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Cases Please! (Patreon)

Published:
2023-02-14 15:49:55
Imported:
2023-02

Content

Hey there! Bailiff Jake here. The Supreme Crit is convening this afternoon, so submit your (BRIEF, I beg!) cases on this thread and we will bring you your due justice.

Not that lowly,

Jake

Comments

Anonymous

To the transcended justices and the Baeliff (if you're feeling soft), I present the case of "Closing the door on Dimension Door" I play a female brass dragonborn divine soul sorcerer in a 3 party campaign (including myself). Looking into the wording of Dimension door, I figured it was a big enough grey area when it refers to bringing someone with you as "targeting a creature" where it would fall in line with the Meta Magic, Twin spell. I pleaded my case to my DM about this cool idea to aid us in popping into the enemy's food supply barn to burn it down. After a minute of back and forth he struck the idea down. I plead oh justices, was I denied a cool rule to aid a small party? Or should my silly mechanics be stubbed by the closing door? I eagerly await your decision.

Anonymous

To the esteemed, graceful and transcendent supreme crit and the (glances down to the snivelling, pale creature clinging to my trouser leg) uh.. the bailiff, I present a tale of injustice, love, and betrayal. About four years ago, I was DMing my first Waterdeep: dragon heist session (I was fourteen, it was bad) and there was a point in the first dungeon where you could get transported to the villain Xanathar's home. I had already decided which room he was in and, inevitably, it was the one my player randomly rolled on. I was a new DM and thought I had to do everything the book says so the BBEG was in the room with one of my first level characters and I rolled a d10 to decide which of his eye beams he uses out of shock, rolling a 9: the disintegration ray. The character, being level one, died from 10d8 force damage and I ended the session, telling the player they had to make a new character. It is four years later, and that player and I have been in a relationship for 3 1/2 of those, I love them so much I could explode, but they sometimes still light-heartedly mention this moment, asking why I decided killing their character in the first session was worth staying true to the book. Judges, I understand this is an open and shut case, but for the sake of my sanity and my relationship, justice must be served. I welcome whatever is coming my way, and will be showing them your ruling as an attempt at retribution.

Anonymous

I present to the court the case of the not so friendly demon on a motorcycle. And also to the bailiff, keep it up and you'll be great at this one day. Some months ago in a relatively new campaign, our party of 6 or 7 was introduced to a demon on a motorcycle. This demon was not actively aggressive towards us at first, but did make his intention to kill and eat people (including our party) extremely clear to us. Despite this, the party insisted on reasoning with the demon to not kill and eat people. The reasoning goes nowhere until one member of the party has enough and out of character declares her intent to attack the demon, to the disapproval of all other party members except for me for "not trying to talk it out" with the demon. The DM ends the session there, not giving said party member a free attack out of initiative. The next session begins with the DM calling for rolling initiative to continue with the party member's intent to attack the demon. I roll the highest initiative, higher than even the demon which would turn out to be significantly more powerful than the party. So I attack the demon, again to jeers and anger from the rest of the party. One other party member has a turn before the demon and spends his turn talking to the demon and nothing else. When the demon has a turn, he knocks out half the party at once. Following this, the rest of our turns are spent trying to run from this demon who is still on a motorcycle and easily catches up with us without using his Action. Seeing this, I stop trying to run and focus on attacking the demon as a barbarian, deciding that I would probably die either way and I would rather die fighting, until the spellcasters are able to teleport the party to safety. We ended up in some ancient ruins, but any possibility of exploring those ruins were removed as the session quickly turned into the rest of the party yelling at me for being the first to actually attack the demon and for not trying to run away. Choice statements that stuck with me are "So your first instinct when adrenaline kicks in is to escalate to violence?" and "You should've at least tried to run away even if you thought it was impossible and you'd die anyway instead of choosing to die in combat." The next day the DM decided to cancel the campaign. Was I right to be the first to attack on initiative even though no attacks had been dealt yet or did I deserve the anger and blame that was heaped on me for the rest of the session and in the group chat for the rest of the day? And further, was I right to choose a death by battle over a death by being stabbed in the back by an 80s metal mascot even though ultimately no one died in the encounter?

