhy, she was completely unable to do the country accent I had required. She spent the entire game either embarrassed or silent since her drawl was so bad. We played 10 6 hour sessions and in the end she had barely spoken, and thus barely played. It took me over a year to realize how badly I had ruined this player’s enjoyment. This is why I throw myself before you, O Blessed ones, and Murph, the guy that made bahumia, to ask forgiveness for taking your world a little too serious. Let my punishments be great, and the lessons I learn from them even greater.

Axyl and Olympia

To the darling, darling judges and that little fart of a bailiff JJ the Jet Plane, we present to you the case of The never-ending pre game lore. The two of us have a grievance against our DM. A dear friend of ours is preparing to launch his newest campaign and we have just begun the character creation. He had teased that he had wanted to try something new for his lore, and we were curious. He’s a very creative guy. Judges, what we are about to tell you is completely true. What initially looked like two lore documents turned out to be a labyrinth of hidden links to more documents, which contained hidden links to more documents. There was one page written entirely in elvish, which was a png so we could not copy paste into a translator. Instead we had to find within his lore a 7 page translation guide so we could translate it by hand. Judges, we shit you not there were 25 total documents, most of which were multiple pages long! And to make matters worse, within all this intricate world lore is very little actual information useful to character creation. The only saving grace is that he claims that we don’t need to find all the hidden documents so that each pc comes in with different knowledge about the world. The two of us have stopped looking. We are exhausted. The rest of the party seems to love it, but they’re all freelance or contract workers while the two of us work full time jobs. We beseech you wise ones, are we weaklings who cannot handle the lore or are we right in thinking this is too damn much?

Xavior

Dear almighty and powerful justices and the swift hand of punishment Jake. I bring to you the case of the discord Prince. My group were playing every Saturday but some wanted to play during the week (small things here and there) so we started a discord channel. I couldn't join in because of work. Well two weeks later one of the other players turns out to be a prince. Wouldn't be bad if when faced with a challenge he tries to use his wealth or army to get out of it. Mighty judges I ask what do I do?

Elf0004

To The Pope-Justices Axford, Murphy, & Tanner; and the Bishop-Bailiff jake, I write to you today not to confess a sin, but rather a temptation. I have been playing in a Wild West style campaign where I play a Warforged Gunslinger. A while ago I was online looking at cool dice (as one does) and I saw some cool metal dice that were d6s in the shape of bullets. Naturally I thought how cool it would be for my gunslinger to roll bullets for damage; however none of the guns in the standard Gunslinger’s arsenal use d6s. I showed those dice to my DM and he agreed they were cool and we hashed out a way to switch out the damage dice for my characters weapons; the 1d10 pistol would become 2d6, the 2d8 shotgun would change to 3d6, and the 2d12 rifle would instead deal 4d6. To maintain narrative continuity we decided that we would wait to implement these changes until my character got new weapons as part of a reward for completing some objectives related to his backstory. Well, I have the dice and we are close to wrapping up the events concerning his backstory and I should be getting the new guns soon. However, I recently started wondering if using different dice would offend Dicechrist? Your Holinesses have opined previously about the Heresy of using d30s or d12s for attacks or skill checks, but what of damage dice? Will my switch to these bullet dice doom my immortal roll, or do you think Our Lord of Randomness will also see how poetic (and badass) it is my for my metal man to roll damage with metal bullets? I eagerly await your council on this matter, ~Nicholas C. (not that Nicholas C.) P.S. When I first had this idea I wanted to submit it to the Tortle Tank, but you guys haven’t done one of those in over a year so I reworked it into a Dicechrist Confession.

Kat

To the esteemed judges and the bailiff who is trying his best, I submit to you the case of financial damage. In efforts to rid a town of a rambunctious gang of scoundrels, my party poisoned a barrel of ale and passed out coupons to the gang members for one free drink. I also disguised self as one of their members and went to their normal tavern to cast suggestion on the barkeep, who was also a gang leader, to close up for 5 minutes and go scope out the new competition. My DM said the spell failed so that was that. A bit later I made a joke about the barkeep being very wise to which my DM responded “no, you just made a bad suggestion” clarifying that “it would damage her financially.” I let it go and enjoyed the rest of the session but it’s been weighing on me. Additionally, I’m disappointed that 1 of my 2 humble warlock spell slots went towards a spell that had no chance of succeeding. Should I say something or have I misunderstood the spell and should await my punishment? I seek your judgement oh wise ones.

Wyatt Trottier

To the wise Justice Council and the maligned Bailiff Joke. I come to you with the case of the pitiful gang leader. I was DMing a homebrew campaign for a group of friends and in the first session they got in a tussle with a wanna be gang called the beastie boys. Fast forward a year and the beastie boys had become a recurring group. Pestering the party every time they returned to the hub city, with harebrained schemes to get the party in trouble and half baked assassination attempts. After putting up with this gang for about the 6th time the party had had enough and decided the beastie boys needed to go. They then tracked the gangs leader to his mothers basement where he was completely cornered. I determined in the moment that when cornered the logical reaction of this wannabe gang leader would be to start crying and begging for his life. The party unceremoniously put the nuisance out of their misery and went on with their day. After the session though I had a couple of players tell me that they were really disappointed that the gang leader was so pathetic and him begging for his life had taken away the satisfaction of finally putting an end to their tormenters. I had always thought of this gang as a group of clueless losers and thought that the leaders reaction was in character but in hindsight fear that I should have thought more about the fun of the party in that moment. Wise council, I must ask was it wrong of me to make my gang leader a little worm of equal stature to Bailiff Rake or was the party expecting too much from a gang that had never successfully been more than a minor inconvenience? I await your revered verdict.

Dylan C

To the honorable judges and the sweet Bailiff Cake I bring the case of the "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 wanting 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. 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.

Skillful Ferret

If it would please our judges and the Busty Baliff, please recount the tale of the Torn Tabaxi, During our third session, the other characters in the party decided to make a plan to betray our mission and become an evil party. So, they role played a distraction to ostracize my character who was a lawful good Paladin, for the entirety of my last session (due to having to leave for a deployment). I had offered to play a Lawful Evil Cleric at session zero, but the other players told me to play the Paladin. Thus, I had to spend the entire session pretending to be alone in another room. Then in the last five minutes of the game, to roleplay my character out, I took the artifact from our NPC priest to complete the mission on my own so that he would stay safe. Which I thought would let the party have an excuse to quit the mission since they wanted to switch to being an evil party. I found out that during the next session they caught up to my character who had sacrificed himself using the artifact to revive a village that was destroyed (dm choice) which I thought was cool, but the remaining players decided to mutilate my character’s corpse to remove the artifact that I had apparently swallowed, in order to sell it. I was upset to learn this. Were the players justified in defiling my character’s legacy, and should the DM have allowed it?

Fabrizio Moreno

Dear high judges and Tim from accounting, I present you the case of the jawa incident. Some years ago, few friends and I decided to play a homebrew version of a Star Wars ttrpg, no one had ever played before, but because of naddpod and dimension 20 knowledge, I was the designated GM, everything went well for 1 hour until our ranger Wookie found two jawas in back of her store. Now, I knew this player and her character was a pacifist, so I thought that she would try to talk to them, and that would trigger their first big mission of destroying an evil slave mafia. But everything went south when instead of talking she tried to intimidate them and rolled a 1, after initiative she came first and rolled a Nat 20 on her attack, dealing 20 of damage (the jawas had only 10 hp) and in the next round she killed the other. The problem was that I didn´t had a way of moving the story and the mission, so when our fighter rolled a 21 on investigation I told them everything, about how they escaped, how they had to kids that were enslaved just like them and had to leave them behind with hopes of getting help and meet again. Needless to say, the party was demolished, especially the Wookie. Later they found the evil guys and liberated all the slaves but till this day the “jawa incident” bring sadness to us and some even say it was a bad move from me to just dump all that information on them, after they killed the innocent couple. My question here is: Was there something different that I could have done or can it be consider just a simple offense, because it was also my first time (playing and as a GM) and didn´t know better? I willaccept your judgment, even if it means spending time with Jill´s husband.

Eric G

To the most special judges and... balif guy. I bring you the case of "floor time". When I'm a player I like to have what my group calls "floor time". This is where during the middle of the session, I will get out of my chair, lay face-down on the floor next to the table, and stay there for 10-15 minutes until I get back up into my seat. I don't really know why I do it, It's just nice. My group has banned floor time because when I am on the ground, I don't interact as much. I will start to get onto the floor and our DM will will have to stop and tell me to get back into my chair They have given other options such as breaks. But there is something about being on the cold floor, playing your favorite game, next to all of your closest friends that I can't get with a simple break. Should floor time be banned, or should I be able to get down on the ground and enjoy dnd my way? I humbly await your response.

Ziv like Steve

May it please the Crit and burden the Bailiff, I present the case of the NPC Affair and IRL Marriage. I run a homebrew campaign for my partner and three of our friends, in a horror setting where the party's home town was claimed by a Lich in session 1. One player wanted their character to have a wife -- no problem. When they escaped the town from the Lich, most of the civilians were left behind, including (determined by the dice) the wife. Months passed as the party accumulates power, with this player having one driving goal: I must rescue my wife. Lo and behold, last session, they heisted the town and freed all of the villagers, including the wife. Gently foreshadowed in scrys over the time were some hints -- the wife was not wearing the ring. The wife was spending a lot of time with the incredibly old and weak village wizard (also a captee). And on an insight check from the party cleric, it was revealed: the wife has been having a strictly-emotional nonphysical affair with the wizard, and the marital relationship with the player's character is over. The player, who happens to be my wife IRL, is upset that I did this without consulting her. I did not want the NPC to become a docile and loving follower for me to have to juggle once rescued and thought it would be a fun and edgy twist. I come before you now: Did I have a duty to consult my player(wife) before having her NPC partner (her wife) cheat on her? (P.S. For the avoidance of doubt, no IRL marital issues--purely tabletop!)

Gemma McBride

To the honorable justices and the equally-honorable bailiff, I present the case of the Session One Spotlight. A friend of mine has started up a campaign with a whopping seven players, 2 of which are brand new to D&D. During our first session, we started on a quest that was very relevant to the backstories of 2 PCs, but brand new to the other 5. This lead to an hour of the session being spent on the 2 relevant characters, while the rest of us just ended up following along quietly until an encounter started. I should note that, during this 3-person RP period, 4 of the uninvoled players were visibly checked out (i.e., doing work, on their phones, etc.). Am I wrong to feel bad about this, or should the DM have kept everyone engaged? Thank you in advance

Alien butt puppet

May it please the Justices and pleasure the Baliff. I run 3 campaigns as the forever DM and finally one of my players offered to dm. I quickly created a lovely drunken master monk named Dick Giggleshits. Due to some great rolls and feats I was able to secure a comfortable AC of 18. My DM became frustrated that he couldn't hit me easily and asked what my ac was. I told him and for the next 2 sessions his NPCs didn't miss one time. Should I let this first time DM slide? Or am I justified to think he might be lying about Rolls? I place myself before the court

Nyx

To the honorable justices and… Jake? I present to you the case of the stabby not so bard, bard. I run a post apocalyptic, hombrewed 5e game in a cyberpunk future inspired by Horizon Zero Dawn, and Fallout with several of my close friends. This game has been incredible and they are now level 10 with wonderfully overpowered items leading to epic encounters with massive mechanical monstrosities. Here lies the problem. One of my friends is playing a an eloquence bard named Jeb. He does not use any of his abilities and almost exclusively stabs things. He doesn’t use bardic inspiration, he has cast maybe 10 spells throughout the campaign, he has no healing spells (admittedly fair), he doesn’t use his poisoner feat or any of his items. I made a minor feats system, that works like pathfinder, with over 150 feats, and he’s hasn’t even chosen feats. He is severely underpowered. If my bard hits in a fight he is doing 1d8+3 a turn at level 10 making him not super effective next to the monk, ranger, and cleric turning enemies in to scrap metal. Noticing his play style, I asked if you’d like to change class and be a fighter, paladin, hex blade, swords bard, swashbuckler or any class that’s charismatic and stabby and he responded with a “nah I’m good” I even hombrewed a powerful a sword that incentivizes him to use bardic inspiration and spells to so that he can be better at stabbing and he still doesn’t do any bard stuff. He has even died and gotten revivified because of this play style! I feel bad for not balancing encounters taking him into account, and it sometimes is difficult to give him cool moments when he does 4 damage, but I don’t want to kill the party by balancing for him because he doesn’t use his abilities or make my bard friend feel bad when everyone else is making big cool moves. Im not going to tell him how to have fun and I love having him around but this hurts my brain! I ask the court this wild or am I just not on the bards level. Ps. Some extra details out of game details : I ran a previous campaign with this same friend where he played a paladin and he used all his spells in class features This campaign has been going on for a year and a half and I taught him how to play over two years ago Out of game he still chooses spells on his level ups and is excited about new abilities he gets

DowdMusic

To these absolute knobs, May it challenge the court and upset the power they wield. I bring you the case of "WTF High Crit, you got a problem with me?" I have written in in the past for your assistance and all you do is punish me. My players fill up a bag with bombs - my fault. My player brings and OP roided out charisma laden God bird to the scrub match - my fault. My players name them selves all Tyler - not only my fault - but justice Murphy says he must make an example of me and creates the first NADDPOD precedent in my name. Furthermore, Justice Axeford openly stated on record she wished to torment me. I have clearly been targeted and I demand retribution from this kangaroo court. I ask YOU NADDPOLES if this tyranny should continue. Good day. P.S. I don't even like this show.

Matt mckenzie

To the esteemed Judges 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, I know that first priority is to protect the Head of State. Who was right, and why was it me? -Matt in DC

Matt Nusbaum

To the honorable Supreme Crit Justices, and Junk Man, I present the case of The Eight Year Old’s Evil Armor. I run dnd games for kid at a comic shop. Recently, I had a kid who had never played before, but came in wanting to be a Helmed Horror. I said he could be an animated suit of armor (reskinned warforged), which he was down for. He chose to be a sorcerer named Gremlock, and said that he was created by an evil guy in a laboratory in hell, but he rebelled and escaped. He insisted that his character be evil, but I figured this was manageable. We began the homebrew campaign, which was about a village being tormented by a night hag. The party arrived for a summer solstice festival. Everything was going well, they were having fun at the festival and I was teasing the problems in town. Then this kid tells me Gremlock is going to eat someone. I’m confused. He says he’d like to pick up a villager and swallow them into his armor body. I tell him that he can’t do that to a living person, so Gremlock goes to stab a guy. I warn him that he’s gonna get in trouble for this, but he wants to go for it anyway. His attack hits, but he doesn’t kill the guy, and people start calling for the town militia. One party member tries to help Gremlock fight the militia, the rest try to stop him. Eventually, Gremlock and his ally are knocked out and locked up in the barracks, while the rest of the party is brought along for questioning. When the captain of the militia talks to the reawakened Gremlock, Gremlcok tells him that he was fundamentally designed to “corrupt the world.” He would not elaborate. At this point, I’m scrambling a little bit. I decide to send for the town abbot, who found she couldn’t break the curse on Gremlock (the kid insisted it was unbreakable), so she cast a geas spell on him, forcing him to protect the people of this village. Gremlock was mad at the abbot, and wants desperately to break the spell, but played along, working with the party to break out of jail when they heard that something terrible had happened at the festival (possessed scarecrows were attacking the crowd). We ended the session there, with the party about to jump in and fight the scarecrows. Justices, I am conflicted about my decision. Was I right to curse this armor, or should I have just let evil kids be evil kids? I humbly await your wise decision.

Ben Nicholls

Dear gracious, glorious and magnanimous justices and I guess Jude too, I bring you the case of the lich who stole Christmas. I held a Christmas one shot for my friends where I rented a cabin for us all an der cooked a meal together. However, during the DnD session I managed to kill one player using Power word kill and downing a player. According to my group, I went too far. The person I downed has never gone down in a session and the other has never been killed. Almighty justices, was I too harsh with such a group? Or is it my duty to bring about the reality of the game?

Moss

May it please the supreme Crit, and the great and powerful Jork; I present the case of geas v players. I had a semi-powerful enemy cast geas on my players, he gave a minute long speech & they all failed (all 5 rolls were under 8, and no one cast a detect magic or anything) an insight/arcana/etc check to see if he was being genuine. They found out that they had a Geas spell cast on them because they could no longer directly attack him, and they had to make do with creative AOE stuff & setting snares and some really fun ways to absolutely ring my bell. This guy wasn't a big bad, he was a super manageable CR for them, and they killed him & his cronies in under 6 rounds! I, however, have been getting taken to the raspberry patch for my ""sneaky"" nonsense. I believe it was within my right to make the combat cool and interesting. The exact wording of the Geas spell was "and any shot you take at me shall find no purchase", I thought this was creative and fun. So tell me the most supremest of court- was I justified in my disguised geas, or do you think my players are right and I should have told them that they were having a spell cast on them? I humbly await your ruling.

Jeremy D

To the honorable judges and jake( sometimes he deserves respect) My party and dm are in disagreement. I was playing as a low level bard using the spell “vicious mockery” I cast this spell at a kenku but upon the kenku getting a nat 20 save my dm decided in that moment the kenku used his mimicry skills to send the spell back at me even though the kenku was not a spell caster. My party agrees this shouldn’t happen but my dm decided it’s a new rule that Kenkus can send vicious mockery back on nat 20s. Is this ok? We will follow any punishments needed.

Connor Raftery

Blessed be the paragons of faith to our lord and (randomly determined) savior. The party I DM for was enacting a massive ritual to cast true resurrection on a kaiju sized monster to help defeat the evil army, and simply forgot to create a mechanic for our purely martial monk to participate in. While the Druids were casting the spell, I had an NPC hand the monk and ordinary stick and claimed it to be the lynch pin to the ritual, but when I took the rolls for the participants and used them to calculate their successes, I just ignored the monks rolls because I didn’t have the brain bandwidth to think of how a kung fu (not spiritual in the slightest) monk could participate in a resurrection. My heart weighs heavy that I denied this players contribution to dice Christ’s will. Forgive blessed deacons of dice, chaplains of chance, and Jake. I guess.

Eddie Waitman

To the honorable Supreme Crit Justices and the Dragon Ball Z fan Jake, May I present to the court the case of the falling Whale. A little over a year ago, my party (around level 10) of friends I DM for in a homebrew 5e game was breaking into a fortress of an evil archduke that had been committing crimes against creatures of the feywild. The party had spent multiple sessions hopping around between outposts, and when finally making their way to the primary fortress, they began using code words and enacting a plan I was completely unaware of. This is not typically an issue, I encourage them to be creative and plan outside of session for major boss fights, but what they did really took me through a loop. The party's (wildshaped) Druid and our flying Fairy rogue made their way well above the keep under the guise of scouting and honestly, I thought that was excellent strategy. However, I became a bit suspicious when they began being very specific with their flying height (200 ft). I brushed it off, believing there would be some shenanigans around spell ranges and not being able to be attacked back. Boy was I wrong. The druid exited wild shape (free action), cast Polymorph on the Rogue (Action), and entered starry form (bonus action). The druid announced that he would be turning the rogue into a Sperm Whale, which would immediately fall from 200 feet onto the many many guards below. I was astonished and stopped in my tracks so that I could take a few minutes to read up on rules. I found nothing in the rules preventing it. I did not want the entire encounter leading to the boss fight to be bypassed, but more importantly I did not want to set a precedent that the 4th level polymorph spell could be continually used in an absolutely game breaking way. I argued that the whale, falling from such a height could deal max falling damage (20d6) and those below would get a Dex save for half damage (and the same damage done to the falling whale). It is a lot of damage, and felt like a good compromise. The party argued that the gargantuan creature weighing over 30 tons, should kill all those it fell on, or deal more damage than that, as well as completely destroying that section of the fortress. We had a bit of a back and forth and reminded them that whatever they can do can be done back to them in the future, (and how would they feel about that as a TPK) and they begrudgingly settled on accepting the damage as 20d6. It ended up killing many of the soldiers and leaving the remainder to be wiped out in a single round of combat. Since then I feel I made an okay call in the moment, however the party has recently boarded an airship and expressed intent to do the same to many other opponents. Thinking about the implications moving forward, I bow to the court and ask, did I make a poor call and need to live with the consequence, or was the party right and I should have allowed such a grand defeat to the soldiers/fortress below. How can this be handled moving forward without breaking many, many encounters?

Scott Wall

To the beautiful beautiful judges and the lowly lowkey lazy loveless bailiff Jank, I plead my case. One of our players in a long running eberon campaign came across the deck of many things. Having bought the fancy new set of cards, I eagerly brought the set to our next session. Needless to say it did not end well. In a total of 7 draws, 4 of them were either Donjon, or the Void, since our DM claimed that once a player drew their cards, they rejoin the deck. It ended up with our entire party being zorped away, and leading to a impromptu end to our campaign. In the days since, we have been questioning the likelihood of all of us drawing the worst cards imaginable, 4/7 time. Was our DM correct in reshuffling the cards back and punishing us for our hubris, or was foul play involved? Also, will dice christ forgive me for bringing the nicely minted cards to the session, urging us to continue drawing cards. Thanks in advance, and may Baga Yaga not take you this night

Ciarán S.

To the peerless justices, and their necessarily lesser peer Bailiff Hurwitz, I submit the case of the Death At A Funeral. While clearing a necromancer's tower, our party teamed up with a rival group of goblin adventurers to defeat a boss, resulting in the death of one of the goblins. While most of the party was intent on continuing to clear the tower following the fight, our fighter, an eladrin who insisted on going by the epithet "sensei" to everyone they met, announced they would bear the dead goblin out into the woods with his party and perform funeral rites halfway through our dungeon crawl. No sooner had they departed when our wizard wandered off in search of forbidden knowledge and got himself caught in a Rug of Smothering the next room over, Marlon Wayans-style. My rogue and the party druid rushed to help, but ultimately the Rug proved too tough for us in our weakened state and we were unable to bring it down before it smothered our sweet fairy druid. Justices, who deserves the greater culpability for the death of our druid - our fanciful fighter or our wanderly wizard? We humbly await your ruling

Dylan Jackson

Dear benevolent judges, and the delicious delight that is cake hurwitz. I bring forth the case of the Furtive G-Spot. I was playing a one shot with friends a while back when one of the characters got into an intimate moment with an NPC. The Player wanted to cast locate creature on the NPC's G-Spot to pleasure further, and one of the other Players stated that it should be a locate object spell, considering it isn't it's own organism. The Player who cast the spell said that it was made of living cells and therefore a locate creature spell should work. We settled things on the locate creature spell, but to this day we wonder, is a female's G Spot requiring of a locate creature or locate object spell? The fate of absolutely nothing rests on your answer...

Darkrisky

The Daddy Killing Patron To the incredibly badass judges and the plain bad bailiff Jared, I give you the case of the patron-less daddy killer. There’s a lot to this case so I will keep it as brief as possible. I played a sea elf fathomless warlock of a noble background with a surfer/stoner vibe and a distrust of authority. She’s at a school to get away from her overprotective parents who sent her there with a necklace of sending. (I have explicitly said to my DM I am excited to play this class and that I did not want an evil patron.) During their adventures, my character was given a flute by an evil entity. Not wanting the responsibility, she destroyed it. As she did, her patron began to scream into her head something about freedom and “destroying all the sea elves”. Concerned, my character decides to use her necklace of sending to call her dad to ask if he knows anything about her patron. When she contacts her dad in a FaceTime-y way, her dad screams at her that she has doomed her whole city by destroying this flute. Turns out that destroying the flute resulted in her patron being released from the plane her city elders were keeping it. A tentacle then rose from the water and skewered her father. (Keep in mind my character saw all this in a “Facetime”.) My character ran to the headmaster of the school to get help and he opened a portal to her home city which was being destroyed by my character’s patron. Suddenly, my patron got sucked into the sky without any explanation. My DM then turns to me and says I’ve lost all my warlock levels and had to choose a new class! He stood there smiling at me waiting for my answer. He was surprised when I said my character killed herself and then I quit the campaign. He quit DMing this campaign after this because he “got bored”. So I ask this of you judges, was I wrong to be miffed and should have waited to see where the cool storyline he supposedly had planned went or did I have every right to be upset? I await your humble ruling. PS sorry if this confusing. I had to condense a lot.

Emily Martin

To the super pretty justices and uh… um… wasn’t there another guy? anyways! I humbly ask for your judgment on a case that has resurfaced on a number of occasions to mock me. Do not worry, no spoilers ahead for our podcast. At the time I was playing my sweet, older sister type, paladin named Janice. For some ungodly reason, the other players as well as NPCs had an innate drive to hate her no matter how loving and caring she is. Like overly rude when she is trying to help them. We were at a random pawn shop which is when our DM tends to throw out the most random items that we as players will then find creative ways to exploit (as players do). The item being offered to me this time was a ring of random keys, like a hundred random keys. Not entirely sure why, but our DM started at his initial price then after I suggested a slightly lower price he haggled himself down to free very quickly without me being able to get a word in edgewise. I took a half a second to think and responded with “how about I take these keys off your hands and find what each one goes to. For each one I find where it goes, you pay me 5 gold.” Without hesitation, the shopkeep snatched the keys and said “the keys are off the table.” No opportunity for a persuasion roll or anything! To this day, “the keys are off the table” is said by all those who were at the table that day when I am pushing my DM too far. So I ask you justices, can you really call yourself a D&D player character if you have not challenged your DM to find where the line is? Is it not the players job to fuck around and often narrowly escape finding out? Or are the keys really off the table? I anxiously await your fair ruling. Ps I have never played D&D and I hate the show

Giovanni The Fighter

To the most gracious and spectacular Judges and that bailiff guy, Jake. May it please the court: During the most recent session with my group, in which I am a player, we were playing in a UFC (ultimate frisbee competition). Where the conflict occurs is during the match the DM’s wizard polymorphed one of his other players into a giant ape. Us players had no issues with that until our cleric read the polymorph spell and pointed out that a polymorphed creature couldn’t take any other action that requires hands. A brief argument about the spell and its rules ensued and the DM ruled that his giant ape was able to catch the frisbee and the game resumed with no hard feelings because we know the rule of cool should always win (and our DM was getting whomped). Humble judges, and Jake, I ask you this, can a polymorphed giant ape catch a frisbee? Or was the cleric right in saying it couldn’t?

Boomclaw the Twice-Dead Kobold

Hello people and also Jake. I was in a Pathfinder Society game recently at a game store. Due to it bumping up against the store closing time, the GM mercy ruled the final battle in our favor after we'd killed about half the enemies but barely touched the big bad. We had taken some bumps but were mostly healthy and stocked on class resources and spells. What is your stance on the mercy rule for things like one-shots, and was this an acceptable use of it?

Ashen

To the honorable justices Murphy, Axford, and Tanner, and I guess also to Murph’s DMPC “Jaek.” I present to you the case of the Difficult Druid and the Bleeding Bard. My partner and I have been in a campaign for over two years with four level 8 PCs: a wizard, a monk, a druid, and me, a bard. I should say up top that we are all great friends and there is no bad blood here. Anyway, our dragonborn druid refuses to wild shape, and instead hangs back to use her acid breath or spellcast. Of course, the wizard stays out of melee range and the monk, with over 50 movement, moves out of range each turn, leaving me, the bard, as the easy target. The druid never wild shapes and only uses her acid breath or the spell Wind Wall in every situation. ONLY Wind Wall, every time. To encourage the druid to wild shape, the DM created a home-brew ability for her to wild shape into a young dragon, which the druid has only used once since getting it a year ago. As the only PC up in the mix, I get absolutely rocked. Once I was downed three times in one combat (the DM even apologized afterwards). The wizard sometimes takes hits so I don’t have to, and the monk has stopped using evasion to draw hits away. To add insult to injury, we all watched the DND movie together and when the druid in the movie wild shaped, our druid said, “that’s so cool, I wish we had someone in our party who can do that,” to which I responded, “you can turn into a fucking bear.” I prostrate myself before the court and ask if we should get over our tank not tanking or if we should trap our tank in a wild shape a la Tobias from Animorphs. P.S. don’t play, hate the show

Tori Lynn

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

Josh Zellers

To the honorable justices and special 8 bit book club guest Jackson. I bring you the case of the untitled goose. My party found a goose that had mystical powers and the bard in our ground devoted herself to using the goose in more than half the problems they found themselves in. The party wanted to go to a different plane? The goose will help. The party wanted to find an item. I’ll summon the goose to help. The goose is always bad he took an eye and a hand from another player. Tell me justices has the goose gone too loose?

Frazurbluu

To the justices most high and my absolute dream 8BBC guest Jake: I present to you the case of the evil PCs. I recently finished DMing a 5e conversion of Dark Sun. The campaign was planned to be a few-shot while one of our regulars was away, but ballooned into a 30 session lvl 3-10 proper campaign. Dark Sun is a harsh setting where magic degrades the environment and evil tyrants rule the land. Initially I dangled a hook of an anti-slaver resistance group, but my players ignored it in favor teaming up with a sadistic noblewoman who wanted to overthrow the local tyrant because they would be on the payroll of the person in charge. Things got pretty evil, like "political assassinations" and "scapegoating civilians to avoid punishment" evil, though nobody seemed to mind this. I ask: should I have made the setting a little easier to be good inside of, or are PCs gonna PC? I accept your spanking, regardless of to whom it is directed.

ChromaticMars

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

Anthony S

Dear Justice Gods and the Dice Devil Jake. I would like to submit to the court a case of mid rolls leading to PC death. In my very first campaign I played a half orc fighter named Gero. My first ever character and was so very excited to play him. We got through maybe 4-5 sessions of good times and banter when the DM threw an issue at us. He had a group of Eldritch Knight's approach us on a road to register and maybe take some magical items. I failed an insight to see that they were lying, that they weren't knights at all. Well, Gero has on him the egg of a Hydra, so he naturally acted rash and refused to talk to them. That's when the DMPC gunslinger took his gun out and pointed at my head telling me to "calm down". I instinctively told the DM that I would like to brush the gun away from the back of my head and keep walking past. I rolled sleight of hand and got a 12 total. Apparently this was enough that Gero, in his infinite fighter wisdom, accidentally brushed against the trigger, blowing his own brains out. He later let me resurrect the character but it still sucks. Am I in the wrong for thinking that 12 is a bit too high of a roll to straight up kill a PC? I await the judges humble ruling and maybe dice Christ overrule dice devil Jake.

FishFoods

Do the Honorable Justices and Bailiff Joel. I present to your council: the case of the cowardly players. A few years ago, I DMed a one-shot for my friends. This was pretty much all of our first experiences with DND, save for me having watched a few podcasts. I set my party in a town that at first seemed normal, until they had dreams of one of the towns children crying for help. The next morning they looked for the child, asking his brother where he is, only for the brother to ask “who’s that?” No one in the town could remember the kid. I was really excited about getting to this part, and getting to see my players reaction. Well, the three of them all looked at each other, and declared that they were leaving because this town was “too scary.” I was in shock. I did every thing i could to stop them save form physically holding them back. I even had the matriarch (who is the secret BBEG and also has been established to not like the players) give them health potions and other gifts. Eventually i had to stop and straight up tell them that since this is a one-shot, I didn’t have anything outside of this town, and that they need to go back. I still rag on them to this day about it, but sometimes I wonder if I should’ve tried to work with their decision more, or perhaps anticipated that they’d want to leave. I humbly throw myself at the courts feet, awaiting ruling.

Matthew Duggan

To the honorable justices and the stalwart bailiff Jake, I bring to you the case of the usurped PC. A coworker is planning on running a modified 5e campaign focused on monster hunting, and asked if I would like to join. I told her I would be interested, but couldn’t commit to a game full time. If she was willing to, I could play a character who would pop in and out as my schedule would allow, and she agreed. Cut to a few months later, I ask about the campaign, and she told me that “Since I wouldn’t really be able to play anyways, she decided my character would become an NPC,” so I don’t have to worry about playing. I’m not terribly upset, as we never played even a single session, but am I justified in feeling this is a slightly unhinged move. I await your judgement.

