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Looking for Cases (Patreon)

Published:
2023-05-08 16:08:12
Imported:
2023-05

Content

Greetings! It is I, the disgraced justice from Boston, Jake. The Supreme Crit, which I once presided over in Massachusetts, is convening this afternoon. Please submit your (BRIEF, I beg!) cases on this post and we will bring you your righteous justice.

Love,

Jake

Comments

BassToad

Justices and also Jake, our DM made us do a Jumping Puzzle after seeing the Mario Movie. He presented us a tower with 12 floors of floating rotating blocks. Each floor had several blocks, one of which would bounce you up to the next level if you land on it. The other blocks would have hazards like fire, or bumping you down a level. All the boxes were identical, so there was no way. IN ADDITION, we had to make a DC 15 (I think?) Dexterity check to jump safely between each level. As a -1 Dex Artificer Alchemist, I would never be able to make 12 Dex checks, so I did us all a mercy and drank a flight potion, floated up to the top and turned off the puzzle so we could get on with the mission. How do we stop our DM from doing this to us again? I think he was upset at me for bypassing the challenge. Thanks Justices and also Jake

Anonymous

If it pleases the most honorable and level-headed judges, and that beautiful son-of-a-bailiff Jake, I present you the case of the ruined pants. Recently, I was DMing a game where the PCs were ambushed in the middle of the night by assassins. I had a mechanic for the fight where the assassins were using stick-on patches that if successfully applied would give the PC a random status effect (poisoned, paralyzed, etc), the effect would either last for 10 minutes, until the PC passed a check to remove the patch, or if an ally removed the patch for them. The bard of the party after being tagged by a blindness and frightened patch asked if she could take off her clothes to remove the patches. I not wanting the fight mechanic to be so easily bypassed, told them I thought a PC being naked was weird, and said no they couldn’t do that. There was some playful arguing but then we quickly moved on with the rest of the fight. The issue comes up later, when the same bard had been captured by the assassins, who were going to hold her hostage to get they rest of the party to comply. The bard devised a plan to get out, in which she asked if she could fall down and play dead, with the added caveat that to sell it she would shit her pants. I told her if she rolled a CON check and performance check she could do it. After using 2 LUCK POINTS on the CON check to shit herself, and making a successful performance check, the bard was able to fool the assassins into thinking she was dead and leaving her alone. When she was finally able to get out of her bindings she brought up taking off her shit-stained pants, which I jokingly agreed with. The players then dogpiled on me about not allowing her to take her clothes off before, but allowing it now. I think the situations are different, but also see where they are coming from here. Judges was I wrong for not for not letting the bard remove her clothes pre-shitting, but saying okay after the browning event, or are my players right in coming after me for an inconsistent ruling? I humbly await your judgement. P.S. The pants-shitting bard in question is also my fiancé if that matters.

Terran Benedict

Illustrious judges and the lustful bailiff whose name will not be mentioned until the judges deem it, I bring to you both a case and a confessional. I was DMing a campaign and early on our Paladin’s brother (and favorite NPC) Benji was killed by the BBIG in an encounter that was almost a total party kill. After that our Paladin took the path of vengeance and everyone became really invested. In the final battle with the BBIG, our fighter expended all of his attacks and actually landed the killing blow. But everyone had been talking for months about our Paladin getting the kill, so I lied and said the BBIG was barely still standing, giving our Paladin a chance at dealing the vengeance she so wanted. Her next roll was a Nat 20 and the table erupted with cheers. She smited with everything she had and our campaign was complete. Was I wrong for lying and saying the BBIG was still standing? Will I ever be able to bask in the light of dice Christ again? I lay myself at the mercy of this court.