Anonymous

To the mighty and resplendent justices of the supreme crit, who’s shoes I stoop to kiss; and the ill made, devious, disobedient little bailiff, full of envy, spite, and low cunning. May I humbly and graciously present the case of new DM and the Rolled Levels. A friend of mine, who shall remain nameless, was introduced to D&D by me and wanted to DM a campaign for two of his friends who had never played before. He asked me to join as an experienced player, as he had played only one game before, a sloppy oneshot I threw together. I agreed and was hit with a curveball right off the bat. I was asked to roll a d20 to figure out my starting level. Already a little concerned, I rolled on camera and got a nat 20. I went about making my character with very little input, a tiefling gunslinger from the nine hells, and the day before the first session was told to make a different character that was an animal. Luckily I was to shift them to a helllound without too much trouble. In the first session, we were joined by a cardinal with red dragon stats (either ancient or adult I can’t remember), I was immediately attacked out of initiative, we got teleported to the nine hells, the new players were in rare form, and it ended after about an hour. I was unable to make the next game as I had work, and heard after that the DM played my character for me. That cemented my decision to leave. Though it was a few years ago, it still sticks in my craw. Should I have stuck around and tried to coach these players and DM or was I right to bail? Ps. Later ran into this dm at a party and he told me some very grim details from a game he’s running so I think I dodged a bullet.

Anonymous

To the noble and pious Justices and whatever positive or negative term we are referring to the bailiff. May I present the case of scheming Old Man Kobold (me) Vs the Metagaming Noble Fighter. This is a new campaign over Discord with no cameras, with old friends who I have played many ttrpgs with. I as a player prefer to scheme and plan, Everyone knows this, My character is a disreputable old Kobold Wizard who met the party recently when it was created, and my friend's character is a straight edge Noble dwarven fighter, (With a loose barbarian and a lawful cleric making the rest of the party). Knowing the positions of the party and how different alignments clashing can destroy the fun, I messaged everyone about my plan of casting "Distort Value" on a shield we are selling and getting more for it, to make sure everyone was ok with it, nobody raised anything after talking about it, and I mentioned I would do it out of eyesight alone. Thumbs up from everyone that talked including the fighter. during the session, I told the party I wanted to sell the shield alone as I know a guy implying my plan, and got a lot of pushback about doing things together as a party from the Fighter, after relenting to let me sell it alone, I said "I go back to the room and begin casting Distort Value", to which the fighter immediately says "I follow them" and the DM double checks they want to and we jump into the scene of them watching me cast a spell and acting disgusted about it. the fighter refused to take any of the money and the cleric followed their lead without knowing anything After the session, I raised the situation with the fighter saying they knew what I wanted to do, It felt shitty when they pushed so hard against it and that it could lead to more situations where lawful party members don't allow anything, they replied that their character didn't know, and of course the fighter would follow the Kobold back into their room as they don't trust them, I argued that they knew what I wanted and just were desperate for the whole party to have constant interactions because of their own past ttrpg trauma. As it stands we agreed that it's blown out of proportion. Am I right to be upset about this situation, when I tried to talk to the other players beforehand about the situation and then that info was used against Old Man Kobold. Extra info: Picture of Old Man Kobold: https://imgur.com/a/WI7nIR7 Old man Kobold is at least 226 years old last time he remembered The trauma: We were in a party with a player who would check out if the scene didn't involve them and was a general problem

Anonymous

Hi Justices! Hello, Jake. So I'm a first-time DM for a crew of improvisers who've never played DnD before. Second session, my players helped save a halfling farmer from an evil scarecrow. The farmer had a loyal mastiff named Fig Newton who fought alongside her, even serving as the halfling's steed. Of course my players fell in love with Fig Newton the mastiff, as I expected. Having cute NPCs is a treat for your players. But then as they were leaving, the party’s sorcerer tried to essentially steal Fig Newton by attempting to lie to the farmer, claiming the adventurers needed the dog to help save the world. She rolled a 23 on Deception, so I allowed it, but I was sure to describe how sad the farewell was, and how Fig Newton kept whining and looking back to the farm as they left. Fig Newton helped the party on their way, and since he’s friendly and his owner had told him to help them, I gave the Animal Handling checks a low DC, so they were no problem for the sorcerer. But since I kept mentioning how despondent the dog seemed, one of my players (not the sorcerer) finally took the hint and ordered Fig Newton to go home. I immediately narrated how, with a delighted "RUFF", the mastiff trotted off back toward the farm. Happy ending, right? But now my sorcerer is pissed at me! She says if I was just going to "ruin the fun" and take the dog away, I should never have allowed her to make the Deception roll at all. Justices, should I have just told her she couldn’t take Fig Newton in the first place?