Martian

Greetings oh fair and beautiful Judges and the Bailiff who is... Anyway, I bring you the case of the Drow baby Dawn. I play in a super fun game of DND that takes place in the dungeon of the Mad Mage. My character is a very serious, Batman meets Mcguyver meets Captain America type, Deep Gnome named Danzen Rubylocke. Who, despite being born sickly and even smaller than the other Deep Gnomes, managed to achieve his dream of joining the Deep Gnome Corp! He has been sent on a mission to explore Undermountain which he takes very seriously! Unfortunately, his new party of "top-siders" do not. From knocking Two Bits on every door, running head first into every trap, my Deep Gnome has become (hilariously) exacerbated by their antics. However, their chaotic feats have recently reached a new height after I missed a session. When I returned the next week, the group, with hardly contained grins, told me that I should check my inventory because they left me a surprise. A surprise it was indeed because what I saw in my inventory was a "Drow baby". Apparently, while iw as gone, the party had slain a Drow Priestess who had turned out to be pregnant! Fortunately with what I'm told was a miraculous series of medicine checks and death saving throws, they managed to save the baby. However, they thought it would be funny to charge my character with raising it! Danzen is a softy at heart and cannot abandon the poor child and has named them Dawn (they/them). This wasn't as big of a problem until the zombie nanny (zannie) I used to carry the little one was killed after getting caught in a teleportation trap! Now I am forced to use spells and resources to keep the baby alive and happy and cannot participate as much in battle. Should the DM have allowed this? Do my party members owe me child support? Oh illustrious Judges, I beseech you, please help this Single Deep Gnome Father get the Child support he deserves! Thank you. P.S. do any of you know how to get decent childcare in a dungeon?

Tim Healy

To the most exalted justices and the bailiff who bends the lowliness spectrum into a Möbius strip, I present to you the Case of the Tubthumping Team Cleric Abuse. My party is currently in the midst of a Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign, and they had just survived a particularly nasty battle with a group of Ice Trolls. Providing an adequate challenge to my team of 6 extremely tactical and collaborative players often requires finesse, but they were definitely looking pretty rough at the end of this challenging fight. We took a brief break when combat ended, and when I returned to the table with a drink I found them all giggling amongst themselves. They turned expectantly to the Grave Cleric, our group’s infamously Caldwellian low-roller, who announced that he would like to bonk several of the party members on the head with his warhammer and knock them down to 0 HP. He explained that he wanted to cast Prayer of Healing, reasoning that his Circle of Mortality subclass feature would allow all of the unconscious PCs to restore the maximum amount on the dice. I was completely blown away, but despite the insanity of this play it seems to be buttoned up under rules as written. I okayed these shenanigans in the moment, since multiple characters were already on death’s door anyway, but I fear for a future where they may start beating on each other like deranged Looney Tunes when they’re in the red just to max out their healing potential. Was I a fool to permit these shenanigans, or was I justified in allowing such a wacky but creative exploit under the circumstances? I’m hoping that the math works out in my favor more often moving forward, since it likely won’t be worth intentionally getting knocked down just to get up again rather than simply rolling to heal, unless they’re already so close to death that it’s worth securing the maximum rather than gambling on the dice. Either way, I humbly await your judgment. P.S. By the end of the session they had managed to piss off an Ancient White Dragon, so at least in this particular case I feel like they’re going to need all the health they can get for next time. P.P.S. Emily, fiancée wanted me to pass on a message: "Hello, future fellow wifeworm!"

Jerrid M

The Case of “How Long Until you Cancel a Campaign” To the Justice League of Justices, and to the Legion of Doom Baliff Drake, I present my case. I was DMing for my first campaign as a brand new DND player myself (introduced to the game through your podcast!) and we were almost done playing through Lost Mines of Phandelver #murphvibes when COVID hit. I also had my first child born at this time (#caldwellvibes) and our game was put on hold for a few months . To be fair, the players reached out wanting to play a few times but I had to turn them down based on my personal health immunity and in taking care of a newborn. After a couple months they presented the ultimatum of continuing the campaign or just cancelling it. We were one or two sessions away from completing the campaign but my health and family concerns prevented me from fulfilling this request. Is two months long enough to cancel an almost completed campaign or did i neglect my players? I await the judgement and will multiply the consequence tenfold.

Iain McFadyen

To the judges by way of Cake cakewitz. I play with a small group who all use their own dice, they vary in colour but also size, one player, a rogue called Brambleberrys uses what I can only describe as a fist sized D20, everytime it rolls it puts dents in our wooden table. I think it's upsetting my wife because she has been drinking pints of water, eating healthier than ever and screaming I'm gonna Grinch everytime we make love. How do I tell my wife I need her to build a soundproof box for fucking.

sadcat

To the indelible Wife Worm Emily, and the three men upon whose bodies she will inevitably feed, I offer the case of Chain Lightning v. The Invisible Man. My boyfriend runs a campaign for his friends and one of those friends is an individual who seems to only ever want to cause trouble. In this particular situation, an evil NPC had turned invisible and was fleeing the room. This player asked if he used chain lightning on a visible foe (as the spell indicates the initial target has to be seen), if it would then hit the invisible man as the spell wording does not say the rest of the victims have to be seen. My boyfriend told the player that it didn't work because the invisible NPC was already out of range, but later he confided in me that he really didn't know the answer and just didn't want this player's shenanigans to win one more time. I ask the court, can an invisible foe be hit by the "chain" of chain lightning? Can a bothersome player also be hit by the "chain" of chain lightning? I await your ruling and if my boyfriend was somehow at fault, please allow me to take the punishment, as he is too kind to cause trouble and I am the one who wants to see this PC violently humbled.

Cameron S. Hero of the Land

To the illustrious judges Axford and Murphy, the Acceptable judge Murph and Jake the benevolent case gathering bailif, i write with what i fear is a case that may get me barred from the church. I was running curse of strahd for my players, and they were inside the abandoned windmill, which they owned thanks to the deed in the previous area (murder house). Strahd had come to speak with them and my players immediately tried to attack him, then retreated inside to hide as he couldnt enter the windmill uninvited. This is where i may have gone wrong, i continued to have strahd attack them through the windows of the mill using fireball and animate objects. Was i wrong to continue having strahd attack using spells through windows? Or should i have given them more credit for their plan? (No one died during the encounter, save my healer, celestial warlock, npc who killed themselves accidentally using shatter to take out many of the animated objects along with themselves)

saavikams

To the immaculate judges and the lowly bailiff Julius, (?) I present to you the case of flakey players. My best friend is an excellent writer and wanted ti try his hand at DMing. He spent a month world building, weaving in character backstories, and planning broad strokes of the campaign. We only made it two sessions in when it all fell apart. Scheduling sessions was like pulling teeth; every time my dm or i would text the group chat we were met with silence or an "im busy this week". When we finally did get to play one of the players would time the session and tell the DM we should start wrapping it up when we got close to an hour long. So I ask, were we wrong to completely ghost these two players and start a new campaign without them? some additional info: they broke up 3 times over the course of the “campaign”

Martian

Also, this is all taken in good humor I am not actually mad at my group lol

JC

To the honorable justices of the supreme crit, and to the despicable bailiff who I wish many nat ones upon, I bring to you the case of the druid who refused to touch metal. I was a player in a campaign with another player who played a wildfire druid named Spork. As you may know, the players handbook restricts druids by saying they cannot use metal armor. The DM made it clear that this restriction could be waved, however, the druid refused and committed further than even the rules require of druids aversion to metal. He outright refused to touch anything made of metal (even plot relevant items that contained metal), step on anything made of metal, and even see anything made of metal (whenever the DM said Spork saw something metal, like an iron door, Spork corrected the DM, stating he actually did not see the metal door) The DM consistantly, and kindly reminded the druid that this restriction did not apply to things other than armor, and that he wasn't even using this rule, the druid politely declined the DMs ruling and continued to play as he saw fit. Justices, please tell me I'm not crazy for thinking Spork is a maniac.

Gicky

To His worships Murphy, Axford, Tanner, and alter boy Hurwitz. Revered clergy of the church of Dice Christ, I come to you seeking not atonement but guidance during a crisis of faith in a post-chat gpt world. I play in an online game and recently played a session where the DM told us that next session he was going to record it, turn the audio into a transcript, and give it to chat gpt to be turned into the recap for next session. He mentioned he has been using chatgpt to create descriptions for landscapes and npcs and to fill out other details of the lore. He is even wanting to get chatgpt to create an entire world for his next game. Blasphemey! I consider this an affront to the game and to the spirit of Dice Christ. A homebrew game need not be original, but it should be ones own creation. Taking notes, writing recaps, making up descriptions, toiling endlessly in the fields to prepare for a session, is the price Dice Christ asks we pay in exchange for a successful session. It is in these times of hardship where our faith is tested, and to circumvent this entirely with ai is an insult to the church. I ask that the church denounce the use of AI in developing homebrew worlds as heretical, lest the name of Dice Christ be further tarnished. I humbly await the damnation of creation automation.

SemiHuman99

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?

Drew Pate

To the Honorable Justices and, if he's lowly I don't want to be highly, bailiff baby Jake. I bring to the court the case of simping for the mayor. I DM for a large group of friends (7 people) who play roughly once a month. It's a light hearted game that's more of an excuse to see each other than a hardcore game. For our most recent game, one of my many players invited their friend to join, this friend just happen to be the mayor of our city. I became very excited and nervous about our mayor's arrival and proceeded to prepare extra hard for the game, and even made custom minis for the mayor to use with that were designed to look like him, and even changed parts of the narrative to incorporate his character into what was going on. The game went well, the mayor and the party had a great time, but after the mayor left I started getting a lot of flack from the party about catering to the mayor and how I never make them custom minis or do anything extra for them. I tried to explain it's a casual game I want to have fun, but they still razz me about it. Was I wrong to give the mayor of my city extra attention while playing dnd in my house, do I owe my party all custom minis? Or was I right to go a little overboard for the mayor? I await your judgement! (PS-Before the mayor confirmed, I was skeptical of his participation so I rolled a d20 and said if it was a nat 20 it meant he was coming. I rolled a nat 20 and he did indeed attend. I now am a dice christ convert.)

Jamison Wolsborn

To the esteemed and honorable justices and the man who needs (nor deserves) no introduction. I bring to you the case of the highly killable PC. I play in a Star Wars 5e game (shout-out starstruck) with a group who are very old friends (I'm new to the group though). Of our 20 sessions I am on my third character with no other PCs dying. Keeping this brief, should I embrace my role as cannon fodder? And how many of my characters must die before I consider that maybe, I need new friends. (I do really like this group and we tend to get along well, I just keep dying)

Matthew Lifson

Hey qts, I present the case of some light PVP. During my friends' annual new years trip, one of friends organized a one-shot for me and other noobs. I was a draconic sorcerer, and the adventure led to us stumbling upon a secret effort to resurrect a red dragon underneath the city. As a draconic sorcerer, this sounded like a good idea to me, but the two lawful-good paladins in the party were very opposed. During the battle with the people trying to resurrect the dragon, I cast sleep on my paladin allies so that the resurrection could finish. The paladins ended up dying when the resurrection caused a big rock fall (I fled and didn't wake them up), and the one-shot ended with the dragon coming back to life. Was this OK behavior for a noob playing a one-shot, or was it a little too much "Yugo style." PS: In case it affects your judgment, at one point during the one-shot the noobs playing the paladins had to leave and turn their characters over to much more experienced players, and those friends had control of the paladins when I put them to sleep.

Abigail Schneider

To the Honorable Justices of the Supreme Crit and Baby Jakey, I present the case of the Circle of Stars Druid and Guiding Bolt. I am playing a halfling Circle of Stars Druid called Cassie in my latest campaign and I have a question regarding the upcasting of Guiding Bolt. One of the abilities of the Circle of Stars Druid is the ability to cast the spell Guiding Bolt twice without using a spell slot. Instead, you use the charges of your Star Map (your casting focus). I’m only at 4th level and can therefore only cast second level spells, but I’m curious if as I continue to level up my two charges for Guiding Bolt can also be upcast to my highest spell level. I asked my party about this in our latest session, and we were split. The DM (though he is my boyfriend so perhaps he’s just placating me) believes I should be able to cast the two Guiding Bolts as equivalent to my highest spell level, but I’m not sure if he’s correct. Is there actually a correct answer to this or is it up to the DM to decide? I leave myself at the mercy of this just court. Beseeching Better Bolts, - Abs

yumehop (no. 1 ol' cobb fan)

I have a confession to make. In our most recent curse of strahd game, which started during COVID between strangers. I play as Rafi, a down on his luck gambling soul knife rogue/warlock of the raven queen. we encountered an ancient snake god that spewed mystical fire that was blocking our path. Trying to get past the fire, the DM made us roll Wisdom saves. Me and my partner failed, and the DM said that the damage was "from an entity so ancient and chaotic, she would just roll a d100". My partner's PC took 19 damage, and I took 90, bringing me from 92 to 2 hp. We had eaten a heroes feast earlier I forgot to roll the WIS save with advantage. Earlier in the game, I activated a homebrew ability for my rogue that made me take a d4 of damage. I forgot to roll the d4. After the game the DM revealed that if the fire had brought us to 0 it would have "disintegrated your character's soul" and there was no chance of revival/resurrection. In secret I rolled a d4 and got a 4, which would have made my hp 88 instead of 92 and I would have died. Please, almighty envoys of dice Christ, absolve me of my sin so I may see my dutiful little guy, who has been my companion from the start of this adventure, through till the end.

ArmadillosKeepDigging

To the most honorable and incorruptible justices (slips murph $50) and the bailiff who saw absolutely nothing. I have recently started DMing a campaign for my husband who is a first time player. During session one I asked him to send me his character sheet only to find that he had given himself numerous magic items including a bag of holding. I tried to explain that’s not how the game works. He maintained that “he’s a spy he would have cool shit.” I relented and let him have one magic item. During the first session he was trying to suss information out of some bar patrons by disguising himself as the bartender. He rolled low on deception and also just did a generally terrible job trying to role play and gave himself away completely. When a fight broke out he got very confused and said “I don’t understand. If Ragnar (his character) is a spy why does Jim (his name) have to know how to be a spy?” Should I have played along more and not made him role play the situation? I humbly await your judgment. Just kidding, I think I’m right. Punish my husband like the rascal he is.

Hal Martenson

Ladies and Gentleworms of the Highest Court, I present to you the case of the Tijuana werewolves, read to you by a baby named James. I DM a weekly in-person D&D game. We’ve been playing together for years already when this fateful encounter took place. I was running an original campaign set in the golden age of Hollywood. The party’s Eloquence Bard, who could never roll below a 19 on a persuasion or deception, check due to his silver tongue ability, rolled absurdly high on a deception check to convince a gang of Spanish speaking werewolves in Tijuana than the parties were in fact members of another branch of the same gang, a 29. However, I had warned the party multiple times, very pointedly, that none of them spoke Spanish and it was unreasonable to expect that these werewolves would all speak English. I ruled that he was able to convince a few of the werewolves to stay out of the fight, which gave them a big advantage. But he was furious that his deception check didn’t work on all of them, insisting “that’s what he had built his character to do.” Two sessions later, he left the campaign and I, discouraged, switched to a published module instead of finishing the campaign i wrote and was really excited about. So i ask the honorable court, was i a stick in the mud and ruined his big moment? Or did the bard get too big for his britches? i lay my tender neck uponst your blades.

Nathan Jaimes

I prostrate myself at the feet of Dice Christs chosen extensions of his mercy and judgement. I fear I have betrayed dice Christ and my players. When I was deployed overseas I started my own game with my friends. We played very often sometimes 3 times a week. One night they begged me to play instead of going to the gym. I told them roll a nat 20 and we will play. Lo’ and behold their first roll was a nat 20. They started screaming and I was speechless. I left for the gym anyway to everyone’s disappointment and it haunts me to this day. Did I betray dice Christ and my players and can I be forgiven or have I blasphemed beyond the point of redemption. I await your mercy or righteous fury.

Mason N.

May it please the people who play Murph from Jake an Amir, Emily from Jake and Amir, Caldwell who I think was in the back ground in a few episodes from Jake and Amir and Jake. I bring you the case of the killer Life Domain Cleric. I played in a 10 person campaign and am playing the party's healer, a Life Domain Cleric named Coach Hawke Barski. As part of his backstory, he was always bullied during school and thus became a coach to put an end to bullying. While the party was exploring, Coach Hawke Barski noticed a group of teens bullying a kid. He went over to confront the group and ended up getting punched in the nuts and getting table topped by the teens. For flair, the DM put him into a flash back of that exact thing happening to a young Coach Hawke Barski, and in the flashback he retaliated by punching the bully in the face. But in reality, he chose to be doing a 1st level Inflict Wounds uppercut to the teen bully in charge. It immediately killed the teen (who had commoner stats), and as a result, another party member, a Zealot Barbarian, did a reckless attack on Coach Hawke Barski and downed him. Once the tension settled, and Coach Hawke Barski was brought back up, he used all of his money and some of the other PC's money to do a Revivify on the teen and we moved along with the campaign. I get razzed about it from time to time, but I need to ask the court, am I in the wrong for playing along with the DM's flashback scenario and getting triggered by the trauma? Or should I have taken the high road and not retaliated? I await the court's decision in shame.

The Weed Witch

To the stern but kind priest Murph, the ecstatic high priestess Emily, the mad monk Caldwell, and the cool youth pastor with a guitar Jake: I beseech you all to hear my confession/prayer request and intercede with Dice Christ on my behalf. I fear I transgressed against Them and still pay the price many years later. I was invited to join a DnD game with some friends with the DM being my best friend’s boyfriend. All of us were new players except one dude who was a friend of the DM (who had also never played before but watched a lot of Critical Role). During our session zero, a few of the players were obviously less invested in taking the game seriously, which was annoying especially as it was disruptive to those of us working with the DM to roll our characters and the session ended with us not discussing the campaign any more and just giving in to the party atmosphere. We were supposed to meet the following week for a 0.5 play test type session but I begged off, not feeling that excited about the dynamic and promising to come back the next week. Apparently they had a lot of fun as their characters having an adventure around our real-life neighborhood. Unfortunately, the group disbanded for good when my best friend and her DM boyfriend un-amicably broke up like a week later. In the intervening years I discovered D20 and NADDPOD and have become enamored with the game and you all. Now I’m DYING to play and I haven’t been able to find a group to save my life. All the people I know who play don’t want an extra, the people I know who don’t play don’t want to learn, and no online games have been the right fit so far. I fear my flakiness angered Dice Christ and I’m doomed to always be a DnD bystander. I humbly pray for absolution so that I can finally give life to my barbarian Emerlee Axepond and step into the light of Dice Christ. Blessed be!

Rebecca N

To the highly esteemed Justies (Justice Besties) and good old reliable... *looks at smudged writing on hand* ... Zeke, I bring forth a case of an unbreakable chain. May it please the court My group was playing in a Jojo's Bizarre Adventure game (a fan-made, non-DnD system that our DM found online). My character (Adina) was a no-nonsense astronomer with a moth-like stand named Tango Dancer, and Precision was her best stat. The party got into a fight with a man with a Stand named Wrecking Ball, which was a ball with a chain on it that he could control using a bowl he carried. Adina confronted him, and he smacked her with the Wrecking Ball a few times, then wrapped the chain around her ankle and send her and the Ball careening down the street. I had failed enough rolls at this point (and the DM succeeded enough) to declare that I wanted start a roll off between me and the baddie. I asked the DM if I should describe what I wanted to do before rolling, and he told me to just tell him what I wanted to roll with, and we'd decide after. So I rolled Precision, managed to beat the Baddie's roll by 1 each time, and asked the DM if I could use my stand to break the chain on Wrecking Ball. He said no. After floundering for a bit, I eventually just said "OK... I just get out?" And it felt a bit anticlimactic So I ask the court, was I wrong for not being quicker on my feet in describing how my character escaped? Should the DM have heard me describe what I wanted to do before we decided how to roll? I lay myself before the mercy of the court

The-Good-Ending

For my dearly beloved judges and my sworn enemy Jakey, I bring before you the case of the instant kill, no roll beheading. I was in a campaign with my best friend (we will call him Steve) and some other buddies. I was playing a barbarian with a huge axe (this will be important). We were playing a campaign where we were going town to town saving the day from monsters, we were heroes and so far good guys. My friend Steve was playing a necromancer cleric who so far was very kind and nice. Using his powers for good. about 6 sessions in we made it to a new town where we found a goofy gnome NPC who we all loved. He had been kicked out of the town for playing too many pranks, we wanted to help him. All except Steve who said he was annoying. All was well until in the middle of a conversation with the npc, Steve asked how much XP the npc had. Once the DM told him, Steve casted inflict wounds on the gnome and almost killed him. All the players, and even the dm freaked out at Steve and I said I put my axe to his neck and threatened to kill the cleric if he kept hurting our loved npc. Steve said to try and escape he casted darkness and I said right when that happens I swing my axe. I got ready to roll but the DM said because I had the axe right to his neck, I instantly killed Steve. Steve protested saying I should have rolled and done damage normally but the DM ruled that since Steve was being such a jerk and was playing out of character just to get xp, that he deserved to die. This led to a large argument that ended the campaign. (Im still best friends with Steve but we often argue on this issue) So I ask you, did Steve deserve the instant death? Or was he wronged even if he was being a stupid little guy? I put myself and those involved in the graces of the court and will take whatever judgment you deem worthy.

Jason Rodriguez

May it smother the court with blue cheese, and just drizzle the bailiff with ranch. I come with a case of "The op player" I dm a weekly game that is open to many players, 12 at most. And there's one player that keeps rolling really well and whomps me big time. No matter what class he plays, 95% of initiative rolls he goes first. There have been so many nat 20s and 18+ rolls in general, but his current character is stressing me out. His gnome divination wizard in the last encounter effected my rolls, turning 3 of my rolls into 3's, I was flabbergasted how he rolled 3's at the same time, but I had to move on. If there's any guidance you could lend, I'd be forever grateful.

rooqsandravens

to the honourable justices and cheeky bailiff, i present the case of the harmful horns. im a newer dm dming for 3 players in icewind dale. i have given all players a little change to something, a few extra items, things like that as its 3 players. for one of my players, a fluffy and horned goliath barbarian named crag, i said they could do piercing damage if they attacked with their horns in an unarmed strike instead of bludgeoning. (since they are a barbarian! probably will use their weapons more) one of the other players ( a more experienced dm) says this is not fair and a bit too powerful with the changing damage types. i initially gave in to him since he is more knowledgeable but it continues to nag at me. should i have let crag have his piercing damage? i bow down to your final decision as superior judges.

Extremely High Elf

To the honorable Justices and Murph's very best friend, Jake. Today I lay my case at your door to ask for judgment. I'm DM'ing an 80's Las Vegas biker gang themed campaign. My PC's are undercover with a biker gang who are determined to summon an elder God. Recently, they were taken to the summoning circle and one of my players (a changeling Sorcerer) decided to use prestidigitation to destroy part of this ritual. I had them make a sleight of hand check which they failed. They were caught and got into a huge fight with the biker cultists, nearly dying. I was pulled aside by this players spouse later and told I was railroading the story and should have made the DC lower. It was DC 25 to alter a summoning circle in front of a bunch of fanatics. I dunno. I accept all punishments. Please. Punish me Murph. I'll beg.

emilythecoffeewench

To the resplendent Justices of the Court, and the lukewarm bailiff I guess, I come with a full party's admission of guilt. My dnd group has two weekly sessions, one being our main campaign and another night reserved for short games and oneshots. In our last main session, we established that our cleric's god looks like a yellow Keith Haring figure, but can manifest a dick when he wants, and the dick can walk away. We promptly lost the last quarter of the session to this goof. 6 days later, on our oneshot night with two people not in the main game, we brought this up again, laughing our asses off. I, in partnership with others, made a gif of said golden Godly penis walking off the Keith Haring figure and off screen. We once again lost a lot of time to laughing about our own dumb joke, while the other two players were just sitting there politely. I come bearing our groups sins and humbly ask for forgiveness .

Ben Kullerd

To the Judges keeping it tight and the Bailiff who is probably doing their best, I present to you the Case of Cantrip Abuse: I currently play an Order of Scribes Wizard, and one of the best new class features is the optional Cantrip Formulas, which allows you to swap out one wizard cantrip for another after every long rest. The problem? I've been abusing this recently, unbeknownst to my fellow players and our DM. Occasionally, as we prepare for a new social or combat encounter, I will sneakily swap out a cantrip that I've had stocked for several sessions, even if we haven't yet taken a long rest. If I haven't taken advantage of this feature in a while, then I can bank them for a time when the swap is most needed, right? Or is this the flawed thinking of a degenerate criminal? I prostrate myself before Dice Christ and His most honorable servants. (And Tucker, if he's there, too.)

ali

To the respected justices and guest bailif Jaek - I wanted to share how I handle Bags of holding in my ravenloft based campaign. My setting is a custom domain of dread but to start them off I ran them through the house of lament module. I used this time to introduce them to the Bagman, a corrupted creature that lives in the interdimentional spaces inside bags of holding. Once they completed the module they realized any bag or pocket on their clothes or person had become a bag of holding giving the bagman access to them and their surroundings whenever it wants. This has throughly freaked them out and instilled in them a sense of constant dread. They are only level 6 but are now afraid of their pockets which I find hilarious, no matter what when they change thier clothes or use a different backpack (PCs are high-school students) their pockets become bags of holding the bagman has access too. So in closing if your players are set on getting a bag of holding, just make it haunted by the bagman!

shannon

To the honourable justices and bailiff-of-the-month Jake: I present to you the case of The DM vs The Healing Bullet. We were in the final fight of our campaign against the BBEG, who shifted between a homebrew dragon and level 20 wizard, where we were racing him through a series of our old battle maps to reach a wishing star first. At the time of the incident, the stakes were high: my wizard and our cleric were both in death saves and the artificer was next in initiative. The artificer has a healing bullet she can use in her gun to heal at a distance, and rolled to shoot the cleric with healing, rolling a natural twenty on her healing bullet shot. She argued that because of the critical hit, the healing bullet’s effects should have also been doubled and the cleric should have recovered twice the dice worth of health, as if adding a smite or additional weapon damage. However, our DM didn’t let us double the healing, saying, “just because you shot her with a gun really good doesn’t mean there’s more potion in there.” While the cleric thankfully was able to pull off a mass heal not long after that which turned the tides of the fight, some of us, myself and the artificer especially, believe that the healing should have doubled as a crit, but the DM stands by his ruling. We did defeat the BBEG, but it was a lively topic of discussion during our post game short rest. Judges, I ask you: should we have had a crit heal, or was the DM right to not double the dice?

Dylan Brockman

Hello darling justices of the Supreme crit, and my bud Jif. Me and my girlfriend began playing in a campaign together. This is her first time, and I'm quite experienced. She created an elf ranger. I was unaware she had the intention of us having a romantic connection in-game. So there she is, a beautiful elven maiden looking for love, when I walk in. An extremely loud, Scottish gnome fighter who flirts with the a goblin girl at the bar. She was not too happy. I explained I didn't enjoy romantic dnd roleplay. Justices, should we have communicated beforehand, or was I justified to create my little not-hot Scot?

JakeMussman

Thank you Mrs Chief Justice and may it please the court. Jake, you handsome sonofabitch, may it please you too: The facts of the case were these; I was a first time DM running a one shot murder mystery for a group of largely first time players. A corrupt mayor is murdered at his reelection party. I had everyone choose in-genre archetypes to base their characters on. One of my players chose the mysterious outsider who was secretly there to kill the mayor. He made the ~wild~ choice to be a cartoonishly Dutch candy salesman, and was surprised that everyone was suspicious of him. He never got the chance to commit the murder, as I had a PC do it. He then pulled a knife on the PC who had hired him to kill the mayor at the party and was promptly arrested. He shortly after escaped and fled. The player then sat out the rest of the session, which was nearly 90 minutes longer, looking dejected. The question before the court is this, was it my fault as the DM for not guiding the player more in character development or did his wild pre and in game choices doom himself?

Lorelei and Kyra Newly Weds

To the wise and powerful judges, and their house cat Jake. May I present a case against myself to the court. I play in an online campaign where we recently had a few people out for the holidays and decided to do a one shot with new PCs entirely serepate from the campaign. With my main PC being a true neutral mary sue, I wanted to play the exact opposite. Enter Brenda (bredalizebeth inspired by Emily) a chaotic evil druid. The one other player that attended was a rogue halfling. Together we entered a school and began solving a murder mystery. However at one point both the rogue and I failed a wis saving throw and became magically engaged. Whilst enraged wewanted to just harm those around us. While chasing down the rogue to attack her, while she drops NPCs . At the end of a tunnel I saw a child. As the most evil option I fired a powerful ray of frost at the kid, the DM gave me disadvantage and made me have to beat the Rogues AC, which I did and ended up almost killing the rogue before we managed to finish the campaign. My question is, am In the wrong for trying to kill this kid or was the DM wrong for trying to stop me after specifically putting his party into rages (just a magical effect not a real rage)

Daniel B

If it may please the court! To the honourable justices and the equally honourable bailiff, I bring you the case of the undersold risk of death. I play in a game with my 3 siblings. My older brother is the DM and largely written his own campaign which is a cross of Silent Hill type horror and Game of Thrones politics. Over a year ago, at the start of the campaign he told us outside of city walls at night is dangerous and full of horrors. That first year of the campaign the focus on my character was trying to free an NPC comrade, Sir Aiden, from prison before he was executed. Our party pulled off a lot of challenges and we successfully freed him! Shortly after, our party was forced to temporarily part from Sir Aiden, due to an urgent side quest, with him leaving to another town just 10 miles away and him setting out in the morning. We planned for us to catch-up. Once the side quest was completed I asked if we could make our way to meet with Sir Aiden and my brother DM said "yeah... If he made it there alive." He then said that he told us at the start of the campaign that anywhere outside of the walls are dangerous. I protested and said he described the journey as low risk and didn't elude at all about a risk to Sir Aiden. Also Sir Aiden voiced no concern with splitting up. My DM was unmoved and said "it will come down to the rolls". I ask the honourable justices, was I wrong to forget the warning given over a year prior or was my brother wrong to fail to elude to the risk to our beloved Sir Aiden? Does Sir Aiden deserve an off screen death after a year of trials to save his life? I humbly await your verdict. P.S. it has been over 6 months since this happened and we still don't know if Sir Aiden lives! Your judgement could help tip the scales and help save Sir Aiden!

Some guy who likes chicken

To the grand and powerful justices I give my greetings, and to the bailiff I give my coat. Place it on a wooden hanger and don't let it crease. I present the case of the never-present paladin: I've been DMing a campaign of Descent into Avernus for about 6 months, playing once a week, and one of players has skipped the last 2 and a half months worth of sessions. I've asked him several times if he wants to drop out of the campaign, and every time he insists he'll make the next session. In his absence, his character has become something of a joke to the rest of the party. They've dressed him in a gimp costume and bring him around on a leash, since the campaign is taking place in hell they've used this to get a bit of cred from devils they encounter. Last week, the missing player finally showed up again and got pretty angry about the state of his character. Since the original concept for the character was a fairly stern and pious paladin, he said it showed a lack of respect for him and his creativity, but I countered that he'd shown a lack of respect for mine and the other players' time by never showing up. He ended up leaving the campaign and I'm left feeling a bit guilty, should I have let him retcon the joke changes to his character or did he lose the right to complain with his absences?

WookieJesus

To the Honorable Crit Justices and jake? May it please the court and semi arouse the bailiff, I present the case of the hidden rolls. My table and I play on roll20 as a few of us live in different parts of the country (NZ) and overseas (Aus), a while ago I started to notice that session after session dnd beyond and roll20 were rolling very low on average and even a few sessions were noone got Nat20's apart from me (as I roll in person to keep my rolls hidden) I felt this was a bit broken so I told my players that since we had been playing together for a number of years now that if they would like to, they could roll in person and I would trust them to be honest. Since I implemented this, the majority of my players roll in person and online, and finding it balanced for the most part. However, I have a player that seems to never roll low (IRL die). She is playing a Paladin so her aura gives her a +5 to all saving throws so I understand not really failing much but her rolls are consistently 20+ range. I feel like something is off as statistically speaking, if the modifier is a +10 then there should be some teen numbers coming through. How do I bring balance back to my table without singling her out? I await your divine ruling.