Anonymous

Greetings thy gods of judgement, my group was playing Deadlands. A weird Wild Wild West game with monsters, but not the Deadlands everyone else plays. After a successful mission to save a small town from bandits my character takes a rest from being shot at. He sits at the poker table in the local tavern, which played blackjack for some reason and after losing a small sum he walks away. While he walks away someone at the table is caught out at cheating, angry my character flips the table like one is to do in attempt to steal later. One of the gamblers pulls a gun and threatens to shoot everyone in the bar. My friend with a shotgun steps in and tells them to take it outside, they insist my character joins them outside. With the shotgun trained on them we walk outside when the angry gambler starts threatening that he’s going to kill everyone here including the second npc that was at the table. The angry gambler pulls his gun up to shoot but since the player had the shotgun trained on him he was allowed to shoot first instead of rolling to draw. After the man fell the sheriff of course rocks up on horseback only seeing an execution. The second gambler that had a gun waved in his face multiple times by the angry one falls to his knees, shouts that we killed his best friend and then draws his pistol before that was shot out of his hand by another party member. The street described by the Dm was busy but everyone only saw a man being killed and not the outburst beforehand apparently, the Dm swears that we killed an unarmed man with no mention that he hoisted his weapon. As our characters are walked to jail to be judged I ask thy. Were our actions of self defence or do we deserve to be hanged out to dry like the dirty dogs we are? (Right after we secured the only supply route for the train.)

Anonymous

Greetings perfectly acceptable judges and the really cool Bailiff Jake, I bring you the case of Me Abandoning My Party Members and Leaving Them to Die. I was visiting a friend for a weekend, and they asked me to join a session of their campaign just as a one off. Theirs was a homebrew setting with Dark Souls like rules where if you die you come back just without your unspent XP. I didn't have a ton of time to prepare, so I just made a quick Bard to have fun with, and just decided they would be mysteriously androgynous because that's fun and hot. Big mistake. Within five minutes of starting to play my character was sexually harassed because they wanted to know if I was a boy or a girl. After getting them to back off, their next idea was to have me drink a mysterious potion from their last campaign. I didn't want to do it, but my friend, (the DM) made me roll a charisma save, which I failed. It ended up being something that turned me to stone and killed me immediately. I came back, but was not feeling any camaraderie to my new party. Anyways, after finally getting on with the adventure, we ended up in a pretty unwinnable fight, but the other members insisted we could win. I, being able to see the writing on the wall, quickly drank a polymorph potion I had found earlier. I turned myself into a bird, and flew back to the respawn area. Everyone else quickly died, and was pretty pissed that I left since they had lost a lot of accumulated experience. I felt that me personally and my character owed no allegiance to those rapscallions, and I don't feel bad for abandoning them. Judges was I right to leave my party to die?

Percy Rios

Greetings honorable judges and esteemed Baliff Jake The DnD group I was part of in 2020 broke up in 2021 but continued being friends. Or so I thought. On saturday, I was hanging out at my friend's place. As we were talking, they mentioned plans for a new campaign. I sat on the couch and stayed quiet. Good for them! It hurt that I wasn't invited, but I didn't mind. That is, until, they said they're going to plan around the normal "home campaign." With all the members of the original group. They've been playing together this whole time. I went to the bathroom and cried, washed my face, and calmed down. I told them I was tired and went home. Dear judges, am I right to be upset? I haven't said anything to them about it, but it really hurt. It was one thing when they made 3 grpup chats without me, it was another when I found out they had bowling once a week for a year and never invited me. I've let all that slide and havent commented besides asking to join bowling once (which they said they didn't have room for more) since friends aren't required to spend everyday together. Am I being dramatic? I'm autistic and bad at social cues. Maybe it just hurt me extra because DnD is my special interest and they're the ones that introduced me to NADDPOD in the first place. I dunno, I thought I'd ask. Love you guys! I wear the Pawpaw lawyer shirt all the time and it's basically just a plain blue shirt at this point with how worn out it is.