Anonymous

I have been running a campaign for about two years due to scheduling hiccups. The players went back to an enemy fort to loot it completely after the left early last time. The over confident players took a short rest in a cavern without watch and were attacked. One player died when the other played didn’t want to let the baddie escape in exchange for it to not kill the downed player. I was able set up the players to “revive” the player with a modified myconid sovereign spore. The player was “mostly dead” and the party had to finish his back story to have warforged “reforged” back to full life. Was I wrong to give them an out from a poor story death? I was concerned with it being too lack luster as we near the end of the campaign and selfishly did not want to throw away the work on his back story. May the honorable judges seal my fate.

Anonymous

To the honorable supreme crit and the bailiff that's legally obligated to be here, I present to you the case of the Helpful Hippo and the Elderly Elf: I run a spelljammer campaign where one of my players is a giff(hippo person) gunslinger. He and the party recently defeated an elvish spy who had an elven chain shirt. The giff looted the shirt and between sessions decided to give it to an elderly alcoholic elf npc who is a member of their crew. This npc’s entire mechanical purpose is to make drinks for the ship and eventually make potions for the party as well. The problem is the npc has commoner stats, and is no use to the party once a fight breaks out. There are also multiple other members of the party without magical armor, or any armor at all, who often get knocked unconscious in combat because of it. I would just have the elf give the armor to another player, but the giff loves the old guy so much and wants to keep him safe. My question is this: should I have the elf give the armor to another party member even though I know the giff would be mad that he was going unprotected or should I let the situation stay as it is even though the armor won’t see any use?

Anonymous

Dear supreme crit, I have a follow up to a case from the Boston live show regarding Oca the half orc paladin artificer with the amazing back story that could be a campaign in of itself. That my friend Mauricio submitted on my behalf. Oca showed up and started acting differently and started using different flavored spells then revealed to us that he had another soul in his body named Lars. This Lars character was actually a Demi god and his paladin side of his character. Lars then tried to convince our whole party to abandon the quest we were set upon by our DM and to go visit his orc village and help him discover why he was “soul bonded” to Oca. My character ,Kleetus a Druid, told him no since none of us had any reason to go to his village and get us back on track to the quest our DM had given us. Which was hunting a werewolf. Lars/Oca then acted sad and continued to follow our party as we hunted down this werewolf. Lars/Oca started to roll wisdom saving throws and if it was below a 15 he would have a headache and do nothing during role play or fights due to his characters head aches. We ended up getting into a fight with the werewolf and Lars/Oca refused to do any damage or help in any way saying his character had too bad of a head ache. I in character as Kleetus eventually asked our DM “can I do a lesser restoration so he can help?” Our DM having no idea what’s going on with Lars/Oca said yes this will get rid of his head aches and he can then fight. After I burn my last spell slot to help Oca in our fight he then rolled a con saving throw that no one asked him to roll and his character passed out. We had two PCs go down in this fight and I had no way to heal because I had wasted my last spell slot to help Oca who was out for the fight. Oca then woke up after the fight having no recollection of Lars and continued like he had helped us with the fight. All the PCs were mad at the player for not helping and being useless during this session. No one has been healing or giving Oca the help action ever since this incident. How do we get this player to stop making the sessions about himself?

Anonymous
>>101948456

I’m sorry you got treated that way, it’s wild your table reacted like that. I would have made the same choice as you here!!!