Devin Awe

To the gorgeous chosen ones of Dice Christ himself, I come begging for forgiveness. This incident happened a few years ago and it has haunted me ever since. My players were fighting a crew of mini ghost pirates inside a ship in a bottle. One of the PCs, an Aasimar, was possessed by the ghostly pirate captain. The party fought and had to strike the PC down to 0 hp to expel the captain. Seeing that the rest of his crew had already been defeated, the captain decided to make a show of force by attacking the downed Aasimar. I only wanted to do the two death failures to scare them a little bit, but unfortunately my dice had other plans. When I announced the damage afterwards, the player announced that he was instantly dead. They mopped up the ghost quickly after that and looted the treasure they were there for, before making an emergency exit with Planeshift before they could be caught by the owner of the bottled ship. But that night I realized something: I hadn’t announced the type of damage of the ghost’s blow (necrotic) and it was something the Aasimar was resistant to, so he shouldn’t have died. But I didn’t want to completely erase the drama and tension of the moment. I checked in with the player, told him what happened, and had him roll the remaining death saves one-on-one and he got one success before getting the final failure and dying, so we agreed to let his character stay dead. But I was happy he failed so that we could retain the drama of the death and there’s a good chance his party could have healed him had he actually had the chance to do his saves in combat. On a scale of shoplifting to Sodom and Gomorrah, how egregious was my sin and what must I do for restitution?

Umair Ahsan

To the righteous court: my noble Goliath fighter is forever trapped in an extra-dimensional prison and I must know who is at fault! In a long running campaign from a few years ago, our DM ran a cave dungeon where, upon entering the cave, all players had to make a saving throw (I forget which kind) or suddenly get sucked into a small pocket dimension room. In this room, there was nothing but a desk with the deck of many things on it. The ONLY WAY out of this room was to pull a card from the deck… Trust me, I checked thoroughly for other ways out. I left the room two INT points dumber as a result of pulling a card, but alive and present at least. Our party then played through the cave dungeon and came out exactly where we had started, with our treasure. HOWEVER… my friends are absolute chaos mongers and insisted we go back into the cave and pull more cards. Just for fun. I didn’t think it would make sense for my fighter to abandon the party, so I went in after them (despite my out-of-character protests), failed my save again unfortunately… and this time pulled the donjon card. She was essentially wiped from the game forever. (To add insult to injury, everyone else in the party pulled funny and fairly inconsequential cards given the circumstances. One of them even got 3 free wish spells!!) So I ask the court… Who do I blame for this tragic mishap? The DM for forcing us to draw cards, my reckless party mates for tempting fate, or myself for foolishly going along with what the group wanted??? I lay myself at the mercy of the court 🙏🏻

Corey

To the eternally inspiring Justice Tanner, the mercilessly captivating Justice Axford, the unquestioningly honorable Justice Murphy, and also Jake I guess, I present The case of what I intend to do to my party. i have been DMing the Tyranny of Dragons for 3 years, and my party (consisting of my wife, sister, and 3 best friends) is a group of 5 players, all level 15 and overpowered with insane magic items. (My fault I know.) recently they killed the secondary villain early. A super Buffed Severin the Red, riding a red ancient dragon. I Wanted to introduce a badass villain as a way of demonstrating stakes, but the battle simply didn’t go as I planned and I got whomped by my players as usual. I love them to succeed, but I want there to feel like there are actual stakes. So I intend to trap them in a nearly un-winnable battle with the new secondary villain I have been forced to come up with. they will be lured into a trap by Szass Tam, the new red wyrm speaker, where they will have to fight a CR 15 mage and a CR 22 Mage, both of whom are also enemies of the cult. So essentially Szass Tam will trick them into fighting an enemy if his, and after they are beaten within an inch of their lives, Szass Tam will swoop in, (Using a Lich statblock) and attempt to finish the job, killing everyone. It’s basically a run or tpk scenario I have planned. But I ask, is this too much effort and evil meta game plotting to introduce the stakes of a secondary villain (after all, Tiamat is the main villain, but the module presents a chances to stop her return and prevent facing her altogether.) I just don’t want him to seem lame but I struggle with whether this feel like too much, and with PCs this powerful, it has become increasingly difficult to balance against 5 of them. I await your all knowing wisdom.

ehjs

Dear amazing justices Tanner, Axford, Murphy and the other one (who was really cool to meet in Boston and interested hearing about my job but I can’t destroy the conceit of dungeon court)… My acquisitions incorporated campaign (generally just a goofier universe) has a great group of DnD players, I’d like to think myself included. We love our DM but he seems to just say “wow that’s a really cool idea but no” pretty often… This past session he asked us to roll arcana at a new setting and my wizard got a nat 20, overall a 29. We learned the whole area was Hallowed by a cleric over the course of a couple weeks. I asked him, with a nat 20 and such a high number, can I gleam any info on which god the hallow was through. I am a follower of Shar and I know there is a little of Shar mystery in this particular quest. He said “that’s an awesome question but no”. Was I wrong to think my nat 20 should give me something more than the normal DC 15 he planned?

IVthatGuy

To the Hornorable justices and big baby jakie, I present the case of the Unjust Ending? A year back me, 2 other players and our elderly DM had finished a campaign of Beyond the Witchlight and (spoilers to those who haven't played) after we had saved Zybilna the arch fey, she gave us some boons and set the clock back for our characters, making us the children we were at the beginning of the campaign with foggy memories of what had happened. Once that was done, we all look around the table with a (wait what) look on our faces. The Ending just seemed to be a write off on what our characters had went through but me and the other player kept silent, looked to have accepted it, thank the Dm for hosting and letting us play and the usual stuff and we went on our way. Few hours later one of the players had stated after this ended undermined everything her character went through (she went through a hag curse and was becoming one but got another curse that pretty much made her immortal from age and the hagification) and was a unfitting ending for all involved. Me and the other player stayed out of it. Was the player justified in their outrage? Do you see this as a fitting end of a campaign? Note: Dm offered to extend the campaign and search for Zybilna again as kids but i opted out as I didn't want to be in the awkward situation.

Katheroony

To the wonderful judges and the delectably handsome bailiff, Jude. I bring you the case of the all-seeing DM. Our group were recently playing a regular session of online D&D in roll20, and somehow questions were raised about how our fighter’s AC was 1 higher than it should be. I listened to the argument, and said it was probably because the fighter keeps all of his abilities in his own character sheet, like me, instead of uploading every detail into the roll20 system. Well, it seems saying that was a mistake. My DM was outraged that we weren’t all keeping our roll20 sheets up to date with every new ability, item and spell, and said he’d have to go through every single character to check they were all correct. I’ve always had a separate PDF where I dump all new abilities and spells, mainly because I don’t have the time to go through manually inputting every single detail into an online system every time I level up. Every DM I’ve had before this has trusted us to maintain our characters ourselves, but I now realise our DM wants constant oversight of our rolls, our loot, our gold, our stats, our spells - literally everything! Am I wrong for feeling a bit annoyed and put out by this? I’m not trying to hide anything, and I always play and roll honestly, but I have a full time job and it’s hard to find the time or even the energy to keep these things up. Not only that, but I feel like my DM doesn’t trust us. Is this level of surveillance normal?

Maggie

May it please the Crit's merry band of lovable rascals and the oft-maligned yet good humored bailiff Jamboreen: My DM ran a one shot from Call of the Netherdeep in which one of the NPCs was an ogre named Maggie. I am also named Maggie. I was delighted! Most of the other Maggies I encounter are dogs, so an ogre was neat. We had a blast playing the one shot, so our DM decided to run the whole campaign. By the end of session two, the whole table pausing and glancing at me every time the DM said 'Maggie' and the (admittedly minor) confusion about 'Maggie's turn' during initiative had lost its charm. She hasn't been around our last several sessions, but Justices, she's on the cover of the dang book, so it's only a matter of time. I mentioned that I didn't love having the same name as a potentially major NPC. The DM said he 'thought about changing it,' but 'decided he didn't want to' with no further elaboration. Justices, I ask: should the DM tweak an NPC name, or am I being a weirdo for even bringing it up? We will humbly abide your wisdom.

so-crates

To the honorable crit justices and the baby Blake, I bring present you with the case of The Peerzza Pressure. I recently started DMing for my older brother and a group of his friends who I've known for years, but never knew well. The game itself has gone really great, and for the first couple sessions the players took turns buying pizza or making a salad. Then my brother asked me what meal I'd bring when it was my turn.... Now, I've been spoiled by the other group I DM for, where someone always brings snacks or we go out and buy lunch together. I have no cooking skills and no desire to drop money on a huge meal for several people every few weeks. Plus, I spend a couple hours a week reading the module and prepping for sessions, not to mention the money and time spent 3D printing and painting minis. I tried to explain that to my brother, but to be honest he's a bit of a dick, and was dismissive of the effort I put in for out group. Rather than try and argue with him, which very possibly could lead to a blow up that wrecked the game entirely, I caved and bought a massive pizza. My question for the crit is this: Should I continue to acquiesce and buy meals for my players, or should I try and explain my perspective to my brothers friends and remove myself from the meal rotation? I do want to acknowledge that its not so much the money that irks me, it's the fact that in my mind, my contribution to the game is more substantial than the others. Asking me to pay for meals for everyone makes me feel like that's not being recognized.

Jason Rodriguez

Further evidence is that his past 2 pc's had alert and would constantly get 27s-28s on initiative, as well as crits on high damage cantrips (lv 14)

Don Kianian

To the Regal and venerable Supreme Crit, and also Jervis or whatever his name is, here is my quandary: I am a first-time DM running what was supposed to be a one-shot and has now turned into a full on side campaign. Out of all the players in the party more than half of them are former or current DMs, making for a very….interesting table dynamic. More often than not this is no issue, but sometimes the DMs-turned-players will sometimes get ahead of their skis a bit and do some meta gaming. Since I’m running this off a module, this sometimes takes shape as them knowing how many or what type of enemies are coming up. My question is this: how do I tell when they are metagaming vs just using their intuition, and how can I tell them to chill without quashing their enthusiasm? I beseech thee oh great justices and hope you shine your light upon my case.

Jenkers

To the Honorable Esteemed Justices and the deplorable meat sack whose flesh mouth I am puppeting. I bring the case of my really cool mini. So I decided to get into mini painting as a treat to both myself and my players, and settled on my first paint being a blink spider. It had a large model, cool colour scheme and overall cool design. My painting turned out really really good, and I couldn’t wait to surprise my players with it. I planned an encounter with my players (lvl 3) and was excited to run combat, as they can shift dimensions, paralyze with their venom and are a creative ambush predator. So effective, that when the encounter started, it insta-downed and paralyzed my storm sorcerer player on its first round of combat. I did my best to flub some numbers, but I couldn’t change the party’s terrible rolls on the table. The PC was out of the fight before they even got an action in combat. After combat, I allowed our cleric to cast a homebrewed lesser restoration to allow the player to recover from the poison. However, the player was very quiet and then left shortly after. She never came back. I heard over text afterwards that they felt I targeted them for being new at the game. The next session, the boyfriend of the sorcerer said he felt uncomfortable continuing to play, and the game completely fell apart the next week. Nobody said anything about my mini, which I still think was really rad and cool. In the player’s defense, they were right. I targeted the sorcerer, because it was a beast looking for food, they wore no armor and stuck to the back of the marching order. I also prompted a perception check (DC 12) from the party to notice the spider before its attack, and I rolled the damage in front of the table. Is this just bad luck, or did I allow my artistic pride to overshadow the fun of my players by bringing this monster to my game? I await your judgement.

AbolithSpawn

To the esteemed Justices and the exceedingly average bailiff Jug. I bring you the case of the Revealer. I have played with a long time friend who only seems interested in playing the game with a character who has some sort of secret race. In the first campaign he was secretly a skeleton. The next, was a disguised Slime (called Sir Ludge) and now he's playing an old man who's actually a vampire. There's always some big reveal and then he stops caring about the campaign. I am the DM for his most recent vampire character and don't want the reveal to be out of nowhere so am trying to foreshadow some stuff but he gets increasingly annoyed everytime I do. Most recently, the characters were sent on a quest to Shadowfell to gain some prophetic knowledge from the Elder Vampires (setting up for the reveal) and he had a private go at me because I am making it "too obvious". Justices, was I wrong to try and foreshadow? Should I have just let him have his mystery based fun? Or am I OK to simply blurt out that he's a vampire in the next session because the temptation is killing me. I accept any and all punishments if that's how it goes <3

Bearnardo

To the Esteemed Justices and Pikachu, I’ve started running Turn of Fortune’s Wheel, the new planescape setting adventure that came out last year, for a group at my local game store. One of the big rules of the setting is that no worship is allowed toward a godlike figure called The Lady of Pain. It’s a huge taboo and the lady herself could punish you if you worship her openly. Needless to say, a player asked if he could get a tattoo of the lady during our third session. When the tattoo artist balked at the suggestion and told him it was a terrible idea, he began screaming out how much he loved her and used mold earth to make a small statue of her which he proceeded to hump. He clearly wanted to try to summon the lady of pain to see what she would do, but I was hesitant to give this player that power just by being an asshole, even if it meant his character would die the minute she showed up. I was not confident this behavior would end even if the player was forced to roll up a new character. So I had a bunch of harmonium guards show up and haul him away for disturbing the peace. My question is this: should I have just annihilated him on the spot? Or was I right to let his actions go unnoticed by the Lady to try to teach him that his behavior won’t get him noticed by the gods and he is but a speck in the Lady’s eyes? I await your judgement and the Lady’s.

Josh the Alchemist

Greetings esteemed and righteous judges (and that bearded himbo that reads these)! I am here to present the case of unwanted divinity. I have been playing with this same group of people for 9 years. Our current campaign, set in the Greyhawk/Oerth setting, has been going for about two years, on and off. Throughout, we've met a handful of deities, all of whom my character has backtalked without any negative repercussions. In fact, I've received several magical items, artifacts even, from these deities. Finally, after 17 levels and far too many encounters that strained my suspension of disbelief to the breaking point, I asked the universe why. Apparently, that's what the DM was waiting for. I learned that my character is a demigod, has been the entire campaign and, presumably, his entire life. I spoke with one of the overdeities, if not Lord Ao then certainly Ao-adjacent. That is normally more than enough to destroy even lesser deities, but apparently my plot armor was too strong. This follows being unwillingly elevated to the position/title of Duke (with basically my entire court trying to get me to coup and take over as King) and having my entire backstory (metaphorically) ripped up and different choices made to "spice things up." I never asked for a duchy, I never asked for my character to get married and have to sire an heir, and I never asked to be a god. I don't want to leave this group, I've been with them for so long, they're who I started playing D&D with and they're truly since of my best friends, but I don't know what to do. I've tried talking to the DM about this before (not the first time I've been made royalty without my consent), but it seems my pleas fell on deaf ears. I now plead my case here. What should I do, justices? Shall I continue with this unwanted godly burden or is there some option I'm missing? P.S.- I hope Caldwell and family enjoyed the Dr. Seuss/Call of Cthulhu books I sent from last year's GenCon!

adrieenna (she/her)

Blessed tidings to the Jazzy Judge Emily and a cordial but professional hello to everybody else. I humbly submit before you the case of the DM’s Reddit account. I work at a public library, and nearly a year ago, we were approached by an interested party who wanted to DM a game for the public. I’ve done more DM’ing than playing in recent history, so I volunteered to “run” the program. For the most part, things seemed to work out well. We had a few people show up for the monthly sessions and dip out, but there’s consistently been about four of us playing. I didn’t know anything about the DM’s personal life or feelings, but he seemed cool. This changed whenever my longtime friend and another player in the campaign found his Reddit account (under the same username as his DNDBeyond and Roll20 accounts, both of which he used to share world-building and lore with us). From his very frequent posts, he’s actually kind of a dick and has some pretty awful feelings on things. We had suspicions he was maybe not that cool because he would make minor little comments every now and again, but they were just vague enough to go over our heads (looking back on it now, we see them for the warning signs they were😔). So far, this hasn’t come up yet in the games, but I have noticed some recent tension between him and I after I excitedly announced I would be DM’ing a youth D&D program at the library (from his reddit account, it’s clear he thinks men have the superior intellect). Other than that, the game has been fun for the most part, and I really enjoy playing with the other players. His terrible opinions haven’t really reflected on how he treats our characters or anything. Is my friend in the wrong for being nosy and googling the DM’s username? Am I in the wrong for mixing business with pleasure and creating a public D&D game at my place of employment? Should I just call it and give up playing with a group I really like? Or should I fake my death and run a different campaign at a different library? Awaiting the judgment of specifically Justice Emily with bated breath <3

BrassW

To the exemplary sagacious judiciaries Emily, Caldwell, and Murph, & the bailiff that has trouble reading big words, I ask: Does a character need to specify that they use protection every time they have sex? Like, is it hella weird for a DM to roll a pregnancy check behind their screen? I know it's strange, but should I be *concerned*? My character and another party member in a Strixhaven campaign (we are both small male owlins who somehow pulled hot owlin NPC girlfriends) would regularly have implied sex (fade-to-black to end the day when in bed together). But on prom night when it happened, the DM had each of us roll a D100, noted who got a 1-15 (for 15% chance of pregnancy??) and revealed what they did a few sessions later when my owlin gf started to have a rounder belly than usual. It got hand waived away after an awkward silence, but I would still like to know if my horny DM should be punished, or if I should be for my character not stepping up to suddenly be a father.

Sean M

To the Highest of Judges whose glory needs no introduction and Jayke, I present you with the case of never-ending paralysis. I have been playing in a continuation of a Curse of Strahd campaign for about 3 years now with some of my best friends. Normally I would have no grievances as our party communicates, respects each other, and overall just plays for fun and has a good time. But there is one enemy our DM keeps throwing at us that brings down the mood across the board and I can't help but feel is broken. The priest of Osybus is a spell caster that can summon a Shadow (a low CR creature that can strength drain on a successful hit). This isn't that bad, and it gives some challenges and makes us players proceed with caution when fighting them. The big issue lies with the weapon attack from the priest that can INSTANTLY paralyze a character on a hit. No save. It just happens. And even this isn't even the worst right? What is bad is when you find yourself paralyzed, and then getting automatically crit on by a Shadow to have your strength drained, only coming out or paralysis on the Priests NEXT TURN to get paralyzed again. So it's an endless loop of paralysis while one mage fights with ranged attacks in the distance to save us. Is it fair to ask our DM to tweak the rules a small bit to at least allow a save, or should my barbarian swallow his pride and watch in stunned silence as the party gets continually wrecked by these priests? Thank you for your time, I await your judgment with open arms.

dat_rogue_baddie

May it Please the Noble Justices and the kind of ok bailiff Josh: I present the case of the Zephyr Sike. I have been playing in my first ever campaign for about two years now via discord. Eight months into the campaign we added two additional players to our party (bringing the total to 7 players), one of which is swiftly turning into a problem player. He is now a level 10 Paladin and has switch his subclass 2 times but has not fully learned his character sheet and this causes him to he take 5-10mins during his turn in combat every time. As a relatively new player, I sometimes research on my fellow players' builds to learn more about the system. A few weeks ago he used Zephyr Strike in combat even though his subclass changed and that was a spell from his old subclass (or so we thought). During session, I texted the DM and two other veteran players about it and after the session we asked him about this spell. We learned he should have never had the spell since it is a RANGER spell and he is strictly a Paladin. He said he isn't sure how he got it but would remove it. Well, last week during combat we had all 7 players present and on just the second round of combat we were over an hour into session. His turn came around and he once again took over 5 mins looking through his sheet. At the END of his turn he announced he casts Zephyr Strike again, when asked he said it was from a feat he took. When it wasn't my turn in combat I looked up what feats might give him this spell: the answer was none of them. After session we once again asked him what feat, he stumbled over his words and didn't have an answer until another player said "Is it Magic Initiate?" to which he replied "Yea! That one!". I interjected that Magic Initiate does not give you access to Ranger Spells and that Zephyr Strike is only on the ranger spell list. The group kind of moved past it but I texted the DM about it and he removed it from the player's sheet himself. I ask the court: did I overstep as a player or do I have a duty to hold my fellow players to a certain level of integrity? I await your judgement. p.s: I'm not sure if it makes a difference but the DM and I are recent exes. He also said he remembered the first convo and was going to remove it without me saying anything.

Scottee

Greetings to the succulent justices and beatings to the tough, chewy, Cake-Sniff Steak. I present thee with a tale most culinary. I'm currently playing Husk, a Circle of the Blighted firbolg druid. His opponent? A DM with an unadventurous palate. Husk is a weird guy who druidcrafts beautiful bouquets from the skull-orifices of those he has slain in combat, but for the bodies of monsters, he finds other purpose. Equipped with the Chef feat, I like to describe him as having used monster-parts from the party's recent kills as parts of the dishes he prepares. Ghost ectoplasm sauce, behir tongue fillet, twig blight chopsticks, etc. DM suggested that we make this feat a roll and on a good roll, I might confer some extra benefit on the party. On a bad roll, it might not work. Great, I think. Sounds fun. I roll a 4 when preparing some water elemental soup. I fail to cook it properly and its thrashing in our stomaches leaves the party seasick. Understandable. I accept this with grace and good humor. Next rest, I get a 23 while preparing some sharktopus sushi. I get... The stated benefits of the Chef feat. My disappointment is great and as the game wraps up, I mention it to the DM. Apparently, he finds the idea of eating monsters so unappetising, anything below an 10 confers a penalty and I would need a 25! Only obtainable on a nat 19 or 20! To get any fun extra benefit at all. I think this is pretty unfair and burned my enthusiasm. I ask you, fellow chefs, should this homebrew rule be implemented with a tad more artistry and appreciation for the edibility of monsters? OK bye love you.

Gemma McBride

To the rad, rad justices and the sick as hell bailiff, I present to the court the simple case of the Procrastinating PC. I've been regularly playing D&D with my best friend for years now in various campaigns and one shots. However, whenever we start a new game, he puts off making a character sheet until the very last minute, sometimes starting his character sheet during the first session. Multiple DMs--myself included--have tried to nudge him to get a character sheet done in time, but he isn't very receptive. Am I wrong to be annoyed by this, or should I hold him accountable and if so, how? I look forward to your judgment.

Murph

Hello Mr. Bailiff Jake! I don’t have a case but I’m desperate to know if Emily and Murph have played the video game Stray. Cat + robots is extremely their vibe and I think of them every time I play it

William T.

Good day High justices of the Supreme Crit and the Oath of Bailiff Paladin Jake. My case comes from running a one on one campaign for my girlfriend. She wanted to play a campaign with me but we didn't have enough friends available to make a traditional campaign, so I created what was essentially a romance DnD campaign for her. Well the issue comes from her complaint that I do not interact in the roleplay enough for her. Now as I am dming this campaign, I am role-playing around 5 or 6 characters every session to her one. One of those characters is meant to be her romance interests in the story and that is the one she thinks I don't role-play enough. My view is that I try and balance it so that the entire game isn't just me talking to myself in different voices, so the specific romance character can't be the one always making decisions in the campaign. So my Crit Justices am I in the wrong for wanting to balance role-play so she can be the driving voice of the player character side?

Henry B.

To the honorable Supreme Crit Justices and the bailiff Pinch. I submit the case of the disarmed eldritch blast. I play a warlock pirate in a seafaring campaign, and I flavor my eldritch blasts as a trusty blunderbuss. We were fighting a rogue who had a home brew ability to disarm your weapon from you without making a check and you would have to spend your action going to go retrieve it. I argued that since my gun was just flavor and it was actually a spell that it couldn’t be disarmed from me. Maybe it was a magic gun that returned to my hand. Also eldritch blast does not require any material components to be cast only verbal and somatic. I was over ruled, saying that in the world of the game I was still wielding a weapon even though it was flavor and would still behave like one. I acquiesced and we continued the session without problems but I in the back of my mind I still feel like I’m right. I humbly await your judgement.

Maxwell Keiles

To the honorable justices and the intern Jerump. I ask your judgement on the tool assisted multi class. I am currently playing a sorcerer at level 17 and just got a level up. However the final few abilities are, for lack of a better phrase, more useless than a Pebblepot. I wanted to dip into paladin but my strength was only 10. We did, however, have an artificer who could make a gauntlet of hill giant strength, which would get me over the 13 strength threshold needed to take the class. I was denied that, as the dm argued that you can’t level up based on an item that could be taken away. And that even if it was to go through, I would effectively de level if they were removed/ made inert. I relented and took we agreed to buff the sorcerer abilities a bit. I ask the court, should I be allowed to take a multi class with the power of friendship and enhancements, or should one need to be in perfect form of their own accord to have the ability to swing a sword

Canadian Schubert the Mushroom 🍄

Oh highest Court and oh lowest Jork. I bring to you the case of The Downed Me. My party and I are decently experienced players, and were on a side quest, battling mages at the center of a seaside Necropolis. Our Warforged Paladin first got Hold Person-ed. Then I, the Divine Soul Sorcerer got downed. This was bad, because I am the designated party healer. Our rogue recognized the danger, and immediately put all her focus on breaking the Hold Person concentration on the Paladin so he could Touch Hands bring me back up. And she did break the concentration! We cheered! Then the Paladin gallantly strode over to my body, stepped over it as it grew cold, and started swinging on the enemies to our confused silence. The Warforged claimed that it "Would be an inefficient use of his turn" to bring back our powerhouse healer, which in my ultimately biased opinion was incorrect. I submit the TPK that followed as evidence. Honored Justices and Jook, am I dead in my rights to be upset that I'm dead? Or was our bot right to try and go down swinging?

Zack Collins

Greetings to the most Just Justices and the Bailiest Bailiff! There's been a recent discourse at my table. One player (a bard) has been using the Message cantrip to cause enemies to take actions such as attacking their allies, skip turns, or even end their own lives. She'll whisper something like "I hate Jeff, but I'm glad he can't read minds!" into Jeff's mind. After a deception check (usually dc15) Jeff will then attack his ally, who he "thinks" is thinking this. It was funny at first, but it's happened about a dozen times and some people at the table are becoming irritated. Partially because the turns can take long and because it makes the cantrip super powerful. Justices, how can this be resolved? Who needs to be punished? Note, the DM is my pupil and it's his first time DMing. I don't want to step on his toes, but will dish out punishments accordingly.

The Fun Yaunt

To the Supreme Crit Justices Axford and Murphy, the Sweetest of Blue Holes, and the deeply mediocre bailiff, May it please the court, I present the case of the bardic imposter. Last October I DM’d my first session, a one-shot for my regular D&D group. I planned a spooky adventure in which a group of cousins entered the mansion of their great-aunt, a witch that left them all a generous inheritance (should they successfully pass her trials). I asked each of my players to text me about their characters in preparation. To my surprise, one player told me she’d like to play a Changeling Warlock named Scylla who likes to take on the appearance of her friend, a sea-elf bard. I thought this was a strange detail, but didn’t think it was particularly important what appearance the Changeling chose. However, I soon learned that I’d okayed her character before fulling understanding it— this player intended to play a Changeling Warlock that was fully impersonating a dead Sea-Elf Bard (and the real niece of the witch). The character would also carry a necklace containing the soul of the deceased friend in hopes she could revive her one day. Her backstory seemed too complex for a one-shot, but she was excited about the character and I’d technically already okayed it. I asked her what her plan was for when other players asked why she wasn’t casting bardic spells— she said she doubted it would come up. Unfortunately my concern was merited— during the session one of the other players became increasingly frustrated that the “bard” refused to give bardic inspiration and heal. This other player, a rogue, stole the imposter’s necklace out of annoyance, derailing the session for a time while the imposter disregarded the mission to look for her necklace because “it’s what her character would do.” The rogue eventually dropped the necklace in a trashcan for her to find once he realized that the “bard” wouldn’t continue the one-shot without it. The players and I had fun overall (and I incorporated revivify into the witch’s inheritance), but I ask you— was I in the wrong to allow my player to play a character with such a complicated backstory? I humbly await your judgment.

Ryan Janes

To the honest and all-powerful Supreme Crit Justices Murphy, Tanner and Axford and Jake or James, however we’re feeling today ; 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.

Kelso of the Sea

Dearest ethereal justices of the highest court and the matronly bailiff, I come to you not with a confession, but with a request for guidance and spiritual counseling from the much venerated Axford, Murphy, and Tanner. (Jake, I implore you to read my story with a long suffering and anguished tone) I have been humbled by the machinations of some random men at local game store, and beseech the expertise of the followers of Dice Christ, and particularly of Bishop Axford. I got interested in playing dnd because of naddpod, and the pod was an incredible escape from my work as a therapist during the great lockdown of 2020/2021. I’ve been hooked ever since. I finally got up the nerve to play my first game of dnd at a local gaming shop near me a couple weeks ago and the experience left me disheartened. While there was a lot of fun in the process of making my first character on my own, and I will say that between naddpod and d20 I have become pretty familiar with the basic rules which was great, the experience overall was pretty awful. I found myself the only woman in a group of men that just seemed to want to “win” at dnd against me, repeatedly trying to just kill my character in some bizarre PVP situation. I’m proud of myself for trying something new after wanting to play for years, but I left feeling so awful and cried the whole drive home. Please Cardinals of the Crit, how do I work up the nerve to try playing again? Or how do I better stand up for myself as a young(ish) woman in a situation where I’m singled out in a dnd game.

Philip Crowe

To the honourable justices Axford, Murphy and Tanner and the infallible and awe inspiring bailiff....ah, it's at the tip of my tongue....Murphy again maybe? I humbly present to you a case, or maybe a confession, of getting lost behind the screen. I was running the final session of a three year long Curse of Strahd campaign. Strahd had less than 10 hit points and it was an NPCs turn. Not wanting an NPC to get the final blow I had her cast Haste on a PC. However the PC who's turn it was next, not knowing how little HP Strahd had left, used an ability which allowed them to kill Strahd at the cost of their life (and ability to be revived). Strahd did have legendary actions and another form, and most of the party were on their last legs, so it was not a guaranteed win without the sacrifice but they may have survived had I killed Strahd with the NPC. Did I unnecessarily kill one of my players characters? Or did I make the correct decision in prioritising the PCs getting the final shot on their enemy. If it helps, the final words of the campaign were the implication that the killed PCs spirit was still taking care of the party. This decision has been weighing on my mind since the otherwise amazing end of the campaign a few weeks ago.

Armis

To the honorable lords and lady of the court and the court jester Rake, I bring to you the case of the solo player. I'm a rather new DM, and I was DMing a campaign for my friends, where they had all been transported to another world as themselves. Everything was going smoothly, up until one fateful decision. One of my players came to me out of game, and said he'd like to go where the Dark Lord of this setting was set up. He didn't trust the god who sent them on their quest, and wanted to see both sides. I was planning on there being a twist, where the Dark Lord was the one trying to save the world, so this fit perfectly in my plans. The next session, he pretended that he left something in the car they took to their current location (yes, I let them cast find vehicle), summoned his own car, and left to the Dark Lord's palace. I finished everything up with what the main group was doing before cutting over to him and setting the scene for the twist. Once the session ended, however, the rest of the party didn't seem too pleased. They were mad none of it was communicated to them, while the player who left said they would have tried to stop him if they knew. I ask the court, should we have let everyone else know about the plan, or were we right to keep quiet for the sake of the twist? I prostrate myself before the court.

Craig Felt

To the honorable justices and very competent bailiff (if we're being mean to Jake today this is sarcastic) I present the case of the character John Doe. Several years ago I joined my friends' campaign for several sessions. Going in to the adventure I knew it was a more gritty, hard core campaign. The DM and I met before the first session and came up with a front line tanky character since that's what the group was missing. Within the first hour of playing my character was focused by the enemies and killed. I was fairly sad but he said I could make a new character. I spent the next hour making another character while everyone else kept playing. My new character was introduced, and then shortly after focused and killed in combat again. I made a 3rd character, a human fighter named John Doe, in 10 minutes, and asked to rejoin the party. My DM wasn't super happy with my character choices, and the session ended with John's death. I did not rejoin the campaign. Was I wrong for making such a generic character and disrespecting this hard core campaign or was my DM wrong for killing me over and over? I humbly await your judgement.

lucy pickle

May it please the ever awe-inspiring judges and the other one, I think it was Jessica. I present the case of the slo-mo wizard. I’ve been playing in a campaign with some childhood friends for a few months now. We’ve all played in at least one campaign before and the game has been flowing very smoothly, we’re having a blast. The trouble is that every time it’s our wizard’s turn in combat they take about 3 minutes of uncomfortable silence to chose a spell to cast. Recently, I mentioned to the player before a session that maybe they could plan what they were going to do on their turn before their initiative came up in the order because, sometimes, waiting for them to choose a spell brought the energy down at the table. They got very quiet and gave a curt response, saying that they could do that. Then, when it was their turn during the first battle of the session, they cast a spell that was entirely unhelpful and unrelated to the situation. When asked why they did that, they said “Oh, I was told I need to think faster so I went with the first one I saw…my bad.” The energy at the table was tense for the rest of the session. Judges, was I wrong to ask our wizard to plan ahead for their turn or should I have let them continue to pick good spells, although very slowly, during initiative? I prostrate myself before your tremendous wisdom and await your judgement.