Anonymous

To your Honors and the On-par, I present the case of Possess-tree-ion. Every year, I run a holiday-themed one shot for my party, the Fantastic Band of Idiots. One of the challenges they faced during this year's game was that their antagonist had tapped into the spirit of holiday joy and was using it to power his magic sleigh, by way of Will Ferrell's (Murph knows him from Anchorman) movie, Elf. To stop the sleigh, the party had to bah-humbug it up. I'm not going to get into how the teen sorcerer melted an entire skating rink and then convinced the Nazgul Park Rangers that he was the police commissioner, or the actions from the white elephant gift exchange that had me questioning the morality of both the characters and players. Instead, this case focuses on Marcellina, our Victorian ghost-girl, played by my beautiful girlfriend, a relatively inexperienced player. Marcellina's festivity to ruin was the decorating of a giant community tree, minutes before they powered all the lights on it. My girlfriend asked if she could possess the tree and start throwing the balls and wreaths at the merry-makers. I told her no, since her ghost's possession ability can only target creatures. She asked me what defines a creature in DnD, and I told her that pretty much anything that can take actions is a creature, which a tree cannot, so is not. She disagreed, and started listing all the things that trees can do, like move, grow, shake, before blurting "You don't think trees fuck?!" I powered through, put my foot down and said that trees don't have a turn in initiative, and that was that - until the final encounter. You see, when I had planned this one shot, I didn't realize the question of whether trees have a turn in initiative (or could fuck) were going to be such hot topics. So hours later, when the Christmas-treants joined the present-mimics and beholidayer in the final fight, my girlfriend leaped up, pointed at me, and yelled "I THOUGHT TREES DON'T GET A TURN IN INITIATIVE!" Things got heated as the rest party (that pack of bloodthirsty piranhas) egged her on as I tried to explain that they are not actually trees, but tree-like peoples. She spent the rest of the fight researching treants and finding evidence saying that they were basically trees, as well as pointing out that there are other plant monsters in DnD, and that because she could possess them, I should have let her possess the other, non-animate tree. She held this grudge for long after the fact, to the point of telling me three months later, completely unprompted when I came in from work, "I'm going to be a big, beautiful tree, filled with evil power, and you're going to have to deal with it." Your honors, was I wrong to say a tree isn't a creature? Was I right to deny harbor to her arbor fantasy? Or should I have let that tree fuck? I await your judgement, unless it's against me, in which case I'm not home right now.

Anonymous

To the 'makes my girlfriend want to listen to podcasts' justices, and the 'waIt, nevermind' bailiff. I present the case of 'Engulf V Fear'. I DM a 5th edition game for some friends at work and my little brother, a rogue of course. They were in combat with some water elementals on a boat that used their 'Whelm' ability to restrict my little brother. Because of the way that it's written, I flavored the ability as surrounding my little bro completely, as in 'in the elementals space'. Similar to a gelatinous cube. The problem came when the bard cast 'fear', forcing the elemental to run. I ruled that because the player was just floating in a magic pool-creature, the monster would instinctively run without 'dropping' the player. Though after some arguments from the players I gave the player a free saving throw to escape while the enemy was feared (which he failed). Is this an active restraint like a normal grapple and they should have been dropped, or was I right to give my players a hard time to scare the crap out of them. I will say that as they approached the side of the ship, the water elemental may have become a little-bit-of-pee elemental. I await your judgement(s)! (ps, also don't feel bad if you say my name wrong.)

Anonymous

To the ever-present justices and the occasionally nearby bailiff Jiggles, I present to you the solo space solution. Ina space 5e game in a virtual tabletop, we were assisting in the liberation of a planet from a sect of robots trying to convert the whole planet into other robots Dr. Nefarious style. We all at one point had agreed to help one country who was opposed to this but outgunned with our power to rise up and defeat. Before any revolution oculd begin, One of the party members, a space neutral evil elf (which we didn't know their alignment at the time, they were a dick but didn't do anything truly rude to anyone) who was in fact a hidden noble decided to do a series of sending spells in private messages with the DM, asking their family to come and GLASS THE PLANET to eradicate all robots and robot supporters, without our knowledge, be that in game or out of game. After a few sessions and the rest of us non the wiser, the climax of us storming the citadel happened and out one of the windows an elf armada comes in and starts bombarding the planet and we are all dumbstruck and then the elf revels their plan. We are all dumbstruck and just continue on thinking we cant let the robots escape wile this is going on. The DM did however make a show of it and had the robots also call reinforcements and destroyed the whole elf armada which it was revealed here that the robots who had taken over were actually much more powerful and the BBEG. We all did survive after the whole situation, but the whole planet was either dead or robots. My issue however I am quite mad at this and don't know who to take it out on, would it be the DM even though he did bring consequences to the elf? Just the elf for doing this? Help me direct this anger in some sort of direction oh please wise lords.