Anonymous

To the highest Supreme Crit Justices and the ignoble yet dashing Bailiff Jake, I present before you the case of the DM Flake, My good friend that brought me into the world of DnD five years ago wants to run a campaign. He’s been mulling it over for months and mentions maybe having an idea for a campaign. Only problems are that he says this all the time and we get invested and it fizzles out after a few sessions. He either decides he didn’t like his idea anymore after we begin or he makes excuses not to play. I think it’s because he lacks any confidence in his DMing, all his npc voices are best described as ‘Incredulous Spanish guy’ and have no range. Nobody has committed to his game because he flakes so much. Recently another player laid out a campaign pitch, created a discord for organizing it, and talk to us about ideas he had. Now my first friend is mad at us all for going with this tangible campaign and not committing to his campaign that never was pitched. I ask, did we do wrong by our first friend by jumping into the campaign of the second member? I humbly await your decision following a spirited discussion.

Lorelei The Succubus and Kyra her busty Queen

What up sluts. And the artist jake. Today I'm bringing you the case of the "creative" player. A coworker and I are trying to start up a Pathfinder 2e campaign with a few friends and co workers. One co worker in particular sounds very interested but every time we talk classes and background he comes up with terrorist spider inventors, or enslaved circus performers that want to go back for some reason. He never has a reason for the builds aside from they sound fun. He also keeps planning to try fucking with another party that exists in the same world via suicide bombing their kingdom eventually. Keep in mind we haven't started yet. So I ask you kind sluts, not Jake. We want to play with him but don't want to do an evil campaign. Any advice would help. Ps it's a good pirate themed campaign so nothing evil please. Thank you sluts

Jacob Stringer

Hi there esteemed justices and the admirably mediocre bailiff Jake. I've been trying to get a campaign going but the players I intend on having in the campaign insist I MUST have enough things written up to appease multiple 3-4 hour long play sessions before we even begin. I stated that I prefer to have where we'll begin and the early environment established and go from there. This is the sole role reason we haven't began playing, am I wrong to not delve ever deeper in preparation; or should the players cut me some slack and let me keep the story more open allowing the decisions they make to not totally derail the things I've written.

Anonymous

To the capriciously correct judges and the jarringly jinxed Jake, I submit my case of the voice test. In my first long campaign I played a Tabaxi Rogue/Wizard with a French accent. The campaign was made of people I met online playing D&D and everyone was so open to playing I thought I found my chance to try a French accent for my character. I had just finished binging “Emily in Paris”, and was ready to try a French accent myself. I think I did a pretty good with saying English words in a French accent and everyone seemed to enjoy it during session 0. One of the other players even works with some French employees and mentioned I sound just like they speak; needless to say I was feeling emboldened. During the first few games however a few of the other players would constantly ask me to clarify what I was saying because they couldn’t understand. This would slow the action down as the DM was one of the people asking for clarification. I tried different variations of the French accent speaking higher and slower, hoping I would find an version that everyone could understand but there was always at least one person who needed clarification. The game ended up being cancelled all together due to infighting but I still want to know, was it ok of me to use my compatriots as testing grounds for perfecting my French accent? I prostrate myself before the court.

Anonymous

To the esteemed, wind tussled hair with the sounds of stirring music upon view Judges. Also to the baliff who knows exactly how he should be treated in this moment. To be brief I give you the homebrewed autostunning Bulette. (Hold for potential outrage). I play a level 6 Yuan Ti - Nature cleric in a party of 6. Our dm was very generous on character generation (several rare magic items, bonus feat) so we were relatively buffed for context and have had some recent dm whomping battles - one encounter a pt one hit/one rounded a hag by stealing her broom and impaling her on a bone tree. This encounter we entered this man's mysterious hole and encounted 2 large modified/electric Bulettes. We made a plan including having a fly spell on myself and fearing one so we could party v 1 them. During which they used an action that created an electric stomp (30 ft stomp) with a DC 15 dex (i believe) check that rendered you stunned + damage. Thing is, next round the creature could automatically do it again and if you were stunned you automatically failed. This ended with one beast dead and the majority bar 2 of the party in a perpetual stun lock while myselt the cleric and the bard tried to get it down and keep the party up. Fortunately in the end the creature fled, the party healed and the vamperous party member got knocked out before attacking us in a frenzy. I feel the autostun did not sit well with the fighters of the team, nor me. Was the DM wrong to have an autostun feature or was our previous whomping, bonused up characters and eventual survival justifiable of them. PS everyone was happier next session with no deaths and we found baby bulettes which me and the ranger wish to raise much to the dm chagrine (I feel the autostun ability may not transfer to the babies)