Ross Gilliland

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

Pendergreen's Bowflex

In the very first campaign I ever DMed, (in true Coldwell fashion) I gave my players whatever they wanted, including: “the butterknife”, a knife I came up with which can cut through any wood like butter. This gave my players some nice “dm womps” but eventually (soaking in DM sweat) I put a metal door in a place I didn’t want them easily getting in. This of course was met with exasperated uproar. Luckily this campaign eventually came to an end. I’m now DMing a homebrewed pirate campaign with one of the same players (a chaotic Druid) from this previous campaign and they are DEMANDING that I give them the butterknife once again. I can already see them wildshaping into a bear, jumping onto the enemies ship and just chopping up the hull. My Question: Have I given them a toy that I can no longer take back (and is this the end of my DMing career) or should I tell them to suck it up and tell them that they actually have to properly interact with my world now.

Ian Phippen

To the benevolent honorable justices and also Jake from Work. I was invited to a longstanding campaign and asked to role a character who could support healing, as there were 6 of us total and one, I was told, overworked healer. I happily rolled a druid. However, I soon learned that any time I went to heal a character, I would be blocked. The party cleric, even with almost no spell slots left and my character being rich with them, would rush their character into the scene and insist on doing the heal or restoration themselves, insisting that they could do it. No real reason for this is given. Sometimes I will say, I cast this healing spell, and they'll interject and say I don't, it's not necessary, they've already done it, and then afterwards mark the spell slot on their sheet. My character feels useless. There are different ways I could take the character, but I'm hesitant to pursue them when everyone else in the party including the DM specifically requested this from the party. So I ask the court, is our party cleric wrong to never allow my character even the most innocuous of healing opportunities, or should I simply step back and let her work her magic?

Darrius Davis, the guy from that one thing.

To the most esteemed, highly beloved bailiff Jake and the people who sit on the bench, I guess. I approach the court today with regarding the question of freedom. I started a campaign with some friends a while back and in the first session of the campaign they: convinced all the villagers to throw their bodies at orc raiders, burn down a stable for insurance money, tranquilize, oil and burn the person that sold them the stable (he wouldn't provide insurance money) and whip a librarian for not finding them attractive. Did I give my players too much freedom, or was I right to let them be absolute menaces before they became great heros?

Drew

Salacious tidings to the honorable judges and holy shit is that Gary Busey!? Today i present the case of The Crazed Axe Maniac. It was a short lived single session game as you’ll come to learn why. The PC’s were playing themselves thrust into a fantasy world and assigned classes with a roll of the dice. This is where we meet Raphael, the son of a lumberjack and the barbarian. We make our way to town so Raph can acquire his father’s legendary axe. But before we can we immediately stop at a brothel. One of the PC’s named Joey, sorcerer, is not fond of brothels. He describes to us how he uses Earth Tremor to completely destroy the brothel, killing everyone inside with a nat 20. We escape the scene of the crime and local guards ask if we saw who did it. Almost as if on an impulse, Joey yells out that he saw a “crazed axe maniac” completely destroy the brothel. We all laugh. However, Raphael shows up to this interrogation holding, you guessed it, his fathers axe. The rest of the session becomes us hunting down Raphael and bringing him to justice. We go along with it because none of us were there to witness what really happened. Were we wrong to not meta game or should we have put a stop to our crazed axe maniac friend being framed? I await your judgement with arms wide open.

Austin Beasley

To the esteemed judges and the nearly adequate bailiff, I bring the story that got me deemed "TPK Extraordinaire". We had just started the campaign and I had warned my players that I was playing this campaign purely by the book, and after days of dino races and jewel market heists, the party braved the jungle and rolled a velociraptor ambush on the random encounter table. 2d6 raptors ended up being 11 raptors to fight, who nat 20'ed the stealth check for the surprise round and rolled higher initiative than the players. Adding in pack tactics and multiattacks resulted I'm the players taking 44 attacks at advantage before they even had a round to respond. The party was immediately eviscerated and replaced with new, more serious PCs. The Loxodon assassin never even got the opportunity to say his catchphrase (guess you didn't see the elephant in the room) The campaign ended up being super fun, but this still gets brought up regularly. Was I right to play by the book and let the TPK happen, or should i have added DM shenanigans to give them a chance? I await your judgement and sentence

Griffin Ziegert

To the honorable Supreme Crit Justices and also sweet baby jay, who I’m not sure is even old enough to read yet. I submit the case of Swoosh, The Hexblade Kenku. I run a campaign for some of my coworkers. A new guy started at our job and wanted in, which we happily did. He decided to play a Hexblade Warlock named Swoosh, who can only communicate through his magic sword. The issue is, the sword doesn’t talk, and only communicates through making sword noises, I.e. swoosh and swish. Anytime the sword “spoke” Swoosh asked the rest of the table to make an insight check to try and understand what the sword was trying to say. This got very old to the rest of the table and myself very quickly. I tried to remedy the situation by giving Swoosh a magical item that could turn his thoughts into speech. Swoosh proceeded to crush this item with a rock, and the player told me I was “railroading his character decisions” My question for the court. Was I crazy to try and find a work around for such a time consuming character choice, or is swoosh absolutely bonkers. I humbly await your judgement. Griffin

Tom Crew

How Flammable is Flammable? To the venerable Crit Justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner, and the venereal bailiff Juice. I was playing a Divination Wizard Halfling named Cindy in an Exandria based campaign with a coworker buddy, and 2 new players and an older DM we had met our local TCG store. Things were going well until we discovered that my DM h a t e s Fireball. When we hit 5th level and I told him I was taking it he was quick to remind me that it would ignite any flammable objects in its area. I agreed, and was happy to use it a few sessions later when we found ourselves in an empty stone town square fighting the goons of a rogue who wanted to test our mettle before we were offered a contract. Right before the fight the DM told us that damage from spells can be assigned non lethally. I said very well, and let the ol’ Fireball rip knowing I was safe. Wrong. The DM described how the Gnoll goons were incinerated into ash. The Rogue was pissed, a well in the square was destroyed by the fire, and I was required to pay 50 GP to the townsfolk (must’ve been one hell of a well). Fast forward to a few sessions later where we were fighting a Hydra in an abandoned town (you can probably guess where this is going). Things were getting dicy so I cast Fireball on the Hydra. The DM made me pick the spot and refused to let me use his 20’ ring. I’m an experienced player and can luckily count to 4 (not to brag) so I picked the perfect spot, but nonetheless the DM described how the explosion would actually grow past the 20’ radius circle and light the abutting forest (which was never mentioned until that moment) on fire as well as the house whose roof I was standing upon. He then rolled a directional die for the wind, which blew into town, and described how the fire spread to about 1/3 of the town. This was all still on my turn so this happened in 6 seconds. The fire damage downed me, the hydra attacked me, and death seemed certain until our valiant Orc War Cleric charged into the burning building and rescued me, despite the DM telling the player that his PC “will die.” Fortunately, we argued against his certain death and the DM agreed to let the dice decide. He lived and four sessions later I walked. The DM loved him some minis and had brought a Hydra mini with growing head attachments for our battle, but my fireball’s fire damage stopped it from ever growing more heads so I think the DM was just pissed that he couldn’t play with his toy. Were the consequences of my wizard’s Fireballs just? And where is the line of flammability? I surrender my fate to the court and accept all consequences. P.S. - Straight from the pantry Chef Boyardee is perfectly fine!

Bryan Voss

Honorable Justices and the underrated Bailiff Jake. As part of a campaign I was running for friends I decided to do a Valentine's Day special, as I had done for other real-world holidays. My players were sent to investigate the disappearances of couples from the city they were in, and it took them to a nearby cavern. I had been dropping hints that a succubus was involved in these disappearances, and I expected a fun thematic session with low stakes. One of the characters was the stereotypical Chaotic Stupid, Chaotic Evil, perpetually horny Bard, played by one of my best friends. Despite what you may think, he was not a new player; this character was created with the express purpose of fucking with me and ruining my plans. Cue to the succubus reveal, and I may or may not have fudged the initiative roll to make her go first. I started out by having her attempt to charm the bard, as I'll take any opportunity to give him a taste of his own medicine. Instead of rolling his Wisdom save, he gave me the biggest grin and asked if he could intentionally fail the check. The rest of the table groaned. I have a weakness for letting players make bad decisions and punishing them, so while I'm not a fan of PvP, I allowed it. Cut to him hurling Vicious Mockeries at his party and buffing the succubus with Bardic Inspiration, and it gets funnier when the fighter fails his Wisdom save and also enters the melee (I know what the stat block says for the Charm ability, don't @ me). In the end, I had the succubus fly away with the promise to return, as I felt she could be put to good use again in the future, now that there was history. The party was left intact as though nothing had happened. I truly think everyone had a good time, but I'm still very apprehensive about PvP combat, as I appreciate the cooperative aspects of D&D the most. Was it wrong to allow such gleeful side-switching? I'd like to know how you would have handled this.

Troy Mumme

May it please this sultry tempest of a court, and also the slightly less sexy bailiff, Jake. I’d like to present the case of “was I wrong or just being lame.” I was DMing for my longtime playgroup,when the party came across a farmhouse guarded by a giant. A real Fuzzy Lumpkins type character. The party snuck into the house to find the giants wife with a baby. Before she could yell out, the bard cast suggestion. “ I want you to go into the other room and take care of that baby the best you can” so I had the giant go into the room and start yelling for help, as that was the best way to care for the baby. The party argued with me saying that didn’t make sense and was a wasted spell. I wouldnt budge and the players moved on. I later realized how lame that was. BUT, I don’t think I was technically wrong. I prostrate myself before this court awaiting your judgement.

Charlie Penn

To the Capital W Wardens of Crit and the lowercase L lowly bailiff, I ran a one shot for my friends to get them started playing DnD. It went well till the final fight, when the party barbarian failed a save against the Command spell. The villian's command word was "Betray". I told the player you have to betray the party in some way, and player attacked and downed the sorcerer. The sorcerer then complained that the other player was targeting him and that he should have attacked the quest giving NPC who was in the fight as well. Was I wrong to let the Barbarian player choose their action based on the command spell?

Alex M

Venerable judges and handsome bailiff Jake, I present to you the case of the late cleric. I am in a 5e homebrew campaign where the party is a group of knights/advisors to a prince vying for control of a contentious magical empire. We recently travelled to the fighters hometown to investigate a corrupt marquis, and also met the fighter’s backstory wife. In a climatic battle, we had defeated the marquis and were set to interrogate him, only for him to reveal that he had captured the fighters wife! I guess we forgot about her. Marquis said if we would let him go, she would be unharmed, otherwise she would die. While the table grappled with the decision, the fighter casually said “Well, she’ll understand,” and then killed the marquis. Mayhem ensued. The DM dramatically described us frantically searching down halls and adjacent rooms, only to find fleeing goons and the body of his ‘beloved’ wife. After a beat of shocked silence, the fighter turns to me, a cleric, and says, “Hey, you have revivify at 5th level right?” I was so flabbergasted by the heel turn in the players attitude towards his supposed wife, that I started arguing with the fighter about why he would do that, only for the DM to interject that the party had waited too long and revivify would no longer work. At this point, the table turned on me, asking why I had wasted time asking questions like: “why did you do that,” or “we hadn’t asked the marquis a question yet.” I have been informed I am to blame for this guys dead wife. Judges, should I be blamed for my genuine confusion over the actions of the table, or should I have kept a level head and just saved the person first. I await your decision.

Martin Paluoja

To the supreme justices Gimli, Pippin, and Cate Blanchett, and lowly Bailiff Boromir, may it please the court. I come before you with a case of defying Dice Christ to save a little dragon. The story begins with the party finding and rescuing from captivity a Bronze Dragon Wyrmling called Uudishimulik (Curious in English). They started out as an NPC played by me, the DM, but within a few sessions were taken over as a player character by my girlfriend who was new to the game and wanted to start off with a really simple character mechanically. Brilliant choice, as Uudishimulik the Baby Bronze Dragon became the mascot and sweetheart of the table, and lots of fun adventures were had together. Cue many sessions later, the party was in a tough fight and split up - some had gone down and been healed back up, and as one of the few last enemies cast an AOE spell, Uudishimulik goes down. Nobody with healing spells was around, and the combat went on, and next round the dragon rolls a fail. Another round passes and it's again Uudishimulik's turn. I, the DM, tell my partner that as long as she doesn't roll a 1, she's okay. She rolls, everyone watching with bated breath - of course a nat 1. Table is silent, with tears welling up in peoples' eyes. They quickly put together a ritual to revive the dragon, and even though mechanically there was nothing to back this up, I allowed it to work. We also decided as a table that from then on, even though other PCs were still at risk of death, little Uudishimulik would have plot armor and be knocked out instead of doing death saves. Nobody at the table objected - I don't play with edgelords - but this was by far the most explicit defying of dice rolls and 5e rules I ever did, so justices, was this the right call or do I deserve punishment (which I'd gladly take, I regret nothing)?

BarryYourDead

Honorable justices and Carl, i bring you a case of inter-party murder. I know this is a little long, but it has been bothering me for 10 years and I need to know if my grudge is warranted. My friend offered to teach 4 of us dnd and ran an 8 hour session of The Storm Kings thunder. I playing a dragonborn fighter in a party with a wizard, a paladin, and a rogue. After successfully saving the town from a raid, we were celebrating in a tavern when the dm said I felt a blade pierce my neck and that I was dead. He explained that the rogue had been texting him about his plan to murder me for hours and had successfully rolled stealth and deception checks. I was heated. An argument broke out and resulted in the dm allowing the wizard to cast suggestion on me and the rogue “to sleep”. I rolled a Nat 1. The dm narrated me going upstairs to bed and shortly after the rogue slit my throat. I never got a chance to play with the rogue again and thus never got revenge. Was he within his rights to do this? I await your judgement.

Maddie

To the honorable judges Axford, Murphy, and Tanner, and the bailiff Jerk Hurtin’, may I humbly present the case of the simulation situation. I was in a spelljammer-esque campaign a while ago and I joined the party like 3/4 through the campaign. My friend was another player, and he would complain about the dm railroading a lot, but still invited me to the game so we could “share in the suffering together” The dm was definitely railroady, had lots of overpowered npcs who saved us in fights before they would get dangerous, and lots of lore that I never learned because I joined late and was never explained to me. But i wanted to support my friend who felt he had committed too much to leave the game when it was also over. During one of the final battles, a former player was brought back to fight as one of the bad guys, who I didn’t know. After that fight, the rest of us were chilling on a space ship, and the dm described us as starting to hear strange voices. We tried investigating them, tried asking around, but were getting no answers. When we had finally given up, the dm announced that suddenly we all woke up in our cryo chambers and that they ENTIRE campaign was a simulation and that none of any of it really happened. There was no massive uproar, all of us players were in stunned silence. The dm laughed about how the former player who had returned for the final fight had apparently guessed that it was all a simulation way back at the start of the campaign, and that’s why he left the game. Justices, I know the dm is at fault. But I can’t help but feel resentment for my friend who invited me to this shitty ass game. I still play with that friend, in fact I’m dming for him right now. Would I be justified in getting him back in some way by giving his party a simulation scenario (not the whole campaign, just an encounter) to try and fool him again? Or should I let sleeping dogs in cryochambers lie? Thanks for reading!

Nathaniel F

To the Tantalizingly Terrific Two Crew, The Gallant Guest, and... those other 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-like illusion 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, probably around 1mil. And rolled a 99 on a d100. So it absolutely worked. The DM, who views handing out artifacts as a notmal DM, 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, a time devil, who was apparently in the Wizard’s 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. Basically, the DM doesn’t want us to have it. This is but one of many greedy acts over the years of playing, and we humbly ask for your validation that this should not stand. Thank you. (We are all great friends who met on this online D&D game, and meet up in person annually. We 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.)

Reese

I write to you in brief fashion! Dear Justices and J-man. I’m the DM and my players are a group of gonads. Bud’s from college. They’re often distracting eachother or distracted with other stuff in their respective rooms on zoom. So I’ve implemented character distraction points. During role play scenes or battle. When I notice them distracting others I “award” a distraction point. Distraction points give you disadvantage on your next roll whether attack, ability check, etc. It’s outraged my two distractive players but not the other two as they are more serious. Is this too harsh? Should I just constantly tell them quit disturbing the session? I accept whatever punishment be provided. May Dice Christ bless us all.

Rogue 398

To most noble and esteemed Judges and the Maligned Balif Jackie. I present the case of the murder hobos and the Nigel the Necromancer. I am a player in a group in which we were investigating the disappearences occuring in a crypt that connected to the sewers beneath the city. We quickly encounter the culprit almost catching them red handed and chased them back to their lair. Where we encountered Nigel a washed out college student living in the sewers with his adorable pet ghoul trying to create a flesh golem as school project so they could get readmitted to the necromancy college. What proceed to follow was two of the party members went on a full murder hobo spree on Nigel who did not resist or fight back in the multiple rounds they took to kill hi. With one person claiming their character abhorrs necromancy and finds it to a great evil, and the other person claiming their characters madness and bloodlust were driving them too it. While me and my gf another player watched on in horror and shock astounded by their reactions to what we thought was going to be a fun encounter and roleplay with. After we came out of shock at our friends actions it almost led to pvp between our characters and some very tense rp and moments later in he campaign, ultimately resulting in a full in game court trial the characters had to go through with the resurrected Nigel standing in court against us in which we were found mostly guilty. So judges was I in the wrong for almost driving the party to blows over going full murder hobo on what I thought was a fun NPC or do I stand in the wrong and should have supported their deranged murder hobo madness.?

Leanne Crawford

To the magnanimous judges Murphy, Axford and Tanner and the illustrious bailiff Jeff, I bring to you the case of the Wild Magic Murder. This occurred back in the days before NADDPOD, while I was relatively new and and still finding my feet playing DND. I played a wild magic sorcerer and in a relatively high stakes battle, I rolled a 1 and got to roll the wild magic surge table. Luck was with me, I summoned a unicorn! A little back story, in previous sessions, it had come up that our DM did not agree with how fall damage was calculated in 5e and had mentioned making the damage higher, a couple of the other players agreed but I and another had stayed silent, I was too new to DND and the mechanics still felt complex enough that I was not ready to have any input. Also, my DM, knowing my glass cannon status, had recently gifted me a flying broom. I'm sure you can see where this is going. I was 90ft in the air on the fateful day when I summoned a unicorn to a space within 5 feet of me. It was briefly, a truly magical moment which became suddenly horrifying when we realized that no, unicorns cannot fly (or cast fly) and it suddenly plummeted. This is when my DM announced that he had decided that fall damage will be doubled starting now and going forward. My unicorn was mercilessly splattered on the stones below. So I ask you, the wonderful, compassionate, clever judges, and Jeff, should I still be suffering from splattered Unicorn PTSD, or did my DM do me dirty? P.S. please do a dungeon court in Toronto when you tour again! P.P.S. Jeff have you considered being a guest on 8 bit book club? You might be funny.

Cook

To whom it may concern, and to whom it may not. I’m a first time DM who killed my PC out of spite. I started a campaign with a group of friends who were all new to DnD, myself included. We were running a starter set and my players insisted on creating their own characters. My problem player was a Paladin named Boots who insisted his god be Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism. After explaining that he was not a deity and offering him a list of gods, the player opted to solely represent “the one true God”. I explained that many gods did in fact exist, and this could cause implications down the line, but figured we could RP around it. As the first encounter began, 2 players entered combat while Boots decided to disengage and flee from battle to unsuccessfully convert the local kobolds. After the party reconnected, Boots broke off once again to go to the library and debase all of the history books involving the Isle by crossing out the writings and replacing them with Mormon scripture. When confronted about this act, he told the village elder “Fuck all that” and was told to leave the dining hall. He was given multiple chances to repent, but only responded with “or what?”. Fed up after minutes of antagonization, the elder revealed herself as a powerful being and asked him to leave once more. After a final “or what?”, initiative was rolled and the player was one shotted, resulting in instant death. The session ended there, with a “so should we get dinner?”. We went and ate Pho, and had a good time, but my girlfriend and I were still disappointed in how the session went. I know I could’ve handled this much differently, but the vibe felt like maybe this wasn’t the right group. Was this uncalled for? Should I have handled it differently?

Penderpeen

To the Chark loving Justices and their snivelling pineto mount bailiff Josiah, I bring to you the case of the unreliable party. My party has been playing together for nearly five years with varying waves of engagament. Sometimes we have had months of weekly play back to back, and other times members have left for a week or two due to busy schedules. this is normal, and we are all very comfortable. However, our most recent campaign has become very investing for the party as a whole. As we have begun to really invest fully in our story, one member of our party has had a terrible number of scheduling conflicts. They have been missing most weeks for over three months and our story has all but stopped. While I am very understanding, these updates on their conflicts come less than a day in advance, leaving our forever DM to scramble and come up with something last minute that acts a total departure as we are at an integral point with our big bad. This has gotten to the point where 6/8 of the last sessions have been held on a single path in the woods. I have suggested for the sale of the party we remove that player from the current arc and write him back in when they have availability. This was met with push back, as they suggested I was being too impatient. I ask the court, am I wrong for suggesting we actually play the story instead of going on constant one-offs or am i being an impatient piss boy jake?

Jon Snider

To the dogmatic church and dungeon docent herself, High Priestess Axford I bring to you today not a confession, but a grievance. I have held my tongue for as long as possible, but with High Priestess Axford's recent advice, I contain myself no more. I am a forever dm and had the first chance to play in years when one of my PCs decided to run Dark Dice's Domain of the Nameless God for us. Spelljammer had recently come out so I created a lunar dragonborn (reflavored white dragonborn – so sick) as a twilight domain cleric who was completely moon themed, his holy symbol a moon rock, little spectral floating moon rocks for the light cantrip, etc. After a few sessions of poor rolls, I decided to take High Priestess Axford’s advice and cleanse my dice in the moonlight of the first full moon of 2023. My character being moon themed, everything was perfect. I set my dice out when the moon was brightest, highest value facing up so they can learn. Reinvigorated with celestial grace, I felt Atrus ready to take on anything. The hubris.. The first session after the full moon, I did not roll a single check or saving throw above a 10. Over the next few sessions, Atrus slipped into insanity via the madness rules from the DMG, and ultimately succumbed to the horror of the Nameless God being birthed into the world. While fleeing the sight of a ritual to bring the God back, my dm gave us a choice: do you flee or do you turn back to look? After everything that led to this, Atrus could only turn back. The dm asked for a wisdom saving throw and i rolled a natural 1 with wisdom being my highest stat as a cleric. Completely broken, Atrus sat down and laughed at the inevitably of everything as the rest of the party fled. This also led to another PC death where the bard of our group tried to drag Atrus with him but also rolled a natural 1 on his wisdom save. In the end, it was a beautiful scene in which the bard and I and passed on from the material plane and into another, where Atrus met his lunar dragon mother who he had only seen in visions. I lost my own mother in 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic so this scene was especially heart wrenching and cathartic for me. Years later my faith in dice christ is still shaken and I am cursed by that which inspired what was my favorite character of all time. Can I ever heal? Can I ever trust again? Has dice christ truly forsaken me or am I another Job or Jonah or that one monk who rolled 7 nat 20 dex saves?

Martin Paluoja

Spelling reference for Uudishimulik: UU - as in "ooh" DIS - as in "diss" with a shorter 's' HI - as in "he"-man MU - what cow make LIK - what Murph wants to do to Emily Wayne Dolphin for the rest of his life.

NoLifeKitty

May it please the court! I bring to the judges (and handsome bailiff Jake) the case of the sad old Lich. During a playing of Curse of Strahd my wife (eladrin rogue) was told of a old lich losing his memory and becoming lonely from solitude. Being a kind soul irl she immediately decided there’s no need to fight the lich and befriended it. Rolling well and convincing our Druid player to cast minor restoration to help him, she managed to befriend the lich and he walked us through the back half of a dungeon where he shared some gold and told us of the item we needed to kill Strahd. My wife told the lich she wanted to stay in touch (purely for his benefit not for a powerful ally) and our DM (my brother) immediately disagreed out of game and said he’s too powerful to be called up. My wife argued she would never call upon him for anything but company and to keep him in good spirits. Eventually the DM relented and allowed my wife 3 scrolls she could use to contact the lich. She accepted but ultimately never used the scrolls, she simply wanted a pen pal lich but got 3’single use scrolls that she’s too scared to use because she just wanted a lich friend. Should our DM have just given her a cute lich buddy or was he right to stifle this relationship?

Gemma McBride

Forgive me, Duncle, Docent, Daddy, and other Dude, for I have sinned. I come to you all today to confess my misdeeds. During a session last week, our characters were doing brief scenes in order to "prove" ourselves to an Elven Empress. I beefed my scene but I quieted down to let others contribute. However, the last player was about to do her introduction, but got a phone call from her dad and had to exit, so to fill the time, I decided I'd redo my scene as my character was embarassed. However, the call was brief and she came back during my scene. I felt awful for making her wait and realized it might have come across poorly to the group. No one else redid a scene and while my intentions might have been good, it was selfish and visibly made her annoyed. May Dice Christ forgive me.

thursdaysgrace

To the magnificent magistrates and the budget Hardwon Surefoot – I present the case of the uninspired baked goods. My group has been playing 2 campaigns (with 2 alternating DMs) together for almost two years. We started off playing at one of our DM’s houses, and in the last ~4 months switched to my house (due to some roommate issues). Ever since we started playing together, I’ve made and brought a homemade baked good or other sweet treat to every session. I’ve made cookies, tarts, cakes, brownies, ice cream, cocktails, and more – only on one week when I drove straight to D&D from an out of town trip did I buy something to bring. Originally, I did this every week because I wasn’t hosting and wanted to contribute to game night. However, now that I’m the one hosting I find myself still upholding the tradition. Here comes my issue. One of our DMs has developed an annoying habit of asking for a baked good once I bring it out, and then awarding inspiration to the person who hands him the treat, all while I stare from the far end of the table. This is, needless to say, super annoying. I’ve jokingly made a fuss a couple times and gotten an inspiration, but it feels really awkward to keep bringing it up, so lately I’ve let it slide. I’ve tried making baked goods that require serving from my kitchen instead of something that can be grabbed off the table and passed, but to no avail. In fact, sometimes when I do this he’ll accept his plate, and then later throw out “hey, if you grab me another serving I’ll give you inspiration” to another player in the kitchen while they grab a drink or clean a plate. I want to keep making treats for the group but every time this happens I feel a little more deflated. So, am I in the wrong for being annoyed that my game night treats go unrecognized, or is my DM entitled to have his cake and his inspiration too?

Marrow

To the widest of justices and smallest of baby bailiffs jack. I bring to you the case of the DM who can never finish. I was in a game of out of the abyss and things were going well. All the players were enjoying themselves including the DM. Fast forward 10 sessions and the party hadn't left the beginning area (a prison). No one had an issue with this but it got joked about often. When the group had finally left the prison and entered the underdark things took a turn. The DM left and no contact was had in the group for over a year. When contact was made it was only to check in and ask if everything was alright. The twist to this is that I was the DM. I don't know if it was anxiety or lack of dedication but what happened haunts me. I have no desire to run the campaign again and attempts to run games since have also ended with similar fates. Great court what punishment is worthy of such a disgraceful DM? (Apologies this should've been labelled as a confession)

WIlliam DeMartino

To the unimpeachable Justices and the AI that has certainly replaced Bailiff John: I’m a DM and I’m a recent session my split party got attacked by a kraken. At the climax of the fight the Tortle Monk was trapped underwater grappling the kraken, and the tiefling artificer crashed their airship into the submerged kraken. I had the kraken and monk do dex saves and both passed, seeing my player’s dissatisfaction, I offered the monk a chance to sacrifice their evasion to give it disadvantage, which he agreed to and the kraken passed again. The monk was killed instantly by the airship crashing into them due to him not having evasion, and I feel conflicted about the results. Was I wrong to have a player sacrifice a class feature to do something outside the rules? I accept whatever ruling and punishment the stalwart justices and lil baby Joke decide.

Harmony The Bard

Top of the morning, justices. Bottom of the morning, bailiff. This case is titled: Rotisserie Chicken Fingies. My partner and I played D&D at a local game store. A few DMs took turns running Adventurers League modules and anyone could sign up to play. I have mostly fond memories, but one sour memory lingers. Another couple often signed up for the same game times as us. They constantly interrupted our turns to tell us "the optimal move" or incorrectly insisted that our bonus action spells actually required an action. That was annoying, but not a deal breaker. The deal was broken when one of them brought an entire rotisserie chicken, oppa Walmart style, to the game. Your honours, this man chowed down! Juices sprayed across the table and landed on my partner's character sheet. He shouted with his mouth full and little bits of chicken rained upon another player's mini. He belched mid-retort while "correcting" the DM. He sucked on a bone like a ravenous gnoll. Finally, while this man was licking his fingers clean, I was asked to roll a skill check on the table. As soon as it landed and I announced the result, he grabbed my dice with his repulsive rotisserie chicken fingies. He shoved it towards me and I limply accepted the well-greased die. He expected me to thank him for being helpful. I said nothing (for the rest of the night). After that game, we stopped playing D&D at that store and started playing online with cooler people. Was this the right call? Or should I have "accidentally" knocked his chicken platter off the table? Thank you for your time and consideration.