Anonymous

I have a confession for Dice Christ, i hope to be absolved a while ago my family and i started a campaign. I know quite a bit more about DnD from listening to this show and others (shoutout gilear) then they do but I was not the DM. while playing we set fire to a town in a bid to let the rogue steal an important piece of information, and it went poorly. the guards were called and we had to run away. I casted command to distract the guards who were coming for us. I knew the spell only lasted for 1 round, but when the DM, my dad, asked I said that it lasted for a minute. this helped my siblings characters escape, and we stole the item we needed, but we only did it because the guards were distracted by one of their officers screaming for a solid minute. I ask for forgiveness from the church and the court.

Anonymous
>>108119383

Obviously I’m not the judges but as an autistic person, please please please get new friends

Anonymous

To the Honorable, Fearless, and Most Beautiful Justices and the guy I share a name with who is pretty cool I guess. I write to you to settle a dispute I am having with my own self. I fear I have give my party too much freedom but also love and am super anxious about how to proceed. My party was in the middle of a fight in a colosseum when it all stopped and they noticed one of the minor villains, a legendary Githyanki pirate captain named the Cosmic Specter, took control of the governors box office with a very powerful homebrewed weapon and several of his pirates spread around the stands effectively taking the place under control. I rolled and the city guards were starting to get through to rescue the Governor and so they Teleported away to their ship above the arena before receiving their ransom. In a series of lucky and unlucky rolls, the spelljammer he uses was damaged by a fireball spell and was slowly being repaired as the party rushed up to try and reach the ropes hanging from the ship. They successfully grabbed the ropes aand started to climb. Two failed and fell. One that fell saved to grab on to the side of the colosseum and the other (a Barbarian) failed, used rage, and was not immediately killed upon impact. She failed 2 death saves in a row before an unknown person helped stabilize her. I ended it here to try and figure out what I am going to do. I am a DM virgin and this is my first game running and only second game of DND I've ever been a part of. So here I am with my party split three ways and at a lose for what to do. Should I have been more rigid and said the ship got out of range to jump but they could attack at range before it was gone or is this just how Dice Christ fated this to come to. I await your verdict and if you wish to grace me with some advice on where to go from here I will gladly and humbly accept. Love you all and Fuck Mothership

Anonymous

To the beautiful Judges, and the awesome bailiff Cameron. I am playing a collage of swords bard in a Spelljammer Campaign. My team and I were in a battle arena fighting Braxat, a huge rhino monster. During the battle I used hypnotic pattern to try to incapacitated the beast. My DM rolled the saving throw, and declared that he failed the save. So, thinking that the monster was incapacitated, the barbarian went out of his rage to prepare a coordinated attack with the rest of the teams. However when it came to the big baddies turn he moved and attacked the unraged barbarian. I reminded my DM the creature was under hypnotic pattern. He then said that the creature was immune to being charmed, so the hypnotic pattern I had cast did nothing. I argued that I would have seen that the spell didn't work, but he said the spell does not say that it tells you when the spell isn't effective. We ended up barely surviving the battle, and moving on to the next match. So, I ask the court was I right to be upset having no clue if the spell had an effect on a creature right in front of me, or would the spell or monster give no indication if it worked. I humbly await to hear your wisdom.