Michael Coggins

I have a new one! This happened only week ago. Dear Justices and either despicable or enchanting bailiff Jack. I just started a new campaign with some friends, we're starting at 20 but the DM is homebrewing stuff that makes progression post 20 possible. We are essentially invited from our own world and reborn into this new dimension, to save it from a superbeing that eats dimensions for fun, and if left unchecked will make it to our home worlds eventually. It seems really interesting, I get to play a character I've long wanted to play, a Battle Smith Artificer. Robot pets, powerful self created magic tech. It's like all my favourite parts of FF6, but in DND! The first session, it goes very wrong... One of the members, we'll name Chad(not real name), is an old DM of mine, who has always been very much fixated on a character that is an old PC of his, that he inserts into his homebrew worlds as basically the most powerful entity that has ever or will ever exist. She's entirely mary sue. She is a wizard but also a scientist with lightsabers and flying spaceships (even though in the campaign I first met her, it was literally a world of crossbows and some very rare and limited artificer metallurgy) also she has cleric spells too. Well, she's who Chad is playing in this level 20 campaign. The first fight we had, bear in mind we are tasked with saving this world and it's people... Chad decides to cast meteor swarm in the center of the first city we are sent to, and kills literally 300+ innocent bystanders while he's trying to break into a bank to steal money to help get our journey started. We had learned information that the nobility, royalty and trade elites are all extremely corrupt and are abusing and stealing from the poor people and letting them starve. I have no problem with us robbing a bank and helping the poor, but... meteor swarm killing hundreds of innocents just absolutely ruined it for me. I straight told the DM and RPed in group, that I would never work with a such a callous psychopathic murderer and left. I straight retired my character from the campaign because he literally would never work with someone that unhinged. Am I in the wrong? I feel guilty because I've put extra work and stress on the DM but... if my character simply would never trust or work with someone who uses those kinds of methods, I feel it's justified enough. Also he let her play that PC, even though he has seen how Chad plays and uses and obsesses over this PC. Thanks as always, you guys are wonderful. (even the Bailiff, let's be real!)

Dippity_Dip

To the justices and the incredible, incomparable, irreparable bailiff Jake : the case of the righty-tighty Bloodhunter. A while ago I had joined as a new player in my friends’ Strahd campaign, playing as a synthesizer wielding bard; also in the party was my friend playing a very serious, very edgy Bloodhunter. Our second encounter was rescuing a fellow party member from the clutches of a cult - my solution was to whip out my synth to create a distraction, and the rest of the party got super into it. We played an actual 80s bop at the table and jammed, destroying the cult in game with the power of Wham! The Bloodhunter, however, refused to take part despite our attempts to include him and he mocked our characters before leaving the party to explore some dark woods alone. When the session ended, he was genuinely mad at us in real life for how we handled the combat because he thought it was ridiculous (and actually left early out of sheer anger). My question is: should we have been more catering to his broody needs, or should he have loosened up just a bit?

pikazooka
>>101982334

I know I'm no member of the supreme crit, but if you want another player to have the armor I would have the elf himself bring it up, pondering that surely those of the team who are out in the thick of it would have better use.

pikazooka
>>102030781

screw em, no one is forcing them to play so why should they enforce restrictions on your preparation style?

Anonymous

To the beautiful and intelligent justices and the lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly bailiff Joe: The case of the paladin and the innocent bystander. This was my first time playing D&D 5e with a group of friends who were more experienced years ago when I was in college. Our party had just returned from a mysterious island we were had fought some ghost and cultists. My Character a paladin named Sven was walking down the street and was rudely shoulder checked by a passer by, when Sven went to confront who the passer by was it was a man wearing a black robe with a large skull on it. The dm told me that the man looks at me and says “fuck your god” and spits on my characters boots. Being my first time playing 5e I thought violence was the proper respons so I drew steel against this clear cultist. I rolled a nat 1, laughs were all had around the table by myself the rest of the party and the DM, one of the players joking asks if I hit an innocent bystander and the DM proceeds to narrate how on my nat 1 I swing wide and stab a poor innocent grandpa who was on his way to see his grandchildren. He died because he had 1 hp and Sven was immediately tackled and taken to prison by the guards. So what was just a joke turned into a very real moment where I killed some poor grandpa and lost my paladin Sven to the prison system. I am asking today does this seem fair that a joke turned into me loosing my character and having to roll a new one for the campaign? Or was a nat1 against a cultist in the street justified to cause harm to innocents, Sven the paladin is at your mercy.