Patrick C McAuliffe

To the honorable justices and the court's underappreciated support staff, whose work is essential as it is anonymous: My dungeon master locked me in the basement and forgot about me. My fiancé and I have been playing in with an online group for a few years. We've played several campaigns, and generally everyone gets along pretty well. With our latest campaign, another player took his first run at DMing. We ended last week's session about 15% of the way through a dungeon. We picked up last night and were quickly faced with a group of drow snatching us away under cover of darkness (oppa Hobbit style). Half of the six PCs (+token NPC) had to make dex saves; I and the NPC alone failed, and were quickly bustled off down a dark corridor while the rest rolled for initiative. Everyone else rolled initiative, and battle commenced. After they won, the rest of the PCs needed to find a key to enter the level I'd been taken to. At this point, I was enthusiastic, and excited for a scene with me captured. Torture, daring escape, gladiator pit, I was down for whatever. So I didn't mind when the rest of the PCs continued to a second room. And then went to the second floor, when I'd been taken to the basement. Two hours into the session, my fiancé started dropping 'I wonder what is happening to his PC.' I watch three additional combat encounters play out. At the three hour mark, I am discouraged. The DM says "Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about you" as an encounter ends. Surely, they'll cut to my PC. But no; investigation checks for lore-related info continue. The DM has a high-level deity contact another PC, and talks to them for over half an hour. At this point, I took the dog for a walk, and then washed dishes while my fiance played in the kitchen. I kept listening in, discouraged but still hopeful that I'd at least get a cliffhanger to close out the session. After four and a half hours, I had rolled one luck check and one dex save, and I didn't get to talk to anyone. It felt like what you do to a character when someone has to miss a session, but I was there. Justices, I ask you: can I come out now? -The PC of Amantillado

Maddie

Oh holy justices, I prostrate myself before you! Condemn me not Dice Christ, I must confess! In the last session of my Tyranny of Dragons campaign, I had two bad guys with the same attack go after two party members. One of the bad guys crit, but the other bad guy still did more damage. Both attacks would have killed one of the pcs. I felt bad, so I changed the crit into a normal hit, so the pc remained up. But then I felt worse about my deception, so I added that crit damage to the other hit, which would have brought that pc almost to 0 if he had not cast absorb elements and halved it. At the end of the day, neither went down, but the one pc did use an extra spell slot for his reaction. Please forgive me for this sin and blatant favoritism

Andrew Yeager

I'd like to bring a case to the court against one of the Justices. So to the knows to have fun in D&D Justices and Even with Lewis, Ferrari will not win a championship bailiff Jake. I would like to bring a court case against to the Party Pooper Justice. Dungeons & Dragons is supposed to be fun. Yet this justice says Nay Nay. Justice Murphy will routinely rule against those wanting to have fun. Just because a character has a silly name or a goofy backstory. He won't even wait til the case is fully read before making predetermined rulings without hearing the full story. I say this is completely unfair and goes against the very idea of Dungeons & Dragons to begin with. Which is to create a fun story full of fantasy, that is also entertaining. One of my favorite characters I made was The Bard Formally Known as Felpin. Would Justice Murphy automatically judge him without hearing his back story. That the Teifling Bard ran away from home because his parents did not want him to be a Bard. Only to meet new people save the world and reunite with his family. And what of Fat Bastard. Who says he cannot be a hero in a fantasy world and have it be engaging. Maybe after one joke character the next time a player will want to be as serious as the Justice seems to want from players. Not allowing players one joke character can stop them from continuing to play and learn. I'm just asking this Justice to open up his mind and stop being a boomer D&D player/DM. Open up the gates and let's have some fun As for punishment I'd like to suggest a one short of the Justice being made to DM for the others as they all play the role of "that guy at the table"

Cody

To the lovely supreme crit justices, how are you all? and I suppose to Jillian’s side piece also. I present the case of: Is the story more important than the players actions? I the DM have recently been creating and playing through one of my players “arcs”. When we first started our campaign a few months ago, this player, our paladin, had a dream that foresaw a choice between two lives hanging off of a cliff. He didn’t know who but he did know they meant a lot to him. The dream also made it clear that he would only be allowed to save one of the two. Fast forward to now, this choice happened. It was the result of a failed saving throw to be knocked off a cliff. However, all of the other PC’s besides the paladin also failed and were hanging on this cliff. This ruined my original plan and I forced it. I allowed the other PC’s to make checks to recover. Which they did with no casualty’s. However I forced the paladin to still make this choice for the sake of the story. I did not roll for the NPC’s as it was a cinematic or “turning point” for the story. One of them was always going to perish in my head. In some way he could’ve possibly pulled it off as an aasimar paladin to save both of these NPC’s. Yet, he had to make this choice between one or the other. So I ask you benevolent judges. Was I in the wrong? Should I have done the same for the NPC’s as I did the PC’s and allowed them to make checks to save themselves? Or should I have kept the original plan and just gone with the story over their actions.

Phil B

Judge, Jury, Executioner, and Jake: I'm submitting a formal complaint about My First DM for prematurely killing my hobby as a DnD player. Following the early hype around 5e, a friend group decided to give DnD a shot. I offered to DM, but a friend pulled in their coworker's boyfriend instead. He had DMed for some game con circuits like 15 years prior, but hadn't played any recent editions. Some vignettes from our first few sessions: • My friend introduced their rogue who had scars all over their face. The DM replied, "What are the scars from? You have 0 xp so you've never been in a fight." • I min/maxed as a tanky paladin - but all attacks were handled as flat opposing rolls from attacker and defender. Everyone essentially had a 50/50 chance to hit. The DM hasn't read 5e rules yet and was just winging it "for now" • 15 minutes after our first battle, the DM told us what items we missed out on since we didn't explicitly ask to check the corpse for loot • For Lore Reasons, the DM let us look at the stat sheet for some monsters we fought. He was using a 1.5e monster stat sheets. I let him borrow all of my DnD books, and he never bothered learning the basics. You're probably imagining several other Nightmare DM tropes, and yes, half of those happened too. After struggling with a puzzle that involved NPC history and timelines we had no way to know for a full 2-hour session, I quit that group, and I gave up on playing tabletop games. Is it fair to demand the death sentence for this crime and the emotional toll it's taken over the years? Or do I need to seek forgiveness from Dice Christ for these dark thoughts? Hoping for the guillotine, Phil (Follow up: I recently moved to a new city and finally decided to give DnD another shot. I joined a two-shot at a friendly neighborhood game store and had a blast playing a scenario from Keys from the Golden Vault!)

John Sand

Hail and well met wise judges and Schrödinger’s jake I tell you the tail of how I lost my hand on our 100th session/episode I play a level 14 echo knight/blade singer and me and my party were exploring underwater base when we found a magical crystal sensor with a hand indent in the middleI cast identify on it and was told that it wasn’t a known magic item and it had evocation magic inside of it I (correctly) assumed this had something to do with blowing up but then my DM brought up that evocation is also healing magic through our party sidekick after a while, I placed my hand on the magical sensor and immediately take 54 radiant damage, burning my hand off immediately. I understandably upset, ask why identify didn’t tell me about this possible outcome and my DM said identify , doesn’t account for broken things reason that happened was because the crystal was broken He told me I could’ve realized this with a DC 20 investigation check (passive investigation is 19) This was on the hundredth episode of our actual play podcast Crit or Miss (semi-shameless plug) I mind you so I feel like this has extra weight It’s all good now. I’ve got a kick ass robot hand so that’s a plus, but I’m wondering. was I Delt a bad hand? Ps you can find The audio where I lose the hand on Crit or Miss session:100 All Right Description of sensor :1:20:15 Losing of hand : 2:11:51

Maddie

To the cutie patootie swan justices and the ugly duckling (but beautiful on the inside) bailiff, may I present the case of the Dim Light Dilemma I was going to join a campaign with some friends and wanted to be a drow twilight domain cleric. This campaign would take place on the surface, not the Underdark, so sunlight sensitivity would be an issue for me, but I knew that. The twilight domain cleric’s channel divinity reads as follows: “…As an action, you present your holy symbol, and a sphere of twilight emanates from you. The sphere is centered on you, has a 30-foot radius, and is filled with dim light. The sphere moves with you, and it lasts for 1 minute or until you are incapacitated or die…” In my mind, this is a sphere of shadow, that would negate the disadvantage of my drow being in sunlight. Dim light is specifically referred to as shadows in the handbook. My dm didn’t object to this, because she didn’t really care. But one of the other players (my friend) very openly voiced his opinion and tore into me for this dumb read. He said it would be a sphere of dim light on top of the already bright light, like a flashlight on a sunny day. The campaign ended up being cancelled before it started, but I still want to play this character one day. Should I give up on this concept? My friend still bullies me about my beliefs to this day. Thank you for reading!

Just some girl

I fall at the knees of the Dice Christ congregation not to confess but to beg for an excommunication. I fear my table encountered a problem player summoned from the nine hells. While this player did the typical problem player things he seemed to take them above and beyond. I could include the many awful examples of dm steam rolling and terrible table etiquette but I’ll just include his worst sins. He tried to enact an inter player romance without getting any form of consent from the other player or dm, while this may be a new player mistake he was a self described “experienced player.” While we’re talking about consent, we had a painful moment where we had to teach his character what consent was because “he wouldn’t know what it was.” His "dark humor" consisted of short bus jokes and calling EVERY female npc a bitch, slut, or whore. But would always follow up with “I would never say that but my character would.” He also constantly misgendered one of the players even after being told their pronouns. Lastly, when it came to be that I sat next to him at our weekly sessions, I could not help but notice he was cheating his dice rolls. To specific, he was lying about EVERY dice roll, that wasn't a nat 20 or nat 1. After seeing my wonderful companions go through hell with this player I now seek retribution, so I humbly ask for this devilish problem player to be excommunicated. Also worry not, he is no longer in the party. May the light of Dice Christ shine through these dark times. (Thank you for your time <3)

Jon DNA Music

To the bussin’ justices Waxboard, Trophy, and Chandler, and to Baliff Bubbles, long may he live; I present to you the case of The Boy Who Would Be ‘Elf’. May it please the court: I run a dnd campaign for a friend group of 5 13 year old boys over zoom (I am employed by their parents). We have been playing together once a week for about 7 months in an original world built to match what they find most exciting about fantasy and fiction. We completed the first part of this campaign, ending with their city in the sky falling to the abandoned earth, gracefully setting up the next chapter of the campaign where they would make new characters. Enter (let’s call him) Alex. Alex, once the most mature, helpful, and focused of the boys, comes to our session 0 with an idea. He wanted to play a human who accidentally ended up as one of Santa’s elves, who then moves to Boston Massachusetts to find his biological father after spending time in Hawaii. He wanted to play Buddy the Elf from Elf. At first I thought he was joking, but when I insinuated that I wasn’t taking his idea super seriously, he got very upset. I, as kindly as I could, tried to adapt this character to make sense in any way for our story, but he insisted that his character be buddy the elf to a tee. After about 40 minutes of conversation and being thoroughly perplexed, I call for a break. I then see a what is the most alarming and confusing texts from one of the other boys father. It says, I quote: “I hope you feel good about yourself not letting these kids do what they want on their own dime.” “I mean time. Haha.” We resumed the session and ironed out the other kids characters, all of whom were enthusiastically built into the world. We are scheduled to meet again next week and figure out Alex’s character, so I ask you: What the heck do I do? How can I accommodate Alex while looking out for the experience of the rest of the group? They care so deeply for the story they started. Also, am I misreading this dad’s text? Is he furious at me? Dear god, please help. Thanks!

Andrew A

To the honorable supreme crit justices, and the naughty naughty Bailiff. I present what is both case and confession of Mid-Session Coitus. At the beginning of lockdown 2020, I joined an online game where the only person I knew was the DM. When we entered our first dungeon, the Illusionist in our party did some incredible roleplay and creative use of illusions by making an illusory gnome who had us in illusory chains, saying we (the party) were his slaves that he wanted to sell to the dungeon boss. So we bypassed part of the dungeon with no dice rolls as we were led inside to meet with the boss. When they finally struck a deal, I figured the jig was up as soon as the bad guys tried to pay the fake gnome with real gold and attempted to take the illusory chains, plus I wasn't keen on being actually sold into slavery, and was starting to get annoyed irl that no one but the illusionist had been allowed to talk for quite some time. So I said my character, a Battlemaster, would attack the boss when they made the physical transaction. We ended the session there. During the week, two more players joined the party. At the top of the second session, I attacked the boss like I said I would, and we got a surprise round. On the boss's first turn, however, the DM narrated that he grabbed me and teleported us both away. I say "narrated" because there was no attack roll, grapple check, or saving throw involved, it just happened, and to this day I'm not sure why he took me along. The rest of the party finished the fight against the minions and went into the next room, where there was a warden and some guards, as well as the new PCs as prisoners. They introduced the new PCs, RPed with the warden, and eventually had another full combat without me. It was several hours of real time that I was sidelined. While I was waiting, a coworker texted me that I had left something at work, and offered to swing by and drop it off on her way home. I told the group I would be stepping away for a few, and muted my mic. She came over, we chatted for a bit, I invited her inside so I could still hear the group if they needed me. We ended up having sex, a few feet away from my computer, with my mic muted, listening to them play d&d. Justices, did I profane in front of Dice Christ? Or was I wronged by being sidelined long enough for this to be possible?

Delwin Agustin

To the illustrious Crit Justices and lowly bailiff, I have a Dice Christ confession to make. I played in a 5 player group made up of my post office colleagues. In the middle of a session my tiefling monk spotted a pirate ship in the distance and I jokingly asked to use Thaumaturgy (because I could see everyone was looking tired on zoom) to create the sound of thunder to scare off the pirates but our DM said we needed a visual lightning for it to work. Our dwarf Druid decided to help with some lightning spell and he proceeded to roll a Nat 20 for the performance check. Our DM then said the pirates turned their ship in a different direction. Feeling victorious we then proceeded to land at the harbor and after the session our human Fighter expressed he was disappointed we didn't get to fight pirates and our DM said to not worry because we might encounter said pirates again. Well the thing is we only lasted 2 more sessions and no pirates were able to show up in those sessions. Should I feel bad for jokingly avoiding the pirates or was this Dice Christ telling us no pirates that day?

KennyH

To the Honorable Justices Axford, Tanner, and Murphy, and that other guy whose name is Joesh, I think? I bring you the case of the Pissed Priest, and the Cowardly Cohorts. In the first long term campaign I ever played, we completed a massive arc, and narratively, it led to two characters retiring, and the PCs rolled new ones for arc 2. The game and overall party energy of the campaign for the past year was great until these player's new PC's joined. Both new PC's have evil alignments (unknown to us OOC) and their backstory/lore makes them cowards and/or selfish as fuck (ALSO UNKOWN TO US OOC). So that started the pattern of these two fleeing or hiding at ANY combat that shows any signs getting rough. This pattern of behavior in combat left my character and the party's cleric in countless bad situations where we almost died. Eventually the cleric gets pissed, and a pretty nasty argument happens between him and the two evil PCs. The DM and I tried to keep things civil, but lines were crossed in the argument, and that campaign died. The question I put to you Justices, who is at fault here? Not for the argument, but rather; The two players who decided to make evil PCs who will roleplay counter to group cohesion, or the DM who allowed them to make characters like this without talking with the group about it first? I await your fair and just ruling.

Sam

To the honorable and respected judges Murphy, Axford, and Tanner, as well as the lowly bailiff Jake I present the case of "The stolen bit". For my first D&D campaign with my friends, I created the world's most horribly optimized tritan monk. He was all strength and no wisdom - the opposite of what you want for a monk. I decided to commit to the bit and made him a literal fish out of water. He was awkward and uncomfortable and bad at everything he did except for hitting people really really hard. In one of our first sessions I challenged a stone golem to an arm wrestling match. This later became a reoccurring bit - whenever we entered a bar or tavern I would roll a perception check to find the strongest person in the room and challenge them to an arm wrestling match. Usually earning the party information or loot. About a year into the campaign, one of our other friends who frequently watched us play decided to join. Her character was a minmaxed barbarian with both high strength and high intelligence, who did everything my character did and also did it better. The barbarian was even also a non humanoid race that was considered "strange" in the setting of our campaign, like my character was. I was a little upset that her barbarian filled the exact same role my monk did, but I didn't want to create any issues in the campaign so I didn't bring it up. That is, until our characters met for the first time at the very end of her first session. The first thing the barbarian did was challenge my monk to an arm wrestling match. The bit she had witnessed me pull at least four or five times over the course of the campaign. She would literally sit at table with us when we played, so there's no way she didn't know this was a thing my monk did. In the next session, the barbarian started a fight with a group of travelers on the road that posed no threat to us, despite the whole party telling her we didn't want to aggravate them. She insisted she could (and would) take them on her own. Since she was so confident, my character threw a bead of force - effectively trapping her character and the travellers together in an impenetrable bubble. The rest of the party then stood outside of the bubble and watched helpless as she got demolished by the travellers. She failed her death saving throws, and her character was permakilled in it's second session. I feel bad that it ended in the barbarian's death, but at the same time I think it was really unfair of her to make a better version of my beloved character and then steal my bit - and also, she insisted she was capable of taking down the travellers alone. Was it too petty of me to trap her in a bead of force? I await your judgement.

Ford

To the most esteemed judges and that other dude too, I guess, I present the case of the Case of the Retconned Negotiations. Our party was climbing a mountain when a rockslide caused by some careless mountain goats revealed a previously-hidden cave. Upon exploring it, we found a demon bound within by magical chains. Beyond her was a magical barrier that we couldn't get past. She told us that if we set her free, she would not only tell us everything we needed to know about the creature at the top of the mountain that we'd come to slay, but she'd also let us into the next room where we would find "power". She would not elaborate. When we were reticent to agree to this, she offered a secondary bargain, that if we removed a holy symbol from in front of her face, that she'd been forced to stare at for hundreds, possibly thousands of years, she'd tell us "everything she knew about the island" instead, including how to defeat the enemy at the peak. We negotiated on this point for at least 10-15 minutes, at which point our DM was clearly getting a little bored and annoyed by all these negotations. We ended up writing out a contract with her exact words, "I will tell you everything I know about the island". Finally, after our paladin and the demon both agreed to the contract, we removed the symbol. She then told us about the cyclops up top, and a bit of the history of the island, but still wouldn't tell us how to get past the barrier behind her, or even what lay on the other side. We argued that both of these pieces of knowledge would have been included in "everything she knew about the island", but the DM said no, she wouldn't have agreed to that and would have negotiated around it or put in loopholes. We said that we'd written out the exact words of the contract, because we'd explicitly been seeking to outsmart a demon in their own contract, and now we felt like she was breaking her contract. Are we correct in feeling like we were cheated out of a win over this demon, by our DM essentially retconning in some negotiation that "she would have done" when he got bored of us haggling over the details (which we assumed were extremely important) of a demonic contract? Or was our DM correct in saying that we'd never have outsmarted this demon anyway, so that's the end of that. We humbly await your judgment.

Drew L

To the fair and wise Clergy of Dice Christ and the low-class Acolyte who's name is unimportant, I bring to light my tale of the Holy War I waged against Dice Christ Infidels. Many seasons ago, I had been playing D&D for several years with my college friends. And then the Freshmen arrived. We decided to induct these two lads into the church of Dice Christ via One-Shot, plus give my roommate a chance to DM for the first time. Now the party had been given a Macguffin character to protect and were traveling to the next destination, when the infidel Freshmen conspired to murder Macguffin, which the DM allowed in a moment of weakness even though it would derail everything the party had accomplished thus far. Naturally, myself and the 2 other PCs were against this turn of events and proceeded to implore the DM to allow us to respond to the dastardly deeds of these two heretics before Macguffin was murdered in cold blood. The DM declared that Macguffin had disappeared but we were allowed to confront the Freshmen PCs and investigate, which ultimately escalated to PvP of the worst kind. Of course, the rest of the night turned into infighting both in and out of the game, and the result of the evening was general pissed-offedness on all sides. I come before you, O high priests of Dice Christ (and that Acolyte guy) to declare in front of all the church that I changed the results of my dice rolls. I rolled in front of the table, but I added more to my modifier than my character truly had, and the Heretic Freshmen were none the wiser. I sought to smite them for disrespecting the spirit of the game and bring this madness to a swift and righteous end. Therefore I expect no absolution for my own deeds. I simply submit myself for execution, excommunication, or any punishment that you may place upon me, but I remain resolute that I was justified in my Holy War against these Infidel Freshmen.

Hannah Celeste

To the honorable justices and the #boyboss bae-liff I bring you the case of the “Forgotten Fire Genasi”. Last month, my very first and longest d&d campaign came to an end! I was in an Icewind Dale campaign for two years with 2 friends (one which is the GM) and 3 other guys. In our very last session, our party was finally going up against the Frostmaiden herself, including my fire genasi who was ready to defeat her and end the endless night in the Dale! However, I had a migraine that day that caused me to forget that the session was that night, and found out the next morning that they played the last session without me. Not only I have never skipped a session without warning/just cause, none of the players including my friends??/GM messaged me to ask where I was. When I messaged in the morning apologizing for my accidental absence they replied “That's ok friend we wrapped up the game so someone can give you an epilogue” so I don’t even know how the campaign actually ended. Because this was my first d&d character ever, I planned on getting a tattoo of my character but this situation has left such a sour taste in my mouth. My question for the court is this: they are currently planning another campaign they invited me to- I understand it is ultimately my fault for forgetting to show up but am I just for going scorched earth and vowing to never play d&d with them ever again and even distancing myself from this person who I considered a good friend for not including me in our most important session?

margot d

To the esteemed and honorable justices of the supreme Crit(& the guy who keeps guesting on 8bit book club): In my first campaign, I played a water skimmer cleric of the water god(a koi fish) in a highly political bug world. It was very fun! One of our first battles was a tournament ACoC style where we all were competing in our specialty sports. We had a melee, an archery competition and a joust! The tournament descended into chaos of course but we were magically enclosed in our competitions until there was winner declared. There was an associated prize for each of the competitions and the prize for winning the joust was becoming head guard of the Royal legion, a position two players were vying for. They ended up being the final two in the joust and had to play against each other. However, we had to split the tournament over 2 different sessions, and when the final joust went down, our firefly paladin wasn’t there and the DM had to run his character. The lightning bug won, but the other pc he was against wasn’t super happy. So the following session, this second PC, who’s a worm fighter, invented an obstacle course/PvP fight where he had a mud construct he used to try and kill the firefly. The fight went on for about an hour and a half & the Worm PC hadn’t told anyone, even the DM about his intentions. After that session he messaged another player to ask if they thought the DM hated him because he was just doing his character would do. Sadly that campaign has since ended but occasionally he plays with us and I never know what to do or say!

Waddle Bawddle

Hello honorable justices and the guy who’s never been on 8-Bit Bookclub. I come to you with the case of the Stolen Character Moment. I was DMing a campaign for three of my friends. One session, they sieged a city that was once ruled by a PC’s, call him Aragorn, family with the exiled prince. They successfully captured the guy who had taken over the city, “Aragorn’s” half brother. The prince gave “Aragorn” the choice of what to do with him. Right as “Aragorn” was going to decide, another PC, Goliath, stepped in a beheaded the half bro. Everyone tried to stop him including the other player, but Goliath succeeded on all his strength rolls. It’s been 3 years and none of us have forgotten this. Are we right to still never trust Goliath around any big choices? Thank ya sweeties

Jennifer Bontje

Dearly beloved Justices’ Axford, Murphy, and Tanner and only somewhat beloved Bailiff Jake: My party and I come to you with the case of the stonewall DM. We are a goofy party and even when we run serious campaigns there is always an element of levity. Currently, one of our players wanted to try DM-ing for the first time. He has been talking about running this completely homebrewed campaign for the entire 4 years we have been playing together. When our last campaign ended he said he was ready so we were happy to give it a go. The problem arose when we were in our second session and his NPC who invited us to come and meet with them in a private room off of the crowded great hall, offered to answer our questions about the new pocket dimension type setting we found ourselves in. We asked a bunch of normal questions and we got stonewalled. The NPC is a countess who assumed control of an area of the pocket dimension and refused to answer questions about how she accrued her power and wealth in such a short timespan (1 month). She emphasized that resources were started to stretch thin because there was only a limited amount within the pocket and the only influx of new resources came from whatever a person was wearing when they entered the pocket dimension. No new matter in or out other than this. Here’s where it gets sticky, upon hearing that nothing leaves this place my PC naturally got curious about what happens when something dies, as there is a lot of fighting in the pocket dimension. Here he seemed to get flustered, confessed that he has an answer but he did not know what the NPC would say. He then said let me think about it and then ended the session. Fair enough. The start of the next session we did a recap and when I repeated the question where do the dead bodies go, he got upset and the NPC started being snippy to the players. We ended up stoping roleplay to ask the DM (out of character) if we should just move on from this question to which he said yes. From here the NPC continued to be rude to the players. Admittedly we were probably a rude back but we had no reason to trust the NPC and were feeling very confused about what we were supposed to do next since we were not getting any information from the NPC that was seemingly in charge and in need of our PC’s help. We ask you justices: were we wrong to ask where dead bodies go in a pocket dimension? And how do we talk to him about how he’s DM-ing without discouraging him from DM-ing for us? We want to help him get better but don’t know how!

Matt Schikel

To the stupendous supreme crit justices and the other. I present the case of the mech suit dilemma. My group of friends have been playing in a cyberpunk themed 5e campaign for the last year and use a supplement for many of the enemies. The campaign has always been described as very lethal and gritty so me and the other two players tend to create very powerful characters, our DM encourages this for the world. This leads to some rather intense encounters known to be a little miss balanced with many encounters having to be stopped and edited to avoid a TPK, the last one which we left off on was an encounter against five buff farmers in mech suits and one larger spider mech. It was mentioned that the mech is classified as a vehicle in the supplement we are running, this meant our monk could not stun and our rogue could not sneak attack along with many of their other abilities due to the wording. My barbarian was relatively unphased. During the time between the end of the session and the start of the next our monk let it slip that he and our rogue looked at the mechs stat block in fear of the encounter. When me and my DM said that it was kinda messed up to do so our rogue claimed “it doesn’t matter, people can memorize stat blocks.”. We feel that it is unjustified to have peered behind the screen in this manner. Since the dispute our monk apologized and both have agreed to accept the ruling of the all powerful court. The encounter ran smoothly after our DM ruled the mechs as armor. Do the monk and rogue deserve punishment for their fear driven peaks behind the screen?

McJoeJoeJoe

To the most Honorable Justices of the Supreme Crit and if Crit Jester Jake is in, I’ll hand him a treat: I bring you the case of Hunter’s Mark Rules vs. Grumpy Grandpa GloomStalker. I was DM’ing my first campaign in a local game store with a few of my friends. We would get together every week and when the party was around level 5, we noticed an older shopper standing about 25 feet away watching us have a good time. One of my players who is notorious for scooping up stray humans suggested he come watch/join us. We called him over and he kinda bashfully hovered for the remainder of the current session as the party failed to interrupt a hellish ritual, summoning a Pit Fiend under the big top tent of a circus in the Realm’s capital city. We ended the session and I added the new player to the group’s discord server so he could see all the lore and handouts for things and most importantly, so he could set up his character. I discussed with him that the party was Lv. 5 and he could get two magic items. The next week he came dressed to the nines with the most stat-bloated Boots of Speed, Aarocokra GloomStalker Sharpshooter I had ever seen… apparently rolled 18/18/17/16/16/16 and that wasn’t even the real issue. As the party started combat against the pit fiend and the 8 dark sorcerers that summoned it, the fiend quickly took out 5 city guard with its attacks and native the fear aura turned most of the friendly creatures in the circus tent. The party had a fall back plan in case shit hit the fan and started to run but the GloomStalker said, “we can kill it just don’t use any fire spells.” The GloomStalker applied Hunter’s Mark to the Pit Fiend, took FOUR attacks that all hit two crit, rolled damage all together and got 138 damage and he declared it as Magical Piercing. His math: Crossbow? 4d6 x2. Hunter’s Mark? 4d6 x2 again. Dread Ambusher - you guessed it. 4d6 x2. He then said out loud, “forgot to double sharpshooter bonus which would be +80 (no.) and since I applied Hunter’s Mark that makes those shots count as magical.” My party was stunned. This dude in his 60s showed up and his first move as a player was to do that and my party was stunned. I told him at best, it’ll be half of that damage because Hunter’s Mark doesn’t make the entire weapon attack magical and a at best doesn’t even seem to make the bonus d6 magical at all. He vehemently disagreed and said since it’s a magic spell it makes the damage magic. He also said even if it wasn’t, he can outfly the fiend and kill it quickly so the city will be saved. I told him The argument that ensued ended the session because the owner asked us to stop playing in his shop. I ask you justices, does Hunter’s Mark turn incoming damage magical because it’s a “magic spell” or does the Ranger class have way less going for it than this geriatric gentleman seemed to suggest?

ethan

May it please the court! To the holiest and most graciously scrumptious justices and above average but slightly lacking Bailiff Jake, I bring to you the case of “Ronald Biggles vs. the Reset Universe”. A couple years ago, I was playing my first DND campaign with all of my closest childhood and lifelong friends. It’s set in a world that my DM made for us, and it was awesome. I make my first character, a swashbuckler rogue named Ronald Biggles. A few sessions in, we were investigating an ancient ruined kingdom overtaken by necromancers and things were going great! Everyone seemed to be having a lot of fun, and we were all falling into our characters nicely. At this point, we were about level 4, and the story seemed to be getting a little more interesting. The DM led us to investigate a cave that related to the necromancers and inside we found an old eldritch god that we had to confront. This was our first confrontation with this being, and our last. Unfortunately, the DM had scripted it so that this god was unfightable. The god then simply reset the universe, and our party faced a scripted TPK. There was no way that we were able to avoid it, and there were no clues that it was going to happen. We all were confused. Everyone had lost all of the characters that we invested a lot of time into over the last few months. When I asked the DM if we were going to play them again, he gave an unsure answer of “maybe”. I didn’t argue or anything because it was my first time playing and I didn’t know if this was normal or not. Then, next session, he had us make brand new characters and restart from the ground up. The new campaign was not similar and eventually it fell to pieces. Am I in the wrong for being a bit bummed that my character that I was happy with and falling into for the first time was scriptedly ripped away? I still think about Ronald Biggles often, as one of my favorite DND characters that I have made. I prostrate myself before the mercy and rule of the court.

linear_lock

To the honorable coucil of elders, and to the baliff lowly as he may be i bring the case of the first time i battle dmed. I was very new to dming and a coworker asked me to battle dm for him, but wouldnt tell me about my character i was just a villain(human sorcerer and i couldnt pick my own spells). Then when the game began he tried to get me to taunt specific players because i was related to their in game pcs, when i asked why he hadnt told me that earlierhe only glared at me ignored me and kept playing. He skipped one player for 3 rounds ignoring initiative, and started shouting and threatened to leave when a dimension door got countetspelled. I didnt drive there and couldnt leave due to no signal (rural missouri). When we left the car ride home was silent. Was i in the wrong for not calling him out?

Lana

To the most dreamy of judges and the one known as Judas – I, Alex, bring you the case (on my friend’s account) of an unrewarded security. Similar to a previous case covered by the court, one of the campaigns I am a player for fell victim to a battle we were supposed to fail from the start stretching on for an hour and a half and using up most of our resources. The fight ended with each of us, getting turned to stone and waking up in a meadow, only revealed after 3/5 of us had been completely turned to stone, the other 2 following the next round. This is not the injustice I write to you about. During this battle, one of my fellow players was attacked by a statue that was trying to obtain a magical artifact we had, a doorknob that could always take us back to our HQ. We had established on several occasions that we were keeping it in this PC’s bag of holding, something we reminded the DM about after they stated its intentions of trying to steal it off him. Ultimately, despite the PC’s -2 to strength, he somehow managed to keep it from being taken from him. The reason the statue had tried to take this artifact in the first place was to give it to the Big Bad (known as the Shadow Man) so that he could have access to the HQ and our NPC allies within. In what I assume to be a moment of panic, the DM explained how, despite not getting the artifact, the Shadow Man was able to reach our safe place and hurt our allies and we were helpless to do anything. It felt as though the many rounds of combat spent protecting the artifact had gone to waste, and we had a “fade to black” moment on our allies being in direct danger before we woke up elsewhere. It must be noted that this is our DM’s first campaign as a DM and that they are still learning. I am still curious to know, were we the players wronged in this situation? I (as another person DMing my first ever campaign) understand the panic in trying to follow the planned storyline, but it felt like a lot of wasted time and effort for something that was set to fail from the start. I will accept any punishment if it is decided I am just being whiny about losing, but should my DM be found guilty, I request that some mercies be granted to them as a young learning soul.

RecsBecs

No case, but good job Jaik for being the highest regarded lowly bailiff on this Patreon!