Anonymous

May it please the justices and make the bailiff compelled to bring this case before them, I bring before you the case of the cliff edge and the ogre. I'm currently playing a dragonborn barbarian in an Acq. Inc. module. Our lvl 2 party was battling an ogre at the edge of a cliff and I decided it would be smarter to do shove attacks and force the ogre to fall to it's death. I pushed it to 5 feet from the edge. Our bard then used thunderwave to push the ogre 15 feet expecting it to make it fall off the side of the cliff, but our DM had the ogre roll a dex save to cling to the side. It ended up being so intimidated by us that it gave us info on who had hired it to wreck our new HQ in Phandalin and promising to leave the area and stop killing local livestock, but our bard was still a little salty arguing the extra distance pushed beyond the edge should have made a dex save not possible. My question, was our DM correct to have them save and have the ogre survive and give us information or should our bard have been allowed to make the ogre go splat? I humbly await your ruling? -Abazigal, the dragonborn barbarian

Anonymous

To the justices blah blah blah I present the case of the D&D trivia host with a badly phrased question. At my partner's work the do trivia each week. A few weeks ago the theme was D&D. While she is not a die hard like me, she has played in a few campaigns and knows enough that she got 7/10 for her team. I was very proud until she recited some questions that she got wrong at which point I became incensed. The question which still grinds my gears was phrased as such: "Which class does not get their abilities from a higher power? A) cleric, b) paladin, C) warlock, d) druid." The "correct" answer given was druid, but I contend that paladin is more correct as a Paladin's power comes from their Oath, not the God they are aligned with. I also think that it could be a warlock, because a devil is not a higher power, it is by definition a lower power. Furthermore, if you are as loose with terminology to allow warlock to be included, then surely the primordial powers that grant a druid their abilities through their connection with nature would be included in this definition, thus making the question have no correct answer. Your honours, am I right in being appalled by this question and answer, or should I let it go?

Anonymous

To the venerable judges and besmirched judge Jorsh, I present the case of the Tipsy DM and the Bejeweled Drake, may it please the court: Recently, my party was raiding a duergar fortress in Icewind Dale, and our DM was having a chill Sunday and imbibed several beers during the session. Apparently, the Austin craft beers had a higher ABV than he was used to. By the time we broke into the king’s room and found his treasures, our DM was pretty drunk. Among the loot, there was a nonmagical smoking jacket encrusted with gems. Though it did not fit any of the party members, the DM allowed that my ranger’s drake companion could wear it and that it would even give a plus one to AC for all the gemstones. By the next session, the DM no longer recalled this interaction and was surprised by my decked out drake and her increased AC, but he ultimately allowed his impaired decision to hold despite the dwarvish smoking jacket not actually being a great fit for a quadrupedal drake. So I ask, should I have returned my drake to it’s normal stats, or was the drunken decision okay to uphold? If it matters, my ranger and thus his drake, did die that same session at the hands of the king.

Anonymous

To the highest revered, well beloved court, and GT Cruiser enthusiast, and only person that we can prove is on the podcast, Jake. I come to you with the case of the New Player and the Unmet Expectations. My girlfriend went to play her first game, DMed by my friend. Since this was my GF’s first time, I helped her create her character. She wanted to play an angelic character who had to slay unworthy creatures for the person granting her power. For this, I made her a protector Aasimar eldritch night. She was enraptured by the idea of having wings. And I explained to her that she wouldn’t get them until later. Flash forward to the session, we are arriving at the first town, the dm describes rented rooms at the inn that were upstairs. She says, “I fly up the stairs to go into the room…” there is a pause. She gets asked how she has access to flight so quickly, and she said, “Well my character has wings right?” After much discussion, about ways we can reflavor an Aarokocra (“I don’t wanna be a person with a beak!”), her being allowed to levitate for flavor (but not allowed during combat), she finally decided that the game was “Stupid” and that “we are all just playing pretend, so why can’t I fly if I want to?” So I ask you, judges, did I go into this with her expectations too high? She refuses to play this game any more because of this experience, and I’m very much afraid that it’s my fault she didn’t have a good time.