Mary Colligan

To the high judges and low bailiff, I present the case of the questionable murder hobos. My party and I were raised from the dead with no memory of our death in our campaign. We were traveling along a road and came upon The Inquisition, questioning a group of scared looking people that were surrounded by the rekilled undead. An investigation check showed me that they were worshipers of a death god, but likely not the ones that had caused these things to rise. My Satyr Paladin was able to convince the Inquisitors to let me question the leader of the religious group with our charismatic bard. The leader of the religious group had been saying things like, "You don't need to worry about us, we won't BE captured" and "We have our ways out of this situation." Wanting to thwart the a-hole and oftentimes violent Inquisitors I went back and tried to persuade them to let the innocent people go but rolled a Nat 1 on my persuasion check, as did my Bard companion (yes, that's TWO Nat 1s). In a look to the DM, I said, "I guess I start swinging?" I killed the leader of the Inquisition in one turn at which point the leader of the religious group (and my DM) were yelling, "Why'd you kill them?! They're just scared of the undead! They're only trying to protect the innocent!" My bard and I felt awful! We're not murder hobos! I follow the light! Was my DM being too vague when he said things like, "We have our own ways out of this situation," and "We won't BE captured," or were my bard friend and I straight up murder hobos in this situation? By the way, when the DM started freaking out that we'd murdered the "scared and innocent Inquisitor," I brought him up with Lay on Hands and sent him and his party on their way.

Anonymous
>>101948882

Just that one of the players from this case was constantly trying to assault npcs. This was presented to me as a hilarious gag. I don’t see him at parties anymore.

Anonymous

Hi! Immaculate Justices (in particular Emily Axford) and deplorable bailiff Jake. Unless we like him today. This question is about patreon, humor, and performance art so it might not be relevant to Dnd court. But it is a question I have for you. I want to start a patreon and do a piece of performance art where I “fight” Elon Musk. The plan is to suspend myself and several of my hot friends to a crane and just sort of yell stuff demanding that he save us until he shows up. There will be lasers and fire and stuff, very theatrical. Then I want to actually just befriend him because I think he might be kind of a neurodivergent weirdo who took on too much and needs to take a step back. So in a way it is kind of a dnd fight LOL. My DM (boyfriend) thinks I can’t challenge Elon Musk to a Fight on patreon because I might get censored. I think since its in a video and I am making a joke maybe I can? I don’t know? I in particular really want to hear Emily’s take on this as a woman but all of your feedback is important to me. Uh my insta is thadea_decora and my facebook is Thadea Decora

Brynnah

Dear Dice Christ anointed, it’s me, the tired dm. I shed blood- by removing a player from an online game. There were many reasons it was done, and for them I do not seek forgiveness as maintaining a safe play environment is essential. However, this player, whenever not rolling digitally, would report his rolls for anything that made his character look cool or powerful as egregiously high. Then when we played a Star Trek rpg where lower numbers were better, all the nat 1’s, 3’s and 4’s came out. I do believe your hand can influence the dice, and perhaps he could have rolled incredibly well for one or two games, but I began tracking his rolls when my friend dmed and there is no world in which the proportion of self serving rolls are that high/low depending on which is better for the game style. Now for the sun, out of a desire to avoid dealing with him playing offended, I did not bring up the dice rolls as part of the reason he was being removed. Dice christ, please forgive me for letting this player walk away thinking it wasn’t obvious to everyone who dmed a session that he was sinning in your name. I feel that as the creator of the dnd group it was my duty to bring him to the light, however dealing with this person as long as I did was it’s own form of punishment and made the sessions feel like work. Was I wrong to not point out to him that he’d lost both dms trust when not rolling digitally? I await any penance assigned - An Adverse to Player Aggression DM.