Crash Griffin

To the honorable judges and the (little l) lowly bailiff Jamiroquai, I bring to you the case of the Butthurt Invisible Autognome. To preface: I am in a game group that plays board games weekly, but in one of our d&d campaigns time between sessions is very long. I created an Autognome hedge wizard and instantly fell in love with my character and all the shenanigans he could get up to. Toward the beginning of this campaign we met a giant in a floating tower that was then besieged by a dragon. During battle on my turn I cast Rope Trick to try and give myself and my party members a safe place to hide from battle…except I was the only one that ended up in the extra-dimensional space. The tower ended up plummeting to the ground below and everyone was graciously knocked out instead of dying. I assume the DM intended for the entire party to end up knocked out, but there my character was…fully conscious. Instead of rousing my party members, I decided that my character was more interested in learning a bunch of spells from tomes littered among the wreckage. The DM then described how my character heard many footsteps approaching the area, so I cast invisibility on myself…naturally. The footsteps were from a group of soldiers sent to retrieve my party and throw us in the dungeon of a nearby prison. The session ended with this idea, and I had a brilliant idea that my character could break them out of prison at the start of the next session, because I was invisible and therefore safe. The next session started in media res and everyone was locked up in prison without their belongings…including my character. After much protesting on my part, the DM said that my character had all of his belongings but he was still locked up with the other party members. I played through the session grumbling the whole time, but I was amenable and didn’t throw a *huge* fit. Now was I just being too salty to a new DM that didn’t have a plan for anyone to be left out of the prison, or am I justified in my butthurtedness and the thought that my character was robbed of this big heroic moment? I graciously await your judgment, R.O.L.F. The Autognome

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.

curlyfriesanddnd

Righteous Justices and Dependable Bailiff: I bring to you a request for a sentencing hearing, the case having been settled. My group has been playing a game set in our DMs world for well over five years. We are, at this point, family. Recently, our characters came in to conflict with a villain who has been antagonizing us - and my character in particular - since the beginning of the campaign. Our goal was to acquire a dangerous magical object before the cultists and this BBEG could. She managed to escape, using her staff of frost to cast wall of ice (a concentration spell), while also concentrating on banishment to hide the object. When my Druid rolled well to recognize the spell and I added that both were concentration, I saw the fear in my DMs eyes as her whole strategy for her carefully planned boss battle teetered on the edge of disaster (having not realized this fact). I ceased my arguments quickly and the DM ruled that the spell does not require concentration when the it is cast from this staff. A homebrew ruling(citation: To cast an actual spell from an item, it requires your concentration. This is specified on page 141 of the DMG). We’re now in pursuit of the BBEG again, having barely escaped with our lives and failed to stop this crucial stage of the cult’s plan. My question is this: when (and it will be when) I finally kill this winter priestess and take her staff, should it retain this extra concentration property? I request that it should and await your verdict humbly.

achyutha ananda

To the prophets of dice christ and that one guy from James and Amir or something, I beg for you forgiveness for I have sinned Three years ago in my first year of college I tried to start up a DND campaign with three others, two of which are now very close friends of mine. The third guy was great at the table but was always super busy, and because the rest of us were starved for DND, we would often end up playing without him because he couldn't make it. After a few weeks of this, my excitement for the campaign really started to suffer and our last session ended when the druid threw a magic stone at some bombs that I hadn't decided on damage for, and I just said that everyone in a 50 foot area takes 20d6 damage, which obviously immediately killed the level 3 players. My two friends constantly talk about this as a really stupid thing that they did, and I don't know how to tell them that it happened on a whim specifically because doing that felt less awkward than talking to my friends and telling them I didn't feel like playing anymore. I hope dice christ can forgive me for my sins, and I hope that third guy really gets to play DND one day, because he was really enthusiastic and just didn't have the time, and I haven't spoken to him once since despite seeing him around campus constantly.

Caroline

Hey Jake, how ya doin? I always try to concoct a Supreme Crit case out of silly little problems, because I think it would be so fun to be featured on an episode of my favorite podcast. But the truth is, I have the good fortune to play D&D in a spectacular homebrew world, DM'd by the love of my life, alongside my lifelong friends. So maybe instead of trying to think up some way I've been slighted during a session, I'll just spend this month enjoying the show and feeling grateful. Please tell Emily, Murph, the cats, and Caldwell that I'm a big fan. Good luck to all the NADDpoles out there who are searching for justice, and may Dice Christ continue to shine Their light down upon us.

Michael K

Dear honorable justices and little guy Dan: I write to you to perform an analysis of the Actor Feat. The feat reads: "You have an advantage on Charisma (Deception) and Charisma (Performance) checks when trying to pass yourself off as a different person." The bard in the game that I DM tries to use this advantage at every turn. He goes out of his way to put on costumes and disguises so he can state "and I'm pretending to be a mailman," for example, and get advantage on his deception checks. He tries to use this advantage for an entire conversation. I stand by the fact that he would get advantage on only a check to convince someone that he's someone else - either a specific person or occupation, like a guard,. But when he continues the conversation and lies about other things (like pretending the rest of the party is prisoners so they can infiltrate a prison) those deception checks should be made flat, without the advantage. Technically he's still trying to pass himself off as a different person, but I think it would make sense that an NPC could believe that he's who he says to be but does NOT believe whatever else he tries to lie about. I leave the fate of our game and this potentially game breaking actor bard in you hands. Thank you.

Ryland H Garnett

To the Right Honorable Justices presiding over a court which includes a bailiff, I have a request for advice on supporting a less-than-confident DM. Months ago I was beginning to play with my now current game group. I was still getting to know everyone and didn't want to step on anyone toes. One of the regular DM's wanted to run a one-shot in a new game system he'd just gotten. Of the group that assembled to play only myself and another player I'll call Cobra knew much about the game. It quickly became clear that the DM had not given himself enough time to become familiar with the rules and was trying to wing it. Since this was a pretty different system to his usual wheelhouse he threw to myself and Cobra a few times. I wanted to be encouraging but not pull focus or dominate the table so I kept my answers brief and supportive. Cobra, however, seemed to take this as a cue to begin back-seat DM'ing. The rest of the game got more and more frustrating as I tried to not further undermine the struggling DM by managing another player as well as playing. Our party traversed a dangerous swamp and paddled downriver to a goblin city built in the corpse of an insect god fallen atop mangrove swamps. We all went to do separate social things, some to the harbor-masters, some to the shaman's hut to talk potions, and Cobra went to the local dive bar to ask for information. I was waiting so see where everyone else went; I had volunteered to visit whichever main location was left. When I rolled a critical failure on a general investigation check, I asked the DM what that meant. He didn't immediately have an answer so Cobra said he could propose something. His answer was that I had accompanied him to the dive bar and had just done something really stupid which annoyed the bar patrons. He narrated the bartender bringing us shots which only I drank. Justices, they were snake milk. For some reason, this meant that I spent the rest of the town-time puking in the back of the bar, totally useless. Every time I tried to do something he would remind the DM that I was probably still too sick, because of the snake milk. Needless to stay I haven't played with Cobra since, but I left the session feeling pretty helpless. How do you help a DM who's floundering? How do you counter a rogue player when it's not your table to run but you want to make sure everyone has fun? Justices, should I just drink my snake milk and forget it or was I wronged? Respectfully, Andyconda

kylee brubaker

To Bishops Tanner, Murphy, and Axford as well as Cardinal Hurwitz, I come to lay my sins at the feet of Dice Christ. Recently my party took on a corpse collector, with the goal of retrieving a gem from one of the bodies it had collected. Once the monster was down the rest of my party was chatting but due to other circumstances we had limited time in the place we fought it, so I asked to roll investigation to find the gem. I rolled an 8 - I said as much then asked someone else for help in searching but my DM said I was able to find it. I figured this was because it was crucial we get this gem and no one else was looking. About an hour later (but a day in game) we used the gem for a ritual. I made a joke about how I was glad it was the right stone as I’d only rolled an 8 to get it. The DM then said he thought I’d rolled an 18 (unlikely as I have a -1 to investigation). Another player then said he heard me say 18 as well. I laughed it off and said I must have been thinking of another roll and that it was an 18. But I know it wasn’t. I prostrate myself before the church ready to accept my punishment for giving in to peer pressure instead of staying in Dice Christ’s polyhedral light.

Elizabeth Morgan

Honorable Justices and baby bailiff Jonk Honkwitz, I offer you the case of the Impossible Arcana check. This moment haunts me even months later, in one of the games I'm playing in, my wizard and their party members had gotten stuck in the Underdark with no way out except for multiple days of travel underground but there was a siege approaching the nearby towns. Trying to figure out what to do to get back to the surface faster, my wizard got a scroll of Teleportation Circle for 1000 gp by way of extraplaner magic shop. Being one level too low to cast the spell, my wizard attempted an arcana check to cast the spell to get to another nearby circle that they had taken note of. With the assistance of a bardic inspiration, I managed to get a 31 on this check. Thinking we had it in the bag, we started to celebrate only to be interrupted by our DM saying we still failed, the scroll was consumed, and we weren't getting out gold back. Should I have even rolled for this if it was truly impossible or was my DM correct?

Jacob Jones

To the omniscient justices and the court janitor (I think), Jack. I bring you the case of the mismanaged one-shot. I am the forever-DM for my group with a campaign that has been running for over 2 years. Recently, one of my players offered to give me a break and instead run a one-shot DMed by him, but still set in my homebrew setting. I agreed and we ran it a few months later. The session started with the DM saying: "I had extra time to plan this, so its a very well thought out one-shot." Cut to our first combat, fighting a giant spider in a spooky mansion. During the fight, my wife cast her highest level spell, hold monster, on the spider. She asked twice if the spider was undead (hold monster doesn't work on undead), but the DM didn't answer. Instead, he was silent for a moment before saying that the spell would work, but since the spider's two sets of legs act on a different initiative from the head, they would all roll the save seperately. Myself and the rest of the table tried to argue that this wasn't how the spell works, but eventually we reluctantly relented after he explained that the spider was so strong that even if just one of its turns was stopped it would be great for us. Its head ended up being held in place and the fight continued. Later in the fight, I attacked the head of the spider with a magical sword with the ability that if the creatures it hits is undead, and has fewer than 25hp, it has to make a saving throw or is destroyed. Just to double check, I again asked if the spider was undead, and this time the DM answered and said that it WAS undead. The table was surprised, since hold monster worked earlier on the spider. The DM was mildly annoyed and said that we should have told him that spell doesn't work on undead. My wife and the rest of the table explained that she had asked twice if was undead, but was ignored. Flustered, he again ruled that since the legs acted on different initiative, my magical sword would just destroy the legs and the fight would continue. He continued to explain that this ruling was actually fair because he let the hold monster work earlier when it shouldn't have. Everyone at the table was frustrated but we continued to play and eventually beat the spider. None of us felt very satisfied with our victory, and we continued to play a mildly argumentative one-shot. But I ask this: were his rulings as DM justified, or was he just reacting poorly to being whomped?

Erika Lee

To the most juicy, judicious Justices of the supreme crit and to the beloved, bodacious (or blighted, depending on Justice Murphy's mood) 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 attempted to 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, particularly on a cantrip, 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 due to the fallout from the DM's ruling, but the question still haunts me: should my critically catastrophic cantrip have resulted in such critical consequences to the cleric? I lay myself before the mercy of the court and await your judgement.

Brokennoodles

To the honorable judges, and other I submit the case of the Nat 20 that cut the campaign in half. I was playing a wizard in a magical school style campaign and we had finished the intro portion: chosen classes, got to know each other, etc. Following a few mystery threads led me to a clock that seemed to be a prison for something, so I took the clock, performed some magical investigation, and finally decided to try a dispel magic on it, understanding out of character that it was likely evil, but would pribably fail and maybe give me more info. Nat 20. What followed involved the trapped demon escaping, tearing apart the ground and unleashing the armies of hell into the school, killing all of us. The campaign then shifted to our characters trying to climb out of hell after dying in the fight, and get back to the school. This has been a lot of fun, but the issue is this. It turns out that by succeeding in that dispel magic, I essentially skipped the entire 2nd act of the story, which was meant to be the school based social mystery/intrigue part, which is how the campaign was initially pitched, and would've included a lot of key backstory and character moments that ended up getting skipped. Now I feel bad for skipping over such a big part of the campaign Justices, should my DM have allowed the natural 20 to be so successful that it auto succeeds on something that should've taken weeks at least. Or should I have not attempted this dispel magic in the first place? Or is it all in order and to be expected from a game like dnd? I await your judgement (ps. It's worth noting my dm also ran another group in the same 'world', so this also affected their story similarly)

Logan Stacey

To the tubular justices who are all invited to my birthday party. Oh, hey Jake, if you could pick them up at 8 that would be awesome. I present to you the case of the worthless Crittimidation. 7 years ago, I was playing in my first D&D campaign as a half elf sorcerer geared towards intimidation. The party was higher level, and we ended up running away from a Gnoll army that was hunting us on the prairie of a large wilderness area of the world. To try and scare them off, we decided I should try and intimidate them away into thinking I was a flame god that could easily kill them with fiery vengence. My bard cast Tensor’s floating disc to raise me twenty-five feet into the air, and the druid used control flames behind me, silhouetting my sorcerer, and with the booming voice of a titan (flavor for my spell casting all campaign), my sorcerer then twin cast fireball to destroy two large sections of the army, and cause the Gnolls to panic. Upon rolling the intimidation check, I crit, and with my bonuses, it totaled at a thirty-four. There was much celebration from the party, as we surely got out of this large dangerous fight. Our DM began to narrate how the Gnoll army began to lose morale, and they started to turn and run away in panic. But, before they could run, the warlord stepped forward and yelled, and they immediately lost all their fear and began to charge at us again, the DM stated that the warlord had an ability that made him immune to fear and inspired the rest army to not be afraid. Was this just cool flavor from the DM to keep us into a fight he was planning, or was I a victim to an ability that robbed me of my crit? I was upset, but ultimately let it go to keep the session moving along, but to this day I bring it up in a lot of DnD conversations as a "I was wronged so many years ago" situation. Please give me the peace I’ve been waiting for 7 years for, or the strength to leave it behind. I accept whatever judgement you will deal, oh honored ones and Jake. P.S. We won the combat when the DMPC rogue killed the warlord and that scared the rest of the army off…. The campaign lasted a little longer, and after about 4 more sessions, I took over as DM.

Overlord

To the Magnanimous Supreme Crit Cardinals Murphy, Axeford and Tanner as well as that Altar Boy Jarnathan who seems really nice, I beg forgiveness with a Dice Christ Confession. My wife and I run a home game, where the party was facing off against a wounded Hollow Dragon. My wife, to improve the pace of combat, rolled the dragon's damage beforehand. The dragon was nearly dead and was in a position where the only attack it could make was its breath weapon. Our party Monk, who had just joined the campaign with his first DND Character and did not yet have evasion, failed the save and said "If this does 59 damage, I'm fully dead, with no saves." The pre-rolled damage was 61. My wife did not want to kill this new player, so she made the decision to reroll the damage live. The damage came out to 57 after the roll, which put him down but did not kill him. While we were relieved that he was not dead, we felt dirty for shunning the gifts of Dice Christ in our pre-rolled damage. We humbly beseech forgiveness for questioning Dice Christ's plan and re-rolling the damage to save the player.

doctor worm

humble greetings to everyones favorite worm enjoyers and the early bird who somehow still misses the worms. today i present before you the case of the unjustly (?) banned cantrip this one might be a little rules crunchy so keep with me here: i’m in a dnd group with a few of my friends, one of whom was playing a sorcerer rogue - and she ended up getting booming blade banned in the following campaign. it’s been a little while since this happened (maybe about a year) so the details are foggy, but the core of the issue is still burned in my mind! one of my dear friends, who is notorious for finding all of the little loopholes in spell wording (and who the dm - her boyfriend - never likes to let “win” with her loopholes) was playing a little tiefling rogue/sorcerer who had taken booming blade, the cantrip! she had the metamagic option twin-spell, and figured that she was able to twin-spell cast booming blade to attack 2 different people, and give the effects of booming blade to both of them. she spent the required sorcery points, was within melee of both, i’m pretty sure she was a war caster who didn’t need her hands free to cast, and she was dual wielding either shortswords or daggers. the first time she did it, it was kind of glossed over and our dm let her do it, and then a different day, they paused combat for fully 30 minutes while they had an intense argument about the mechanics of it. the rest of the table was trying to figure out if there was sage advice or anything rules as written that disproved her ability to twin spell that specific cantrip, but we couldn’t find anything at all - although there wasn’t a ton of supporting evidence for her ability to cast it that way either. i don’t remember how exactly that combat resolved, but i know she was never allowed to twin-spell booming blade whenever she brought it up in subsequent battles, and our dm ended up adding it to his list of “spells banned for campaign two” (the only other one is the ninth level spell wish, by the way).. all that being said: who in the world is right??? is our dm just a certified stinker for banning a simple cantrip?? the majority of the table disagreed with the dm, but there was never really concrete evidence for the combo being allowed, either! please oh please, benevolent judges, help me dunk on whichever one of my friends isn’t honoring the sanctity of dnd’s rules!!

Dippity_Dip

To the Justices - beloved as the dawning sun amid the churning sea - and Jerk, I offer my case of the anti-80s rescue. I was invited to an already running Curse of Strahd campaign and played my intro session as a bard whose instrument was a synthesizer. One of the encounters we had was rescuing a fellow player from a group of cultists; I pulled out my synth for a distraction but the DM ran with it and with a good performance check, we were able to defeat the cultists with a group 80s pop ballad. The Bloodhunter at the table, despite our many attempts to involve him, however, refused to be included (his character literally walked off into the woods during the song). Even after the cultists were defeated, he remained mad at the rest of us for being silly and was really passive aggressive out of game when we talked about it. I thought we had a good time at the table, but I couldn’t help feeling bad about my friend who seemingly just wanted to play a serious Strahd campaign. Should we have toned down the sillyness, or should that player have loosened up a bit? I leave it to the mercy of the court.

ZZ Digital

If it pleases the court, i ran a game and tasked the party with taking a gem of planeshift from the villains. They encountered a villain who was open about being an evil conqueror and offered them a gem but told them a different way to use it. They took the gem and used it that way and became trapped. A loved npc had to die to free them and one player missed being at a dramatic scene with his husband. Later they told me that i should have told them to roll insight when the villain tried to trick them as they believed she was lawful evil and therefore wouldn't lie.

Sido Hikami

To the most handsome bailiff who keeps the order, the honorable and lovely judges Axford and Murphy, and *squints* Caldwell, i bring to you the case of the “boring katana”. I was making items for my players that would fit their style of play. One of my players built their character to be able to attack as many times as possible so I made them a +3 katana that on a NAT 20 they could trade the double damage get another attack with advantage. They said this sword was boring and when I asked why their response was “it should be if I get 20 or higher, I get that effect. Side note, with this katana, they’d have +11 to their roll. When I said I’m not doing that, they said they didn’t want the sword, but then got mad later when everyone else was happy with their items. Judges, did I not spice up my sword enough, or is my player being too greedy? I await your humble judgement

LonkRonk

To the honorable and simply gorgeous justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner and the pretty-cool-I-suppose bailiff Jace, I present the case of firm resurrection. I am running my first 5e campaign set in my own world where the seasons are locations and every god is a super rad dragon. In my last session, one of my players’ characters died due to a death ray from a beholder. Another player tried to make a deal with a potentially evil patron to bring her back, and I tried to steer her in that direction as well. After a Nat 20 roll on a religion check in the afterlife limbo, her god sent their missing cleric to revive her. This was all good and fine in the moment, and ultimately the player (also my wife) decided to have her character come back. After the session as we were driving home, she brought up that she was a bit unhappy with her character coming back and had a new character lined up already, and mildly and lovingly accused me of railroading the story and the players. I told her that the other players wanted her to come back, she rolled a Nat 20 religion to contact her god, and most of all I didn’t want to have to introduce her FOURTH new character this campaign (keep in mind they just hit level 10). Ultimately it all worked out and she’s changing directions for her character, but I still feel guilty. Judges, was I too firm in bringing her character back to life, thus doing the dreaded DM action of railroading the story? Or was I right to not want to bring in a new character again? I humbly await your judgement.

Ian Hudson

***DM LOVE*** To the honorable court and friend of the show/first time guest Josh No dispute for you but may I suggest an amicus brief - highlighting the good stuff with our campaigns? shouting out my awesome DM Carson who, after forming an online party after yalls Atlanta show 1+ years ago, “yes and”s all our stupid bullshit (my Dragonborn Wizard has a beer helmet) and creates an incredible campaign experience (she sent us envelopes with relics to open at different times, and created a bee monster that was terrifying and powerful but died when one of us dropped to zero) Carson- Ian, Nick, Allen and Bryce love you

Easton Moore

To the most honorable judges Axford Murphy & Tanner and the insufferably mid bailiff Jimbo; I bring to you the case of the droid foot vs fleshy head. I was pretty new to DnD & had never DM’d before but started a Star Wars 5e campaign taking place 500 years after TFA with some fellow Star Wars & DnD fans I had been introduced to by one of the players. During a fight in one of our early sessions one of the players, who plays a Operative (rogue) HK Droid Unit and is the person I actually knew and had the most experience out of the group playing & DMing, successfully got an enemy in a grapple and on his next turn asked if he could stomp on the enemies head. I told him of course! He rolled and hit and then when I asked for the damage was he said “he’s not dead?” I said I needed to know the damage to see and he protested and said, as a droid with metal legs/feet it would have crushed a humanoid skull killing them instantly. He had a ton more experience & I was still new to DMing so I wasn’t really sure what to do but from what I read that wasn’t how it works so I told him that. He tried to argue but I said that just wouldn’t be fair for him as a droid because then he could just do that for every encounter with humanoids & that his teammates lightsaber doesn’t just cut people in half & that’s why we have dice. He stopped after a bit because I wouldn’t budge but was quite the rest of the session. We’re close so we talked about it later & I said I should have givin him a 1d4 of extra damage but couldn’t do more than that. He still protested but accepted. Was I wrong for not wanted a droid to just one shot stomp all my enemies faces in?

Jannic

To the Judges and the Bailiff; all honorifics reserved for the holy cause of justice they all serve. I offer for consideration the Case of the Ridiculous Rewind. In a West Marches-style campaign I was involved in for years, one player somehow got the original DM to agree that their fave PC wouldn't die - even in the event of instant death or tpk he'd "survive and retire". The campaign was tough and many PCs had died along the way. (They were a lifelong core member of a friend group I joined later and so I had no social leverage to push back on this.) On one high stakes mission, PC X cast Blade Barrier to block a choke point. Good! They wasted a whole round of melee enemy actions while the mooks figured out how to not charge into knives and or moved to ambush. Great! Then next round PC X asked what was in the room through the barrier to start their turn. I told them what they could see through the door. They said they needed more and that they'd walk through the blades. They declined to change their mind when I reminded them they'd take damage, told them the expected damage, reminded them of their HP, gave them the actual damage, and asked for a concentration check, which they failed. Wanting to honor the sheer guts, I let them make a perception check and privately lowered the DC as enemies stopped mid-hiding to watch this maniac walk calmly through the blades with 5 hp. After getting a full rundown of enemy positions and numbers, as well as their ambush setup, PC X then asked to actually not walk through the blades. I balked - they committed, they'd failed the concentration check, and I'd given them the reward of critical information. They said they'd just not act on it, and that nobody else would "metagame" by using it. (Around now other PCs without immortality deals on their PCs were getting very tense.) When I told them no, it was too late to redo and that I'd repeatedly given them chances to back down even so far as the concentration save, they started crying and left the session. They were, for context, our main healer and strongest present PC. Eventually after an hour of tense texting through intermediaries, they agreed to come back when I caved and let them undo it because other PCs privately told me they'd rather let them win and not die for principle. PC X then announced that for penance in getting the redo they'd just pass their turn with no actions. Again, main healer, big fight. One PC ended up having to go to work due to the time delay and roll phone dice death saves on the bus. (RIP - great start to a weekend evening shift.) I ask the court - when a player whose PC literally can't die also won't accept bad consequences of their actions, was I right to try to put any limits on when retcons stop? Or should I have just sighed and given in to this considering we'd normalized special treatment for them over the years?

Riley Wesson

To the illustrious judges of the court and Bailiff Joke, I bring to you the case of Expected Inspiration. I was playing a one shot at a local game store in my first pick-up game where we played a group of adventurers investigating an ancient tomb in the desert. We came across a group of bandits and engaged in battle where my bard, as one does, gave inspiration to the sorcerer who was fighting off the bandit captain. At that point one of the party’s ranger sitting next to me (who had yet to fight) said, “What, no inspiration for me?” I assumed he must be new to playing, so I explained that because the sorcerer was already engaged in battle I thought it best to give the inspiration to her, but he didn’t seem to quite get it. The next round our other ranger had taken excessive damage and I felt it necessary to inspire them, to which the first ranger once again needled, “So everyone else gets inspiration, huh? This sucks.” I wasn’t quite sure how to explain to him the strategy of inspiration and combat and he seemed standoffish regardless. I eventually relented and gave him my last inspiration which he used to save his wolf familiar so all worked out, but was I wrong to give in to the ranger’s childish whining for a d6 of inspiration, or should I have let him flounder on his own? I lay myself at the mercy of the court.

Spencer Clark

Greetings to the legal luminaries of the D&D domain and employee #5, Today, I bring forth the case of the DM Betrayal. I play a redneck ranger, Draken, in a high seas homebrewed campaign. Recently we discovered and rescued a group of shipwrecked survivors from a deserted island. In a random twist of fate, Draken discovered the survivors were secretly vampires. Draken was presented with a choice—embrace vampirism and join the cult or become their meal. I chose to keep living.. ish. A subsequent session saw the unmasking of the vampiric threat by fellow party members and a theater of violence resulting in their demise, all while Draken was able to keep his secret from the rest of the crew as they swore to kill off any vampires. As we continued with the campaign, I was able to sneak off at night killing off whatever ocean life possible instead of feeding off of the crew through a bunch of secret rolls asked by the DM. All was well until we arrived at a new island. Draken, cursed to need fresh blood but trying to stay good, snuck off and killed a random goat that first night before meeting the locals. Turns out we landed in a realm that hasn’t seen any violence for the past 100 years. All of the wildlife and inhabitants lived in perfect harmony. We were immediately asked by the chieftain to slay the monster that had killed the town’s beloved pet. No one was the wiser that it was yours truly as we began our detective work. The session continued on as we began to explore the town. During our next session, a fellow player, perhaps guided by divine intervention, declared at the gaming table, "You are the one everyone is looking for!" A revelation that caught everyone off guard, including our mirthful DM whose laughter immediately gave away my character's secret before I had a chance to respond. The session continued with the entire party privy to a clandestine truth obtained outside of our game. Now, I stand before this illustrious court seeking guidance on how to navigate these treacherous waters. Can the blood spilled be returned to the body, or must the blood remain on the floor? I beseech the wisdom of the assembly to advise on the course of action for a character now defensively regarded, caught in the web of secrets that demand revelation.

Ricky the Moist

To the magnificent Bailiff Jake and his 3 assistants, I present the case of the World Ending Crit Fail. Bout 10 years back my table had handed the reigns to a new DM. And to his credit, the guy did his research and did a lot of prep and what not. Even let me play a Half Dragon(3.5e) ranger. However. He railroaded us at every turn. If we got distracted or made jokes(even light hearted) about encounters he would have spiders fall on us and do a point of damage. If we went down in combat where he didn’t want us to he would Legend of Zelda style bring us back up with a fairy out of no where. Now we also used a crit fail table I this time. You hit a crit fail, you roll a d100 and some random effect happens(your weapon turns into a dire bear, a fireball explodes from you, you get teleported to another detention etc.) even for NPCs. Now we are a couple sessions in, all of us kind of exhausted of what was going on with the DM and railroading. Well lo and behold, his NPC crit fails. Happens to roll a particular effect that is as stated “you miss your attack and strike the ground instead. Roll a D20, on a crit the planet explodes and the campaign ends.” My brother in Pelor decided to roll and in fact CRIT! Before he could say “no that doesn’t count” the entire table packed up and left his basement and we never played with him again. Were we right to do that? I still feel bad about it to this day. I await Jake’s righteous judgement. PS he used to make us watch Bo Burnam’s ‘What’ after each session???

SirDeanThorn

To the stunning Judges and their okay bailiff Jax, I bring to the court a case that has bothered me since it occurred last session. The case of the party who executed an ally. I have been the DM for this campaign for two years, they are currently level 8 and a party of seven players. The most recent member of our table played a Circle of Moon Druid/Genie warlock multiclass named Zay. He seemed to be more concerned with his character looking cool than anything else, even to the detriment to the party and innocent npc. This seemed to become most prevalent when they arrived at his home town, Skull City, a city of pirates built on the sea around a small island with castle ruins. Upon arrival to this city, they were quickly confronted by some of the Skull Guards, and learned that summoning and conjuration magic is banned within the city limits as the only real law in a pirate city. When put on trial for the crime they learned that a deadly entity, known as The Puppeteer, tends to appear in this city when an excess of this type of magic is used. Each appearance of this entity is a documented event of heavy death and destruction. After learning this Zay preceded to only use summoning magic in the city, often starting unnecessary combat just to use conjure woodland beasts and bring multiple creatures to his aid. Each summoned creature ended up being a d10 and when it rolled 100+ the Puppeteer would wake. After a collective 23d10 the puppeteer woke. Forcing the party to have to battle The Puppeteer, an avatar of a God of Death (Challenge rating 15). But 5 minutes before session where the party would have to face the Puppeteer Zay’s player messaged me saying he would be stepping away from the campaign and that we should just retcon the events he did in the parties four days (three sessions) in the city. Leaving the rest of the party to battle the avatar of a god that he woke. Now the reason I bring this to the court is what happened after the party fought The Puppeteer, in which three members of the party died, but miraculously they beat won. After the combat the parties, Artillery Artificer (former military officer), the Vengeance Paladin/War Cleric (a military general) and the Barbarian/Fighter attacked and executed the character of Zay, for his actions. Am I in the wrong for allowing my players to kill off his character or does the character deserve the punishment he received? This has weighed heavily on me in the past week since this occurred. Only the court can determine whether I should be punished or cleared of this crimes to the player character.

Felipe Senna

Hello to the most honorable supreme crit justices! I’ll fuck up anyone who talks shit about jack on my watch. This is the case of the shifting sorcerer. I had been DMing a online campaign for my friends for a year. The problem started when the wild sorcerer said he was moving to Germany and could not play regularly anymore. I built an arc based around him to give him a proper goodbye, and he asked me to homebrew a phoenix subclass to show his growth. Pulled it from UA and buffed it, but after 2 sessions barely using the subclasses resources, he wanted to change subclasses again. I asked if he didn’t like the features, saying I could change it, he said it was great but he just wanted to try out a new one. After he moved, almost every session he asked me to guest so that he could “try out a new character”. I knew he was going through a though time, so I kept saying yes. I struggled to introduce a new character every week and the cohesion of the story went to shit so I had to start another campaign. Now he keeps sending me messages to guest in that one. To the wise counsel I ask: Could I have accommodated this in a healthy way? Or should I have just said no?

Trevor Wurtsmith

May it please the honorable justices and the loose bailiff Jank. I bring you the case of the most broken mechanic. I was playing a strahd campaign for a while and around level 8 my dm added his friend to the group, a cleric. We played a while, and I had to miss my first session because of a vacation. That session they leveled up to lvl 10, and the cleric used divine intervention to end the campaign. They said the cleric used it to get the party out of ravenloft, and it worked because they rolled REALLY well. I'm still miffed, but I ask you, who should be blamed, the cleric who wished the campaign to end, or the DM who obliged?

MeekoCHAOS The Raccoon Boi

Hello My Lovely Judges and Sweet baby RAYliff Jay's I ask of your ruling on dice rules cuz this always irked me I was part of a friend group who played games together and 1 friend always cheated no matter what we will always catch him it was always blatant. We started a D&D campaign and his rolls were always high which felt suspicious, when I looked at his D20 he wasn't using a regular D20 he was using a MTG life tracker, the numbers are in order so 20, 19, 18 and 17 were all on one side. I pointed this out to him and he told me "it doesn't matter where the numbers are it's still a 5% chance" I brought it up to the DM and he just rolled his eyes and said "it doesn't matter he's gonna cheat anyways" Should I have just let this go or should I have stolen his life tracker and chucked it into the field? Also happy belated Valentine's Day I love you all

Emily Amity

To the most honorable judges and the sweet baby boy who is also here, I present the case of the cowardly goblin vs the kobold crushing barbarian. I was playing a naive goblin paladin named Olive Garden Tortadio in a short campaign where we were hired to clear out kobolds from some mines. Olive was on his first ever quest and eager to do good in the world, and was under the impression that kobolds were evil monsters. When we entered the tunnels and saw their traps, he was still mostly on that wavelength and helped track them down. However, his ideals of justice were strongly challenged when the party's barbarian went full Omni-Man and started slaughtering kobolds by he dozen. I described Olive going into a panic attack, and at one point even using Command to stop the barbarian from killing kobolds and let some of them escape. We eventually learned that the kobolds were in fact innocent victims here, but the barbarian was a bit miffed at me for trying to stand in the way of his rage fueled killing spree. It took several sessions for our characters to reconcile, and even more for Olive to stop trusting everyone so naively (he even tried to befriend a hag, which was a funny scene that we all enjoyed). Was my dedication to staying in character as a naive good boi appropriate, or did I overstep by casting spells on a party member? I prostrate myself on your filthy courtroom floor awaiting justice.

Nev Altan

To the absolute, powerful, and radiant Justices Murphy, Axford, and Tanner, and the overworked bailiff Jim. Today I bring you the case of the bs trickster rouge ability. On Thursdays my friend runs a feywild campaign for our DnD group. During one of our missions, we were tasked with retrieving a crystalline flower in order to cure a flower cocoon curse a wild witch had put on a field of soldiers. When we arrived at the flower’s location, an Arcane Trickster Rouge NPC we’d met a few times before was also there for the same flower. After some brief talking, we entered combat. During combat, our pact of the chain warlock used her familiar to play an excellent game of keep away while the rouge flew after it. With more movement than the rouge though, the familiar greatly outpaced them. Later on in the fight, the warlock decided to bring the flower to us so that we may defend it better. The closest the familiar and the rouge ever got were 80 feet, but by the time it had landed with us again, the flower was gone. When asking what had happened, our DM said that the rouge had rolled a 28 on sleight of hand check using a mage hand. When we said that spell (for an arcane trickster) only had a range of 30 ft, he paused before saying he had a Magic ability that extended the range. In the end, we got half of the flower, and our characters spirits were heavily shook. So I ask you great judges, are we wrong to be upset by the seemingly out of nowhere ability of this rouge? Or should we accept what the DM has told us? We humbly await your response.

whitewinespritzer

May it please the court, My girlfriend and I have been in the hobby for some years. We have both Dm’d for and played for one another and like to talk shop about running sessions. We recently had a difference of opinion about the game that surprised us and we were compelled to seek the opinion of the Supreme Crit. We started a new Spelljammer campaign that she runs. The character I made is a retired mercenary. The company he was with trained him in close quarters sword fighting as well as enough magic to be useful to a soldier in battle. I multi-classed Fighter/Bard and we got started. The issue came up the first time I used my Bardic Inspiration. She prompted me, “What does it look like when you give Bardic Inspiration?” I narrated that soldiers in this mercenary company would often be fighting in close quarters. They would need magic to bolster each other’s abilities. A quick burst of steel gray energy radiated from my hands and onto my ally. To my surprise, almost all of the other players at the table objected. They said that Bardic Inspiration should be something that had at least a little do with some type of performance. “It doesn’t have to be a song,” they said. “It could be a poem, or a blade dance, or even an inspiring catchphrase.” We put a pin in it to keep things moving, and my girlfriend and I came back to it after the session. My argument was that the character sheet is not the character. It’s a translation of the character that’s in your head into the rules of DnD. The class provides the playtested and balanced mechanics that make DnD a game, and the coat of paint you put on top is all up to you. My girlfriend said that a DnD class means more than that. Your class helps everyone at the table visualize what type of archetype your character is [girlfriend’s edit: a.k.a. vibes]. For collaborative storytelling to hold up, everyone at the table should have some idea of what it means to be a Bard, and how a major class feature like Bardic Inspiration tends to work in the world of the game. In the end she suggested that we give me a custom class, something like Spellsword, and at the very least rename the Bardic Inspiration feature. I’m more than happy to do that, but we wondered where the Crit lands. Can a DnD class be just the numbers that facilitate the game, or do you buy into certain high level assumptions about what a DnD class is when you choose it?

Gabagooblin

To the Most Venerable Justices and their trusty sidekick Bailiff Boy, 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 to describe 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.

The Royal Court of Princess Donut

If it pleases the court and dollar store hardwon (in the best way possible), I am a first time DM who managed to get my cousin to play the first time ever with her boyfriend and my fiancé. I, to show the craziness that can be DnD, brought in the Deck of Daddy Things (expanded deck of many things) for a mini gambling game, but I underestimated their luck and how I roll like murph on a really bad day. In short, they pulled only three bad cards, one I decided before hand wasn’t going to have any effect, one they rolled their way out of easily, and one they undid with one of three wish’s they got. They also got the fates, the knight, and two wondrous items that on a random generator, pulled up two legendary weapons. The three characters I was playing from who I planned to be enemies later in the campaign either died or was sent to the void. My players have offered to nerf their characters as during that session, I rolled over an 13 just once and had 8 natural ones and maybe did in total 20 damage with modified stats. Am I right to I refuse their offer and said I would continue to modify as we go and hope it stays interesting as a punishment to myself?

Belligerant_Me

Bishops of the Dice-o-ces, and Jimmy the guy who holds the wafer dish, is Dice Christ going to be mad at me? Please weigh in on what I intend to do and tell me if I'm going to Avernus for this. Over my player years I have challenged myself to try different personalities, roles, and play styles, because I wanted to explore myself and the game, and also wanted to be a better DM. I've been martial, magic, support, tank, face, and on, but no matter what kind of PC I've built, one role has constantly evaded me: "The Problem" Somehow I always end up being a party wrangler, because I lose the player race at campaign start to be the problem player. It doesn't matter if I'm literally an avowed prankster cleric of the trickster god, some other idiot manages to secure the, "I'm going to put my hands in the lava repeatedly to see if it starts to feel better" position before me, and yes that's a real example from my current game. I've been invited to a new game soon, where the party are tasked with solving the murders of several other high profile adventurers in a world where heroics have become commercialized and syndicated to the masses as entertainment, and decided that I refuse to lose this time. I'm playing a Pandellan (homebrew race with two racial charm abilities) Celestial Warlock, who claims she is special because she's "god's favorite". I plan to multiclass her as a college of glamour bard, focusing on charm, mind control and reading, and other socially manipulative abilities, all of which I will be using to make everyone (including other PC's) love me and do what I want as much as possible. My DM asked me what my motivation is for joining this party to solve these murders, and I told him simply, "Attention". I also told him that my fictional character inspirations for my PC are Allison from Umbrella Academy and Scarlet Witch, and said I may sometimes throw tantrums if mind control fails, because I want no chance of it being unclear to everyone that I am the fucking problem. He said he loves the potential drama it's going to create and is excited to see how it plays out, and I fully plan to evolve with the consequences that my shitty behavior leads to, though I won't know until it's happening whether it's going to be for the better or worse. I realize this may lead to my character death or dismissal from this party early on, but I'm tired of other brats beating me to the punch every time. Do I deserve forgiveness for my character plans when my player intention is to explore new table interactions through this messed up build, or am I deserving of condemnation to player hell for what this may do to the other players?

SimpleWater

To the honourable supreme crit justices and the resplendent Josh. I have been playing in "Adventurers League" meetups where different DMs run one shots weekly. As part of this you don't really get to pick your table mates and just sign up for a session that interests you. The DMs usually post a blurb about the session so that you know what you're getting into. On to the case, for this session the DM posted a blurb saying the session would be "taking place in a night market and would require more role play and in character deducing than usual as you try to try to solve a "mystery" of sorts". Unfortunately one player brought a barbarian that was almost too dumb to speak, could not converse with anyone and wanted to attack all NPCs and even the party at times. They played them very aggressive but then would do "out of character" moments so they could still contribute but otherwise were angry or silent the rest of the session. They did nothing to advance the story or engage with the events in any positive way and their character even "got bored and went to sleep" at one point. In the end we spent just as much time policing their character as we did advancing the plot. It turned out ok and the session was still fun but is this player in the wrong for bringing such an inappropriate character to the table? Or should we have all just tried to make it work and be less annoyed. Thank you!

Galen Graham, Local Talent

Most Beloved of Dice Christ’s Children, and Judas (i’m talking about you jake and you know it): I come to seek repentance for a wayward sin in my distant past that still haunts me today! In one of my first attempts at DMing, I planned a chase encounter for the party that would lead them to the location of their next set of goals. I was so excited for the chase gameplay, I completely forgot how stacked the party was in terms of movement: wood elves, monks, and a minmaxed multiclass that I personally OK’d that could move upwards of 200 feet in a turn. When the time for the encounter came, I would’ve been completely whomped in the first round— but instead, i sinned. i started coming up with all kinds of reasons why they couldn’t quite get to the target, perception checks, stealth rolls, anything and everything to just let my encounter i was so excited for play out a little longer. My players absolutely knew what was going on judging from the looks on their faces, but i guess we all just silently agreed to not say anything about it. After a handful of rounds the party caught their suspect, and the game continued as normal. Oh leaders of church and court, are the nights i spend laying awake with hot red cheeks of embarrassment a just retribution for my ultimate serving of fudge that day? Or should i let go and believe that there is still a place for me in pair-a-dice?

Wren

To the honorable judges Axford, Murphy, and Tanner and that guy who might be a good guest on 8Bit Book Club if given the chance: Last year I played in my first online campaign with randos where we played the Lost Mines of Phandelver. As goblins are a major enemy in the module, I wanted to add some nuance to the world and I played a goblin chronurgy wizard (inspired by of course, Fia Boginya). My character-- Freddie's-- goal was to prove that good goblins could exist in the world by getting enough money to go to college and become a contract lawyer for underrepresented smallfolk. Fast forward to the end of the campaign fighting the Black Spider. The DM was adament that this would be our last session and would start the new campaign the next week. In the final battle, Freddie got knocked unconscious and it was getting late so the DM didn't finish the battle, but instead put us in a cut scene where the Black Spider offered our party to work with him and be his cronies. I know I was downed, but I told the party "Freddie would rather be killed than become what she was fighting against" but nobody listened to me and took the Black Spider's offer. The DM then described that our party became essentially mob bosses of the town and for years terrorized Phandelin until there was nothing left. I tried saying again that I would rather just have Freddie permadie than that become her ending, but the DM said the session was running late so there was nothing they could do and my beloved tiny time wizard became just like every other goblin-- evil. Judges, was I right to feel bitter than my goblin's ending was not in mine or even the dice's hands, or was it just the unfortunate curse of the time devil? I lay my woes at the mercy of the court.

Paulken

To the very smart supreme crit justices Murphy, Axford and Tanner, and the just smart bailiff Jake. I bring to you the case of the brutal murder of my duck which I was forced to wittness through a perception check. Me and my party discovered a cavern with many enemies but also shiny rocks which we naturally wanted to check out. So we buffed my animal companion duck Edna with Spider Climb and Animal Trick to fetch us a sample. Our DM ruled that my duck was too stupid to understand Spider Climb (even when using animal trick), waddled into the enemy and was instantly killed. My character didn't want to wittness this cruel death but I was forced to do a perception check which was decent enough to hear Ednas last words ("Mama"). Can my DM insist on perception checks and was the death of my duck my fault because I overestimated Ednas intelligence? I humbly await your judgement. Paula P.s. The shiny stones were ordinary iron ore and possible new ducks sense my bad-duck-karma

Paul Patoka

To the I highly intelligent justices Murphy, Axford and Tanner And baliff Jack hardball Im running a 2 yehome brew campaign with 4 PCs. My Arakora warlock would be murphs dream. No complaints on flying being nerfed for early levels (until 5). He understands that he can't stand up and try and fly out of a standard room. Any participates well with all of the plays at the table. The problem comes when it comes to his beak. He absolutely loves to try to break things with his beak. He wants to crush locks, chains, cut swords in half. After many long talks I've let him go after wood objects up to 2" in diameter. He seems understanding that metal is too strong. Am I wrong for not allowing him, in tense moments, to chomp his way out of chains per rule of cool? Thank you much Octo-boi

FrenchFryTaco

To the honorable supreme crit justices and the Binky Boy Bailiff, I present the case of the anti-social druid. A few years ago I was in a campaign running Storm Kings Thunder. Around session 6, two of the characters were sadly lost to a goblin horde and the following session their new characters were introduced at a nearby tavern. The dwarf barbarian immediately challenged the party to a drinking contest and was welcomed almost instantly. Meanwhile the druid sat in the corner of the tavern, watching us and smoking weed. The player asked several times if any of us were going to talk to them. Since we were in the middle of a drinking contest we all said no. Just then the town was attacked by a group of fire giants. We all sprang to our feet and protected the town while the druid decided to take his first two turns to “toking up” because he wasn't a part of our group yet. Finally on his third turn, he left the tavern to find that we had already slain two giants and had the rest on the run. He decides to cast sleet storm summoning an icy surface to trip the giants and halt their escape. Every single giant succeeded on their save while our whole party failed, meaning the giants escaped without interrogation. After the fight the mayor presented the party with a ruby worth 5000 gold pieces. We decided to split the gold five ways. That's when the druid chimed in that it should be six ways, since he helped save the town too. I insisted that he didn't help, and actually let the giants escape and after some bickering the party decided to split it six ways anyway, but things were tense after that. The very next session, after killing some bandits the druid opened a chest to find a cursed branch which upon touching it, it immediately grafted itself to the druid's arm. It could shape into a sword and was pretty powerful but was possessed and tried to attack the party. Seeing an easy solution, my barbarian attempted to chop off the druid's arm entirely. The arm fought back and slashed my characters vocal chords, making it so I couldn't talk for the rest of the session. In a rage my barbarian brutally murdered the druid while the party watched and that was the end of the character. It's been a few years but I told this to some friends recently and they insisted I went way to far. So I must ask, was the druid at fault for being an antisocial pain in the ass or was I being overly harsh to player choices I didn't agree with.

Charles

To the most honorable supreme court justices I bring to you the case of… oh Joke is there… ok… I bring to you the case of the most wildest shape. I’m in a new group that started playing a few months ago. One of the other players is a circle of the moon Druid and so likes to wild shape a lot. She also insisted on playing a character who is pregnant. Our DM was hesitant at first but allowed it under 3 conditions: 1. Everyone else was ok with it 2. It wouldn’t give her automatic plot armor because attacking a pregnant lady is bad 3. When the kid was born it would be an NPC and not someone she got to control like a familiar. All was agreed to and we played. Cut to nine months ahead in game time. The baby was born and then our DM dropped the bomb that has halted our game ever since. He said that because the mother had wild shaped into a wolf almost every day of the pregnancy, the baby was cursed with lycanthropy and we would have to figure out how to cure him or live with a partially feral baby-cub. The druid flipped out saying the DM can’t make her character’s kid into a monster. The DM said the agreement was that the kid would be an NPC, thus it is up to him what happens. Plus, there had to be side affects to all the wild shaping. Anyway, the group is split 50/50 on which side is right and hasn’t met again since but agreed to play if we got resolution. Please wise justices… what do we do?

OldStump

Oof. Sounds like a lazy DM.

Lorelei G.

May it please the crit and the honorable Justice Murphy, the divine Justice Axford, the jovial Justice Tanner, and jeak hamwits, I present to you not quite a confession, but a case for which I am pleading guilty In a Curse of Strahd campaign in which I play an elven light cleric named Pyre, I have committed the greatest sin that a dedicated healer can: I purposely left a downed party member unconscious during a fight with a mage when I could have brought him up easily The player in question, playing a kobold fighter named Mek-Mek the Bold, had rubbed me the wrong way ever since he joined the party, for example by proclaiming himself to be our only female player’s “manservant” and being vaguely creepy about it, and badgering the DM for a level up at the end of pretty much every session. I masked my dislike with bland politeness, but what pushed me over the edge to commit my dereliction of duty was when, during the aforementioned mage fight, Mek-Mek the Bold went down in the first or second round, then interjected descriptions of him moaning and writhing on the ground as he bled out. Once or twice would have been acceptable, but I mean every. Single. Turn. Not round, turn. I genuinely enjoy playing healers, but him blatantly dropping so many hints practically felt like he was demanding to be healed, and so instead I spent my turns fighting the mage and hoping for death save fails We won the fight, and Mek-Mek the Bold unfortunately survived, but later the player had to leave for scheduling reasons and I’ve enjoyed the campaign ever since. I still feel guilty for what I did, or rather what I failed to do, however, so now I kneel before the crit’s justice to decide my fate PS: That asshole is also still haunting us, he went out of his way to start a one-on-one rivalry with a master trapper who in-universe doesn’t know that Mek-Mek the Bold is gone and hasstill been setting elaborate traps for us, very nearly killing my character with a snare/scorpion pit combo

Jenna Rudolfsky

To the honorable justices and cyber bullied bailiff I worry for, I present the case of The Overexcited One Shot Player: II was extremely lucky that my first ever DM was incredible. He did amazing voices, created incredible maps in roll 20, and was incredibly detailed. We stopped playing, but later I wanted to reunite. I decided to plan a holiday one-shot where I would DM. When my old DM made his character, he was incredibly detailed with back story. He also messaged me the day before that his character had three servants that would travel with him, and he wanted to let me know so I can input that into our game and make backstories/character sheets for them if needed. I though this was an extra given that it was a one-shot and I was brand new to DMing at the time. This was also going to be my first time using roll20, and I had shared with the group that I was overwhelmed and to have low expectations. The one-shot went well enough in the end, but I never understood why my former DM needed to have 3 servants with him in our one-off session. Was he justified in his character creation, or would it have been the right choice to go easy on me?

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

To the honorable cat collective and Jake the bailiff dog, woof woof. I present the case of patron patronage and the angry warlock. I am a DM of a campaign currently set in the fey wild, with a Hexblade warlock player who built their character to be literally the Witcher… Yes they have a touch of main character syndrome. Sigh. But when I asked for the patron backstory/who their patron was all they’ve told me in the last 16 weeks was “idk it was a badger, I didn’t really read my contract” and despite me asking, they kept repeating that exact phrase and said I could do what i wanted with it. So I decided to split the difference and give all the characters little side quests surrounding their characters; theirs involved a call from Sallie Fae learning their patron had defaulted on their warlock contracts & they were shopping them a new patron which will result in a showcase show down & get them a new one (which will come with a feat and some goodies). I made it VERY clear their powers wouldn’t be impacted in the interim but they got red faced and started talking shit about my character voices and angrily saying that violates their contract… despite them having said specifically they never read their contract, I asked for an arcana or charisma saving roll for their contract and they rolled a 5. They’re upset at me and I want to know if I overstepped too hard.

Cam Valpoop

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

Stig

Ahoy to their holinesses and the wee goblin Jork. I have a confession: I was kept late at work (I work at a non-profit, please don't let my selflessness color your judgement), and so joined a virtual session in a bit of a scramble. In doing so (being on the toilet and without any of my play materials), I forgot how a magic item I have worked (Oathbow). I did not give myself advantage on either of my first two attacks against a purple worm. In round 2 of combat - having remembered how the item worked - I decided to give myself eleven accuracy-style double advantage on one of my attacks after regular advantage wasn't enough to hit. I crit. I dealt some mean-ass damage to this worm which we were destined to womp within the round anyway. I don't feel bad. I knew it wasn't going to make a meaningful difference and took the nat 20 as a sign that Dice Christ approved of me letting myself have a little more fun after a really long day at work (at a non-profit). Open to other opinions tho lol. What's He whispering down to y'all?

Eddie M

To the most honorable of judges and just a wittle guy, This is an older incident, but one that still haunts the hearts of my friend group even today. A high school friend had reached out to myself and two of our other friends from high school asking to play a remote game in the middle of the 2020 lockdown. We took the opportunity and played as Cory the Tortle ranger the Fredrig the gnome rogue, and I, Princess Diane the Barbarian. As Fredrig’s player and I are best friends in real life we always build characters that are fast friends or have an interconnected backstory. During our second session the level 2 party was attacked by a gang of harpies and Fredrig was downed in two turns. The DM rolled his death save behind the screen and then on the harpy’s turn attacked the downed Fredrig despite Diane being right there. It turns out the DM rolled a natural 1 on the death save, so with the attack Fredrig was gone. We all blew up on the DM for this, but he refused to retcon and then was upset with me because my character went from lawful good to an alcoholic after the death of my only friend. Were we wrong to demand a retcon, was I wrong to change my alignment out of honesty spite, or was our DM wrong to cheat us of a character before we even really had the chance to play. We humbly await your judgement. PS we had more points of contention with this person after he became a player in a later campaign as well if you ever want follow up.

Isla K

Dearest judges of the esteemed Supreme Crit, and even dearester bailiff. I bring to you a case in which I believe myself to have committed that grievous error that a player can commit. I believe I may have been a a giant donger. I present to you: The Case of the Paladin who fought a fellow player character because they declared themselves an enemy determined to free Tiamat from hell for no particular reason. It was normal session like any other. We were in a Las Vegas themed world, imagine Casino Night Zone from Sonic the Hedgehog 3. We were wrecking shop, trying to get out of this topsy turvy world we’d been sucked into. We were preparing to confront the boss of the area when we entered a massive roulette wheel suspended by a mighty chain which reached into the sky’s inky blackness. Our plan was initially to destroy this chain, something I was all gung ho to do. But the DM prompted me to do a religion check. I was playing a paladin, who was a devotee to the Draconic god of law and Justice, Bahamut, sworn enemy of Tiamat. I don’t have good intelligence so I expect to roll something low. But I got lucky and rolled a Nat 20. I was informed by my DM that while breaking the chain was a way to escape the casino dimension, it would also be the first step in a chain of dominoes that would result in the release of Tiamat from hell. I was faced with what to anyone else might have been a conundrum. But my mission was clear. As a devoted warrior dedicated to Bahamut, I could not allow the destruction of this chain to pass, even if it meant I would be stuck here forever. I stated this intention, and the barbarian in our party thought it was reasonable, the sorcerer didn’t care one way or another, but the tabaxi bard was determined to destroy the chain. I asked why she would want to do this. And was informed by the other player, who I will acknowledge was being true to her established character, that she wanted to destroy the chain because she was a kitty and wanted to knock stuff off the metaphorical desk that was this campaign. I stated in no uncertain terms, “if you continue this course of actions, I must take up arms to stop you.” I was also being true to my character as I had established him. Our sorcerer apparently didn’t like this and decided he was gonna try to break the chain now too. I a couple of rounds I had taken both of them down by using all of my smites, and most of my hit points. When asked if they would desist trying to free Tiamat, the sorcerer conceded. He had made this attempt on a whim and didn’t have any particular interest in the matter. The bard insisted, and said that i would have to kill her if I wanted her to stop. Whether this was a bluff, or not, I couldn’t tell. So I killed that character. PVP was not something our group had discussed prior to this. And before I committed to any action, I stopped and asked our DM and both other players involved if what I was doing was okay. They indicated that it was, so we proceeded. This event cascaded into a series of resentments that lead to the dissolution of that group into two separate groups. So I ask of you, esteemed judges, and also the bailiff is there. Was I a giant dong to my friends?

Brock

To the Noble Clergy of Dice Christ! i come before yall not with a confession, but with a question because no matter what you decide im still gonna keep doing it. So i have a pretty common learning disability; dyscalculia which makes even the simplest of math problems embarrassingly difficult and uncomfortably long to figure out especially during something you wanna keep fast paced like combat. Unfortunately im also cursed with a pretty bad case of Murphism and can often go through whole 4 hour sessions without rolling above a 10. So to combat my awful math abilities i’ve started using Dnd Beyond to roll my dice which will automatically add up all my damage or proficiency bonuses. However i have also noticed now that im using an online roller im rolling astronomically better, and critting multiple times a session! So i ask the church, do i walk with the dice devil now that i have strayed away from physical dice and prevent the other players from hearing the click clack everyone keeps talking about? or am i just being blessed by dice christ through the power of the internet? or have i finally killed god with my machine? ps hate the show and ive never listened to it and if i did, it probably wouldn’t help me laugh when im at my lowest

stegosaurussoul

Good evening, honorable supreme crit justices and the beloved bailiff Jvelin. Today I bring before you the case of the “tween” elf & suspiciously situational puberty. I DM a campaign with four players, one of which plays a 11 year old tiefling named Spliff and one who plays an 80 year old drow, Mortimer. Since the other two characters are in their mid twenties, Mortimer has the most lived experience out of the whole party. At the beginning of the campaign Morty's player introduced him with “he’s 80, but in elf years that’s like, 14”. I’m always down for players to contribute to the lore of the world, so I okayed this. Now here is where the issue arises. This player is great at RP, but whenever something scary happens, Morty will often demand a whole scene out of combat (but not always during downtime) to go off alone and calm down, his justification being “I’m just a child!” (We did talk ahead of time about what playing a child character meant, and agreed injury/death was still on the table.) When people bring this up or question him, he refers to himself as the baby of the group, that he doesn’t know better and is so emotional and impulsive because he’s going through puberty. Spliff, meanwhile, is an actual child, but other players will be forced to focus attention on Morty instead of her. Additionally, when it comes to a skill or area he’s proficient in, Morty will scold the other characters and say “I’m 80, I know more about this than you do”. In addition to my frustration, other players have come to me slightly annoyed by Morty's anomalous age on multiple occasions. So, honorable crit, I ask: is Mortimer’s player in the wrong by situationally choosing to RP as 14 or 80 citing “that’s just how elves mature” and utilizing it to maximize RP time? Or is this confusing characterization my fault for allowing the player to weave the lore of elven physiology for this world in the first place? If it is my own punishment that must be decided, I request that you bury my body back home in The Crick.

tacticalgrandma

This is a situation where "get new friends" is applicable but shouldn't be applied, because you all need to stay in containment.

Nick Neverman

Dearest darling duckling justices and the ugly duckling over there in the corner somewhere, I bring to you the “why does it hurt me and not him?!” case. In my home brew campaign, the party just finished exploring a myriad of cavernous dungeons hidden deep within a dangerous forest, and as they exited, they were met by a reoccurring enemy force hoping to steal the artifact they found. To properly capture the feeling of a larger battle, I used the mechanics from the recent Toybox battle (Murph you rule) as the party also had a retinue of friendly villagers fighting on their side. The issue began when one of my NPC’s, our barbarians best childhood friend/foster brother, called to the barbarian and had him rush into an opening he created into a tree. The NPC is a home brewed class called Natures Muse, essentially a nature themed bard, that can manipulate nature through music. With this ability, he brought the barbarian into the trunk of the tree, sealed it back up and then shot up to the top around 100 feet high, with the intention of launching the barbarian at the largest bad guy like a sling shot for an extra chunky attack; which was also a move the barbarian specifically came up with as something he used in his backstory and asked to ensure he could try it in session if there was a fight. While this was happening, the end of the round came and it was time for the PC’s to make their roll to see which side would receive damage from the masses. The PC’s lost by 10 so as I rolled the 10D8, I stated since the NPC & our barbarian were up in the tree, the damage would be split amongst the remaining two party members on the actual field of battle and not all four of them like it had been. The resulting damage knocked our fighter unconscious, with the fighter vehemently arguing that the damage should’ve been split to the two characters in the tree & that the barbs decision to run over basically killed the party. He settled down momentarily but then continued to take jabs at the barbarian from time to time throughout the remainder of the session. They ended up surviving by the skin of their teeth, partially thanks to the damage from the massive attack and then also a natural 20 death save by the aforementioned fighter, but I ask the justices, was I wrong to exclude the two people in the tree from taking damage? Or should everyone have been subject to the harsh realities of the battle field? I humbly await your decision.

MAH DICK FELL OFF

Greetings my little goo goo justices and little piss baby jake, i come to you in a time of great need, two of my players are my brother and his girlfreind in a campaign i am running, the girlfreind is pregnant. At a point during a very pivotal and intense battle in our campaign the girlfreind had to roll a saving throw that would make or break the fight, she rolled, THEN my brother asked me if she could roll again cause she was bringing life into this world. I said thats not how tge game works and then the whole table started yelling at me in unison that i wasnt being a nice dm, i aquiesced and allowed her to roll again, regardless, who was in the wrong here?

zediekiel

To the honorable justices and Cake the Bailiff. I come to you with the case of the misleading clarification. I am in a part of a long-running group for a Dresden Files Urban fantasy game. Our party was investigating the missing sheriff in a swamp, whereupon we came upon an ancient Floridian swamp-ogre. One of our players is a white-court vampire, who famously is able to afflict a person with emotions and then parasitically feed off of them. Since this was not a person and was obviously some sort of pseudo-swamp monster, the player asked the GM ahead of time to see if this creature had emotions in the first place. The GM clarified saying that it "seemed to have some kind of intelligence" The player then used their power to incite emotion, and the GM then asked the rest of the players "Ok, does anyone know if vampires can feed on faries?" I was admittedly a little peeved, as the earlier clarification should have either prompted a dice roll to know if this could work or not, or at the very least the GM should have had an answer for why this would or would not work. Am I being unreasonable that the clarification we sought was misleading, or should my GM know his own worlds lore after 3 years of running the game? P.S. Eventually he did decide the player could use the ability, but it took one of the other plaers googling the Dresden Files and a spurious reddit post to get that information.

Jarla

For the esteemed justices and the guy who reads these. In my previous campaign, the party met a demon who was actively eating a villager and threatening to kill several more. After several failed attempts to negotiate with this demon to not eat people, our very much anti-demon cleric entered combat. My similarly anti-demon barbarian was first in initiative however and was thus the first to strike. This demon turned out to be far above our player levels so we had to run away and were only capable of doing so via the spells of the magic members of the party due to the movement of the demon out pacing all of us by foot. The entire party then turned on me for attacking the demon in initiative and continuing to attack when it became obvious that I couldn't run away as a non-magical barbarian and had to rely on waiting for a spell caster to use a spell that could also transport me instead of just themselves as they had spent their first turns just teleporting themselves away. The blowout of this incident caused the campaign to end and I must ask: Was it wrong of me to attack a demon in initiative or was the rest of the party in the wrong to blame the barbarian for doing the only thing that she was actually capable of doing against an impossible challenge demon? Ps: the cleric received none of the blame

Sebastian Brecht

To the honorable and revered supreme crit justices and the lonely lonely lonely lonely Balif Jaqcue. I come here with the case (I apologise to Justice Axford in advance) of the stubborn wookie. A few years ago when I was setting my roots as a fledgling DM. I played a home game with my parents and younger brother set in the far far away galaxy of Star Wars set before the Phantom Menace using Star wars 5e. Character creation had gone well, my dad and brother were versed in the world of Jedis and Jabbas. But my eyebrow began raising when my mother, who had limited knowledge of the movies, decided to play a wookie. I explained to her that wookies aren't capable of regular speech as they communicate in grunts and growls to which she responded "Oh that's fine, we'll just say they can talk normally" A little taken aback, I asked if she meant she had a text to speech device or futuristic translator attached to her characters neck to which she refused the idea and insisted her character talk in the same voice as herself. I wanted my mum to have fun and didn't really push back as I wanted everyone to enjoy the game. But when we got into the campaign she immediately describes how she goes to everyone even slightly rude to the party and gives them a stern talking to, as well as how she abstains from combat as her character "wouldn't want to come across as rude." despite me explaining this is how star wars, and my campaign, was going to work. My father and brother had raised concerns and I racked my brain as to how to get everyone involved but to no avail as to make everyone enjoy the game I had planned. It was hard enough making enjoyable sessions as they were only 1 hour long every week or so. I ended up scrapping the campaign and didn't try to play with them again. They are all incredibly sweet people but I am at my wits end on how to make an enjoyable campaign for them all. Justices was I right to scrap my campaign or should I have stuck it through and tried harder to make the campaign enjoyable for everyone?

Cameron

To the Exquisite Justices and Bailiff Jake, aka the Yamcha of the Court. I bring to you an act that weighs heavy on my mind - though others have already forgotten it - and I request a precedent about player's looking up spells cast upon them. In a recent session, our party was fighting two hags in an attempt to prevent them from formally forming a coven. My Firbolg Wild Magic Barbarian was in solo combat with the weaker hag, while my other party members were taking on the hag leader. The Head Hag proceeded to cast Crown of Madness on my barbarian, and our DM began describing how my barbarian unlimbered his greatsword and began stalking towards the other members of my party, and stated on my next turn I would attack my own party members. However, I am a DM myself in a side campaign for this group, and was familiar with the spell from an NPC in that world. I quickly looked up the spell information, and pointed out that Crown of Madness would only allow me to make a melee attack on a target within range, and I was across the room from all of my party members. The effect my DM was describing was more in line with Dominate Person, a considerably more powerful 5th level spell. As I mentioned this, the wind visibly left my DM's sails, and I immediately felt bad. We proceeded to absolutely womp the hags, but the victory felt bittersweet. Was I wrong to immediately look up the spell that was cast on my character, rather than let the DM do his thing? Did I rain on his parade by "Um, Actually"-ing? Please affirm my decision or punish me appropriately. PS the whole thing was a moot point, as our paladin immediately smote the Boss Hag and broke her concentration before my turn even came about, but I still feel like I ruined the tension my DM was building.

Blue_Cloak

Estimable Ecclesiarchs, I come to you today with a confession to our beloved dice christ. In a now finished home game, I would consistently lie about the result of my dice rolls during combat. A 4 on the die, nay that was a 14. My reason was thus, our GM was using Pathfinder monster stat blocks without changing anything. So, ACs were constantly in the 20s and their attack bonus were in the teens. I was the only character really optomized for combat (Oath of Devotion Paladin/ Bear Totem Barbarian) and many times I was the only with an attack bonus high enough to hit the damned things. The rest of the time, during roleplay dice rolling was guilt free, but once combat rolled around I was to sin again. I asked my GM why they were doing this and they said, "I want to give you guys a challenge." I could not dissuade them. So, can I ever be forgiven for my sins in the eyes of our polyhedral savior? Or am I now damned to the fire of the liars?

WhistlePig

To the joyfully jaunty and juicy judges of the Crit and, if he cares to chime in, ...Jacob? For the consideration of the Supreme Crit, I present the case of The Sabotage at the Siege. My DM is a close friend and having completed Dragon of Icespire Peak, he was running us through the Divine Contention module. During this modlue the town we've been operating out of, Leilon (LAY-Lon?) becomes besieged by two cult factions. The Cult of Myrkul (many undead) and the Cult of Talos (Lightning/Thunder Orcs). Our DM ended our session right as we returned from a mission to find the town under siege, the townsfolk bolstering the gates, and an army of undead bearing down on them. A quick backstory, I am a Goliath Barbarian and we had previously ran White Plume Mountain and retrieved 3 legendary sentient weapons and were able to keep one as a reward. I ended up with arguably the most broken Two-Handed sword in the game, Blackrazor. Though I don't think my DM knew what he was giving me at the time. This thing has some ridiculous stats and traits so I've been playing it kind of reserved so as to not make every combat scenario boring for everyone else. Though it is useless against the undead. In fact, it damages me if I attack something without a soul. Still, I rarely got dropped below 100hp in any fight bc of it. So before our next session, I was texting with my DM and he mentioned that I might want to unequip my cursed sword re-equip my magic bow as there "would be lots of ranged combat coming up". Knowing we would be facing the undead, I took his advice and in the next session I roleplayed telling my sentient sword why I wouldn't be using him during this battle and, through my DM's narration, it forgave me, but demanded more souls as repayment. After the battle began, I quickly found myself confused as a player bc we were fighting living cultists more than the actual undead. Not only that, but there was next to no ranged combat the whole time. Every enemy rushed up on us and as the tank, I used my bow once and missed and then spent a turn switching to my non-magic axe. I was so ineffective that combat turned into a slog and the other players made fun of me for not keeping my obviously superior legendary sword. We ended the session moving on to the Cult of Talos who all were just rife with souls. Lousy with souls, these guys. So I said that my character was going to change out my bow for my sword on the way to their position. My DM told me that bc I unequipped it, I would have to re-attune to it and so it would have to wait until a long rest. The siege lasted 2 more sessions and so it was 2 more weeks of hitting like a damned pansy. Though I was able to re-acquire my sword after that. I asked him why he told me what he had and he replied, "I never told you that you should do that. I just made a suggestion outside of the game." So I prostrate myself before the court, am I the whiny asshole or was my DM being underhanded and trying to screw me over to maybe humble my goliath ass?

Eddie Waitman

To the honorable Supreme Crit Justices and the Dragon Ball Z fan Jake, May I present to the court the case of the falling Whale. A little over a year ago, my party (around level 10) of friends I DM for in a homebrew 5e game was breaking into a fortress of an evil archduke that had been committing crimes against creatures of the feywild. The party had spent multiple sessions hopping around between outposts, and when finally making their way to the primary fortress, they began using code words and enacting a plan I was completely unaware of. This is not typically an issue, I encourage them to be creative and plan outside of session for major boss fights, but what they did really took me through a loop. The party's (wildshaped) Druid and our flying Fairy rogue made their way well above the keep under the guise of scouting and honestly, I thought that was excellent strategy. However, I became a bit suspicious when they began being very specific with their flying height (200 ft). I brushed it off, believing there would be some shenanigans around spell ranges and not being able to be attacked back. Boy was I wrong. The druid exited wild shape (free action), cast Polymorph on the Rogue (Action), and entered starry form (bonus action). The druid announced that he would be turning the rogue into a Sperm Whale, which would immediately fall from 200 feet onto the many many guards below. I was astonished and stopped in my tracks so that I could take a few minutes to read up on rules. I found nothing in the rules preventing it. I did not want the entire encounter leading to the boss fight to be bypassed, but more importantly I did not want to set a precedent that the 4th level polymorph spell could be continually used in an absolutely game breaking way. I argued that the whale, falling from such a height could deal max falling damage (20d6) and those below would get a Dex save for half damage (and the same damage done to the falling whale). It is a lot of damage, and felt like a good compromise. The party argued that the gargantuan creature weighing over 30 tons, should kill all those it fell on, or deal more damage than that, as well as completely destroying that section of the fortress. We had a bit of a back and forth and reminded them that whatever they can do can be done back to them in the future, (and how would they feel about that as a TPK) and they begrudgingly settled on accepting the damage as 20d6. It ended up killing many of the soldiers and leaving the remainder to be wiped out in a single round of combat. Since then I feel I made an okay call in the moment, however the party has recently boarded an airship and expressed intent to do the same to many other opponents. Thinking about the implications moving forward, I bow to the court and ask, did I make a poor call and need to live with the consequence, or was the party right and I should have allowed such a grand defeat to the soldiers/fortress below. How can this be handled moving forward without breaking many, many encounters?

Eric Severson

To the honorable wise crit justices! Oh…and Jake too if he’s there. May it please the court. I bring you the case of DM Vs Lady Luck. My DM hates the lucky feat and will not allow anyone in the party to take it claiming it is too overpowered. While I disagree, I follow the rule as he is the DM. However, I am wanting my next character to be a halfling rogue and when I mentioned it to my DM, he said I could but I wouldn’t have the lucky trait because he doesn’t allow the feat. We’ve argued about it as the halfling lucky is a race trait not a feat but he isn’t budging. Is my DM being unnecessarily stubborn by stripping the halfling of the lucky trait or is he justified? I eagerly await your judgement.

Shelbeast

Good evening justices, I bring to you today not a case, nor a confession, but a Hogliday miracle that I KNOW will please the court. Almost a year ago my friend reached out to me to ask me to participate in a new campaign he was running. We had been PC’s together for years and this would be his first time DMing. He loves dnd and wants all his friends to play, so he wrote a campaign to try and get his friend, Crush (PC name), to play for the first time. My benevolent justices I wouldn’t dare bore you with the details as Crush turned out to be a textbook dnd case you all have covered a million times. He was an unquestionable D-bag and we kept our trials to the lower courts. The end result was him throwing a tantrum and quitting the campaign that had been created for his benefit. But this is where our miracle begins. Dejected, but thoroughly invested in our characters, we did not want to stop playing this story. Instead the DM said he had another friend in mind to round out the party. Also someone who had never played. Traumatized from Crush we were all extremely hesitant. But in walks Odder (PC name). Within an hour into his first session he had managed to create distinct and positive relationships with all of our characters. His backstory was interesting, ridiculously creative with his spell casting, and brave with his role play. We hit the jackpot. We have been playing with Odder for 2 months now. And he sent us all gifts to thank us for being so welcoming. He bought a sewing machine with fabric specific for each of our characters and made us dice bags, coupled with custom dice to match. He also commissioned character art and bought a new microphone so we could hear him better over zoom. I thank Dice Christ for bringing him into our lives. I could not imagine a better blessing to our campaign.

Axyl and Olympia

To the dearest and daintiest of judges and um, do you mind? We present to you the case of the player who won’t learn how to play. We’ve played with the same party since freshman year of college (roughly 6 years now) when we began our dnd journey and we’ve created a very cohesive and engaged party that is open to others thoughts on play and we have figured out a play style that works well for us. Until a member of ours wanted to run his own fourshot and invited his friend to play in it too. We agreed thinking they would just play in the four shot and our normal party would resume after but instead he assumed we would invite him into the party which we all weren’t expecting. We’re all very close with the dm and getting to be better friends with the new player so we didn’t know how to tell him no as the dm is loyal to a fault. To be polite we all never said anything and let him join even though it turned a 5 person party to a just too big 6 person party. He doesn’t say much during any session, and usually sits there on his iPad but in general is irrationally upset when any friend group event doesn’t include him, including dnd. Worst of all after 2 years of play, we still have to explain him the rules of the game nearly every time we play. Reminding him nearly every time that he needs to add modifiers and he also never checks his spells, sometimes to where it actually sets the party back when his spells would have helped a lot . In full truth, Judges this man knows literal rocket and computer science but he cannot mentally grasp what a saving throw is after 2 years. It’s getting incredibly frustrating and to his defense has been getting better at communication and rules but after this long there’s not a lot we can do. He even complains when we talk about the campaign we ran pre-him that he doesn’t understand the reference even thought it ran for 3 years. Are we being too judgmental about a player that hasn’t grasped dnd as well as the rest of us or are we in the right for feeling frustrated about how he won’t learn how to play. We eagerly await your humble decision

RichPanda

Hello lowly lowly bailiff Jake and co. I've been running campaigns with my group for around 3 years now and this is probably my most conflicting moment as a dm. Here's some context in session like 15-20 I planted one of my extra friends as a "new party member" when in reality he was a homunculus created by the devils they were trying to defeat. Well around 10 sessions later Riggle's (Riggle is one of my players character names) adopted goblin son Garbo. Laid claim to a weapon called the Sword of Zariel(real very cool item) and got turned into an archangel. Well my "newest player" didnt like that so he decided it was time to reveal himself by casting power word kill. (I told him he was only allowed to cast that on npcs and not pcs.) This sent my player or Riggle into a depressing revenge filled arc. After my homunculus player ran away because he wasn't ready to take on the party Riggle grabbed onto the sword and I decided that he was worthy. I had ruled that he would grow a second set of wings for becoming an archangel as he already had a pair because he was an aarokocra. I ruled that this would double his flying speed. He then decided to challenge Zeus himself the next session. I told him to roll a d100 and low and behold he rolled a 100. So Zeus came down from the sky lightning bolt in hand ready to fight. My player Riggle then decided to try and convince Zeus to race him instead of fighting because "it would be more entertaining" and proceeded to roll a nat 20 on a persuasion check. I allowed it and they got ready to race in a place not dissimilar to Greek heaven. After being buffed by the druid, bard, wizard his flying speed Stat was almost tripled. He then used a Masochistic sentient Shield and got fireballed by the warlock centered on the Shield to give him an initial speed boost. Before the race started Riggle bet his life and soul on the race and in return he wanted to speak to Garbo one last time. Zeus agreed and they got ready to race. They counted down and the other druid cast windwall to add an extra 5 to his movement speed temporarily. They started the race and after probably 15 minutes of painstaking math they almost beat his flying speed but were short 10. So one of the druids cast guiding bolt at 5th level to distract Zeus and you won't believe it but they rolled a 20 on the attack. I painstakingly agreed that it would distract him just long enough for Riggle to win. Everyone started cheering and when Zeus landed he smote the person who cast guiding bolt immediately putting them into death saves which got them mad at me. (I rolled the damage and it was enough to put them in death saves). Zeus then declared that they cheated and he would be taking his reward and the party started arguing that there were no rules to the race that stated they couldn't. I agreed with this logic and allowed Riggle to see Garbo. It was very emotional for the player and it was probably a highlight of the entire campaign. After their reunion they said their goodbyes and Riggle returned to his party. He then tried to convince Zeus to give him one of his bolts of lightning and after arguing for almost 5 minutes straight I told him to roll a persuasion check and everyone took the help action. He then proceeded to roll a 36(with bardic inspiration and guidance). I gave in and gave them the bolt of lightning. I made it a level 9 one time use lightning bolt. 5 sessions later I had completely forgotten about the lightning bolt and they were about to fight the bbegs. Whilst they were giving their speech Riggle proceeded to ask where are they standing? And I said in a line facing you. So with his speed doubled with Longstrider he ran to the side of them and cast lightning bolt and I rolled saves for all the bbegs and they all failed. This lightning bolt immediately reduced all of their health by like 80%. My players knew what creatures they were so they had an estimate of what their health was so I felt I couldn't lie and increase it. After VERY EASILY beating the bbegs I had the castle start collapsing so it wouldn't just be over like that. This ended up killing one of the fighters and the cleric. I know it's my fault but am I wrong for being upset with how that campaign ended? Sorry for how long that was btw.

Nemo_Nihil17

Good day, Jubilant Judiciaries of Justice, and...uhhh.. i think his name is Janks? I come before the court today with the Case of the Forbidden Weezer Album. A little over a year ago, I played in my first and potentially last DnD session. I had no idea what to expect and was very confused by each of the party members (5, including me). The DM introduced this giant Howls Moving Castle-esque player base in which we could fully customize our rooms to reflect our character and goals. One player(we'll call him Ren) had a large painting on the wall that featured a blue background and 4 male figures dressed in white, blue, pink, and navy button down shirts. Ren said that his life's mission is to find the meaning of this painting, as it held some kind of hidden knowledge. I said "Wait a minute...Isn't that the Weezer 'Blue' album cover?" The DM and other PCs looked at me as if I just kicked a puppy and the session ended about 20 awkward minutes later. I was then quietly let go from the group and have been blacklisted ever since for allegedly "breaking immersion and sabatoging character stories". Do I deserve this treatment? Do I deserve further punishment for this crime against RP? It's been over a year and I'm still blacklisted from the only DnD group in the vicinity. I humbly await your ruling.

Cheneil

To the beloved Supreme Crit Justices and the lowly but still beloved bailiff, I present to you the case of the Pinky Promise and the Pink E. I play a lil' rainfrog aasimar wild magic sorcerer named Cherry in a Weird West campaign who often makes pinky promises. After a day of the American kestrel kenku, Silence, being separated from the group, Cherry asked them to promise to not run off again sealing the deal with the pinky promise. Both Cherry and Silence were aware that breaking this promise entailed losing a pinky and were fine with it. Come a few months later, Silence being a roguelock did rogue things and ran off. When he returned he was happily offering his pinky to the frog tween who was fully ready to cut it off with her dagger. Our tiefling fighter-barbarian, Shelley, was against this from when the promise was established. She got between Cherry and Silence who were both mildly annoyed by her coming between this longstanding promise. Our changeling cleric-bloodhunter, Cres, interjected offering another pinky promise to let them be there so they can heal Silence which Shelley blocked get-down-Mr-President style. Lastly, the DM with a detective NPC popped in, "solving" the problem with a Pink E aka a pink cloth cut into the shape of an e. He gave it to Silence who gave it to Cherry with both the small sorcerer and sneaky roguelock being disappointed with the outcome. Were Cherry and Silence in the wrong for being willing to enact the consequences of a pinky promise or was Shelley in the right for stopping it? Sidenote: This was all happening in Shelley's dining room a few hours after her butler was killed by a parasite bursting out his chest Alien style.

Kevin Alman

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

Readgirl

Hello honorific judges and undecorated bailiff. I present to you the case of the dissatisfied and disrespected player. I have been playing in a discord campaign for 3 years. This campaign was my very first introduction to DnD and I have a special love for my character, a halfling fighter named Rosalie-very much a self-insert. The sessions are voice only, no cameras, which can lead to difficulties with communication/ role play. I am the only girl in this group, out of the 4 guys I play with 3 of them have had a crush or has tried to ask me out-to no avail. Which contributes to the overall uncomfortableness of the sessions-for me. Most of the players and DM make insensitive/inappropriate jokes and comments constantly. I have voiced my complaints, but they just laugh them off and keep making my jokes. On top of that, several times when I go to speak and role play, I am talked over and ignored. The Druid even told that my role play “sucks,” when I am consistently spoken over, and when I was told previously I talked too much. I am extremely frustrated and tired of this campaign, but our DM says we are only 6-7 sessions away from finishing. I want to quit. I love my character very much and don’t want to quit playing her, but I don’t think I want to play with this group ever again. Am I in the wrong for feeling like quitting or should just finish this campaign as quickly and quietly as possible?

Gabriel Babbitt

If it may please the mightiest and nobelest Court and her lofty judges, and put out the baby bailiff with a, somehow, older baby: I bring to you the case of the competitive card drawing. 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 know 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 right at the end of the session, but I wanted to get the Deck in that session. What ensued was a frenzy of drawing cards from the ranger and the artificer matching every draw, like a couple of frat bros going shot for shot. They drew 11 in total. The last card drawn was the Donjon card by the artificer, they were locked in a demi-plane. It was an upsetting end of the session and the player was distraught and had to go straight to work without talking about it or processing 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 adult players to draw as many cards as they wanted, unchecked, or should I have stopped it?

Canas_Colours

May it please the court and the beloved baby boy bailiff, I present to you the case of the Ugg Boot Devil Summoning Our party had just defeated a dragon and my husbands PC that went by Z, (a mall katana wielding anime obsessed wizard with near commoner stats) found a cursed mask in the hoard, possessed by a basic bitch devil (think Starbucks and uggs). after a lot of hijinks the devil, after possessing a zombie and that zombie dying, returned to the hells leaving just her uggs behind. Z, heartbroken errected a shrine with the boots. Our DM prompted a D100 roll, which he liked to do anytime someone tried to contact a higher being. Well Z rolled a 5 and the DM ruled that with that he summoned the Devil back To the Material plane and she took him to be her right hand man in the hells (Z left the decision to joing her to a roll and did have to make a new character) Once they left the DM said we now had to roll a D100 for every magical item we owned (this was directly post dragon hoard shopping trip) to see if they lost their magic. he said that summonings can destroy magic items within 10 miles. he asserted this as if it was RAW, not a homebrew and were never made aware that this was even an option. I ended up losing 2 out of 3 magic items that I had literally just gotten (I was the only one in the party to lose something at that time. The items were a headband of intellect and an earring of message). I argued that it's absurd to allow any prayer to have a 1-10% chance for a god/devil/fae to show up at all and on top of that nuke any magical item in the area (if you roll above a 70), but the DM was not budging on his "canon" ruling. despite being near a city this had 0 effect on the city and pretty much only us and our equipment. Am I wrong for being upset that a divine intervention everyone in the world seems to have access to, at any level, robbed me of 2 new items I spent most of my in game money on, based on a rule that isn't actually anywhere, but the DM insists that is canon (not for his campaign but in general) I eagerly await your judgement and prostrate myself before the court.

Canas_Colours

PS: this happened while 2 out of 5 players were not present at the table but the DM didn't like cancelling unless 3+ people couldn't make it To a session, they also had to roll for their magic items the next session, prompting one of them to lose one item as well)

Liam Love

To the honourable Supreme Court justices and that one hunchback from Notre dame, Jack, I bring you the case of the No witnesses. I had managed to bring my friends together for our very first in person dungeons and dragons game, and as the most experienced player, I fell into the role of dungeon master. We decided to play the mines of Phandelver module - a classic - however trouble came during the dungeon crawl underneath the redbrands hideout. The problem player was playing an Eladrin Artificer, who wielded a cursed pistol. While exploring, the party discovered the family held as prisoners in the redbrand hideout - as a reminder, a mother and her two children. The party promised to return and free the family once they were done, however the artificer had other plans. Despite my own, as well as the parties attempts to convince him that they’d be no issue, he didn’t trust the family, and wanted to “take care of them”. Even after the paladin physically blocked his path, the artificer pulled his firearm and attempted to shoot the family. After a scuffle, some PvP, and a lot of arguing, we ended the session, and, after several days of arguing between the party, myself and the player about “removing player agency” and “curbing my decisions in character” I decided to retcon the situation, and allow for the character to change his actions. Though, unfortunately the stain of the arguing and disagreements carried through and we soon ended the campaign. My question is this; Was I wrong to retcon the situation, or how should I have better handled the interaction to begin with?

Dan Scheuer

To the unelected justices Murphy, Axford, and Tanner and the properly appointed Bailiff J-Dawg I bring before the court a pivotal case that will set precedent about the right of self determination. While DM’ing a homebrew campaign, the players found themselves trying to stop a ritual meant to sever the planar tethers to the Shadowfell. One player, a paladin, attacked a cultist focused on the ritual and ‘marked’ him, a feature that allows the paladin to deal damage if the target attempts to attack someone other than the paladin. On the cultist’s turn he continued focusing on the ritual and the paladin argued that he should get to deal damage. I clarified that the cultist was not making an attack action, but instead still focusing on the ritual. The paladin said that because the ritual was going to damage the universe, it constituted an attack. I explained that’s not how the rule works, and even if it did, the paladin would STILL not do damage as he would be considered a target of the attack as the “universe” includes the paladin. This argument went in circles for 5 minutes until I asked the paladin if he was part of the universe to which he replied “NO!” I ruled that the paladin winked out of existence and the fight continued without him. He left the table, never to rejoin. I would’ve allowed him to come back at any time, no questions asked, but he was unwilling. Years later, my group still sometimes sees a wayward paladin drifting through the void during planar travel. I still wonder, was I wrong to allow him to self determine his existence? Or are some laws of the universe immutable and unaffected by the force of will?

Jack Campau

to the highest of judges and lowest of pig boys jark, I present you with the Accent-idental Murder. I was playing a necromancer wizard in a game with my brother and all his roommates, I was their OG DM and the group ended up getting pretty into it and several of them started their own campaigns! Anyway, my dragonborn necromancer had a light german accent, not super hard but just a lil flavor I wanted to attempt, regardless of how silly I knew it may be at the start. Another one of the players was actually fluent in german, and I had a sense that me speaking with a tinge of an accent was bugging him because he went quiet when I was talking to anybody. Fast forward to a few sessions in, maybe the third time this DM has ever DM'd, I get mind controlled, and I as well as the couple of undead minions I have had to make some attacks on the party. German fluent player ended up taking me on and taking me all the way to zero quickly (cuz wizard HP). I thought the encounter would end with me and my minions dropping to the ground, but he then used his pet dragon wyrmling to take an attack on my downed body stating he didn't know in game if I was evil or not because I was a necromancer and just started attacking them. I was up next and rolled sub-10, killing my slightly german boney boy. Judges I ask you, should I have attempted a german accent in a group with a person fluent in german, or did I deserve death? Should the court require more info, I swear I genuinely had not acted in an evil way outside of what I was forced to do in my backstory, and with EXTREME reluctance when I did so, I was trying my best to not be an edge lord, however I will say it was probably a not great approximation of German. Regardless, I bow my head before your mighty decisions and eat shit jack.

FregLover

Greetings to justices Murph, Axford, and Tanner. I'm not trying this case in Boston, so I don't really care anyone else who may or may not practice there. If it pleases the court: Rather than seek out punishment I would like to request that the court may offer some form of rehabilitation for whoever is in the wrong in this case, whether it be me, the DM, or the player. I have a player who tries to fudge her rolls whenever she thinks she can get away with it -- even despite the fact we play in person and I can see everything she's doing. Anytime she gets a bad roll for something of consequence, she panics, tries to swiftly snatch up the dice before anyone else can see it, and immediately rerolls again, all in one frantic motion. Sometimes if I don't catch what she rolled, she will even refuse to tell me, or deny having rerolled even though she knows she's been caught red-handed -- almost as if she's doing everyone a favor by brazenly sticking to her lie. I even fear this may be rubbing off on another player, who I once caught frantically rolling like 3 - 4 times in a row before announcing the result, though this seemed to be an isolated incident, and I thus haven't named him as a defendant. This is a group of new players, and I don't have that many friends who are into D&D, so I would prefer not to sever ties with them as friends. Does the court suggest a course of rehabilitation that can fix my unruly player? Or perhaps this is my failure as a DM, whose pleas of "Guys, no, you can only roll once" have gone unheeded? Thank you, and Bahumut bless this court.

abfg616

😭😭😭 how do I keep missing this Dear most honorable justices of the supreme crit, and itty-bitty baby bailiff of questionable shelf-life Jelq, I present to you, most deferentially, The Curious Case of the Rogue Eggmonger. First, lets set the scene. I, not-so-recently, ran a heist one-shit in the roll for shoes system, for a friend and their partner (also a friend). The one shot was organized thusly- my players would have one day to scope the joint, an orb-themed casino, interacting with a number of colorful characters, the night to plan, and another day to put there plans into action and steal the orb. On the first day, one of my players seduced a nameless guard and brought them home. This was, of course, a bit difficult to manage, but not the reason why I write in today. You see, dear justices and other, my player saw fit to cook for this guard a wonderful egg breakfast in the morning, rolling all sixes in the attempt. As you may well know, rolling all sixes in Roll for Shoes means you gain a new skill of greater specificity with regards to the task critted on. So I, in my infinite, magnanimous wisdom, decided so graciously to grant my player the boon of the skill “eggmonger”, an ever-so-clever play on cheesemongers, fishmongers, and the like (I was going through a phase). However, my players, the dastardly bunch that they are, broke out a whole ass original cipher from middle school to encrypt their communications before me. The next day (in game), the newly minted Eggmonger and his partner in crime raided the casino, but used the Eggmonger skill to impregnate all of my npcs! Should I have worded the skill differently? Should my players have better appreciated the subtle wit of my genius wordplay? Or perhaps I ought not have opened the Pandora’s box of allowing my PCs to impregnate from range. I await ever-so-goodly your surely just ruling and certainly cruel punishment, and bid y’all, adieu.

Belligerant_Me

lol, I do like playing with them, but there are three people in that game who are of the "I do what I want" variety, leaving me and one other person to be the ones who have to cat herd us all to the actual objectives set before us. Our games do run really long, though, because just talking to NPC's usually leads to fights or misunderstandings, or the PC's are hurting themselves on the environments, and as the cleric I'm often having to use half my slots the first hour in just to keep us all from being killed by a mob or going to jail. The game I'll be joining soon will be with different players, though the DM has warned me that there are two other players with similar bratty intentions. Like I said, I refuse to lose the race to being the problem this time. If our stupidity leads us all to an early death because I refused to blink in the game of "who will stop being an idiot" chicken, I am okay with that.

Daniel Kishen

I prostrate myself before the bodacious bishops of dice christ to seek repentance for the most dire of sins: the rejection of a nat 20. Last Halloween I was playing in a low level horror one shot as a sweet, slightly senile gardening druid grandma. The party got ambushed by a small group of wendigoos and it quickly became clear we were outmatched. We managed to escape by the skin of our teeth, but grandma and another party member were cursed with endless hunger. It became clear that we were turning into the beasts and, when the change was inevitable, I found the character sheet of my sweet Marigold Sneezeweed whisked away to be replaced by a challenge rating 5 wendigoo. 2 wendigoos, against 3 horrified level 2 party members. Bishops, I did my best to go soft on my ex party members but the dice just were not having it. Nat 20 after nat 20 fell upon my desk and the party was getting ripped to shreds. Over the course of 7 rolls I rolled four nat 20s and two 1s. When the final nat 20 fell I mumbled something about it bouncing off my pen and quickly rerolled, missing the crit that would've guaranteed a TPK. I come seeking forgiveness from dice christ, and at long last, peace of mind for my blasphemy.

SmoothTurtle

To the justices most high, and the tallest bailiff with the thickest of quads. I lay my dice at your feet, please hear my plea. I started a campaign with my wife and 3 other good friends. Only one of the previous friends has played a campaign prior, and I am the DM after only doing a 1 shot previously. I play with very creative people and asked them all to write their own backstories and to send them to me so I can do my best to incorporate something for everyone in the story. I even provided prompt questions to give them something to go from. The player who was the only one who played DnD prior, gave me the bare minimum on their character and absolutely nothing about the characters past or secrets (which were both prompts) that the character may have. When I asked the player why they didn’t provide that when the rest did, they said that’s for them to keep secret. I said I understand why you’d want to, and it’s probably cool, but I’m the DM and if I don’t know I can’t work with them to incorporate it. They still refused. After listening to Nad Pod extensively to get the hang of DnD I created our first quest where the crew had to rescue a town from a crypt of animated skeletons. They did very well and after beating the boss of the crypt I had a phantom apparition appear and claim to know the player that refused to give me their backstory. I made the phantom make a vague statement about how they have a history with the player and how they will pay for what they’ve done. My thought was this would force this player to then have to cough up some information on their past through conversation, either with the enemy or their party. I thought, this being the only veteran player, they shouldn’t be that caught off guard and it was my attempt at holding their feet to the fire for refusing my earlier request. WRONG. The player froze, didn’t know what to do, and the party IMMEDIATELY turned on them and had them at knife point worried they were a traitor. I’m proud to say after a lot of in game trust exercises the party is still together and happily playing, but they player in question thinks I was wrong for putting them on the spot for not giving me their backstory. Did I do them dirty, or should they do better to work with the DM in the future. Honorable justices, I leave my dice in your capable hands.

2fastBicurious

To the most honorable justices and my burpless brethren the baby bailiff. . . Brad? May it please the court and give you all the most supreme crit. ;) I'd like to submit the case of the quiet Kenku. My table was running a home brew campaign and we were getting close to finding and fighting our BBEG. Our party included a kenku, Crowbar, who played by the mimic rules that he could only repeat words and sounds he had heard before. The BBEG was hidden away on another plane and to get to him, we had to enter a cave full of grueling puzzles and traps to reach a portal. We barely made it through alive. At the end of the cave, our DM announced that we would be silent and communicate only in written form or telepathically, (though no one one in our crew had the message cantrip). We were presented with a written riddle (think "speak friend and enter" style puzzle). Part of the riddle was solving for the answer, the other part was determining who could say the answer. If we answered wrong, or the wrong person spoke we were told the reaction would be TPK bad, and we were very weak already from the cave. We sat around the table passing notes, and determined the answer to the riddle was "Onomotopoeia" and the person to give the answer was a choice between either the youngest member of our party, or the physically smallest member of our party. The problem? Crowbar was both. Crowbar vehemently insisted there was no way he would have heard the word onomotopoeia before and therefore could not speak it. Our DM knew going into this that Crowbar was both the smallest and youngest and seemed to be gleeful about our predicament. After several pleas to both the DM and Crowbar to try to find a loophole we conceded we could not solve the puzzle currently. I suggested we take a long rest, exit the cave, teach Crowbar onomotopoeia, rest again, and come back, as it seemed the only solution. In the process, we ran out of potions on the way out, and on the way back our cleric, the party's only healer, went down, and she failed her death saves. My hexblade warlock attempted to call upon my patron for help without success. In the end only 3 party members of our 6 member crew, including myself and Crowbar made it to the end concious. Crowbar triumphantly said Onomotopoeia and the gate opened. Our session ended feeling empty and hollow. In real life there was a fight after the session. The players expressed we were upset at Crowbar for being so stubborn and at the DM for intentionally putting us in this situation. Crowbar argued that's how his character has always been and we shouldn't expect him to change because of a bad in game situation. The DM argued that we could have been teaching Crowbar words throughout the campaign before this so we wouldn't be here. I said it was an intentionally obscure word and we had no reason to teach it. Our DM laughed at me for being so upset, so I got up and left with the cleric, saying we were going to start a new campaign. Later, Crowbar texted me and said I had overreacted to a simple difficult scenario, and that if that's how I reacted when things didn't go my way, then no one would ever want me in their dnd party. I feel justified in being mad, but wonder if I didn't react too strongly. So I come to the mercy of the court asking, was I wrong to take the Murph response of "find new friends" or was my DM being unreasonable? I humbly await your judgement and accept whatever punishment I may receive.

Ash Hammack

May it please the gorgeous justices and the bailiff who has a nice personality, I bring a case of the Dick-Move DM. It was both mine and my husband's first time playing D&D and our DM had us running through the Cult of the Reptile God module. My paladin and my husband's rogue had fought through several groups of kobolds and cultists and were nearly to the keep when a group of villagers ran past fleeing yet another group of baddies. We were nearly dead and leading more villagers so were keen to just keep it moving, but our DM paused to remind us that my paladin was a noble character and would probably not want to let the villagers go by without helping, and that my husband's rogue had in his backstory that he was a bit self serving. She laid it on quite thick that we should do what our characters would do. Following her advice, my pally sent the rogue ahead with the group of villagers we had while she went to help the ones being chased. We were both promptly surrounded by 5+ baddies each, rolled initiative, and had a tpk in short order. Our DM then sent a YouTube video to our group chat with a song about how you should never split the party. She maintains this was to teach us an important lesson about the game, but I maintain this was entrapment, that she pressuring us into a course of action as newbies and then punishing us for it. She's still our DM and great friend, so it's all good, but I ask the court, was this a dick move?

FishFoods

Hi Judges! I’d like to clarify about my case of the cowardly players. I should’ve stated that my players themselves were not scared, it’s just that their CHARACTERS were. Apparently, they thought I wanted them to run away, and were genuinely shocked when I told them that I didn’t plan for them to leave. Thank you for your gracious judgment!