Anonymous

To those on high where they are by right, and thou lowly, cast into the depths, I come before the crit with a simple but significant tale. Years ago, when my friend group and I were still a bit new to DND, our party was in the underdark and came to a lava river. I, a nice little Gnome Wizard named Sheeve (like the emperor) thought I had solved the lava puzzle by casting fly on our Goliath barbarian. The barbarian then proceeded to pick up each party member and simply fly us across the river. Our DM, a very good man and friend, however began making the barbarian roll athletics checks to carry each member. I put forth that the spell was doing most of the work and all the barbarian had to do was literally hold us for a minute or two, something a Goliath with the powerful build trait shouldn't have any trouble doing. Our DM disagreed, our barbarian eventually failed a check while carrying an npc our party and DM enjoyed, and he died outright. I querry the crit, should our super strong powerful build barbarian have needed to roll check to just carry people? Even small sized gnomes? I prostrate myself before the crit and beg you deliver justice. - Jamison

Anonymous

May it entertain the justices and the bailiff to this court of hilarity, fair and just rulings, and good times, I present the case of the bitter fighter and the rogue goblin. I am a novice DM, I’ve been playing 5e with my friends for about two years. I have so many friends who want to play I’ve split them up into multiple groups (don’t worry, I may be new but I’m pretty sure I was born to DM). In one of these groups I have an self proclaimed dumbass fighter, a deranged wizard necromancer utilizing a shitty homebrewed subclass of my own invention, a cleric who prays to the “Dhmmm” for guidance and strength and looks an awful lot like a hololive actress, and of course, the rogue goblin, whose first actions upon meeting the party for the first time were to pickpocket everyone, get caught while doing so, and deny any involvement in any kind of theft. Keep this in mind, it will be important later. The party found themselves on a quest on behalf of a dryad of the forest, who sent them to a mermaid lagoon to retrieve her staff that was stolen by mischievous mermaids. The party had no issue getting out to the mermaid hideout with their foldable boat, as it was in the middle of the lagoon. But sailing there proved to be a bit of a hazard, especially as a siren song caused multiple party members to get stunned, leaving them vulnerable to getting their belongings stolen by the mermaids using long whips of algae. One of these items stolen was an immovable rod, which the party vowed to get back at all costs. Later, inside the hideout, the party couldn’t go below the waters as it was too dark. They told the goblin to do it, who would not do it without a significantly larger cut of the looted gold as payment for getting it back. The party would argue about this, and come under attack from the mermaids again and again, until they agreed they’d discuss it later after they got their belongings back. They gave a portable hole to the goblin, he held onto the ship’s anchor and dropped all the way down to the bottom, getting back the goodies without much incident. This is when it happened: The debacle between party members started out with the fighter immediately telling the goblin to give the gold to the cleric who was onboard at the time. The fighter refused to go anywhere until the loot was in the cleric’s hands. The goblin inquired why and the fighter cited a lack of trust in the goblin for stealing the party’s gold upon first meeting them, they were going nowhere until the goblin gave up the portable hole which held all their findings, which he refused to do so. The cleric even stated that she didn’t mind letting him hold the gold, despite being a fresh arrival herself (they only just met her before this encounter at the lagoon.) This bickering continued on long enough for the mermaids to come back with a nat 20 on initiative check, stealing the portable hole that held all their loot and the party’s stolen loot, and disappeared back into the fathoms below. What do the judges make of this? Should the goblin have given the gold as demanded by the fighter or should the fighter have sailed back to sort it out later?

Anonymous
>>108133899

Follow up in case of interest: The party knew they had to get their belongings back, especially after I roflmao'ed saying "All you fools did was go down there, wrap up all their and your goodies into a nice and neat little package, and now you've got even less than what you started with!" So the cleric decided what to do next, she (blindly) fired a guiding bolt down at the mermaids to try and get them to drop the neatly folded cloth that was the portable hole holding all of their crap. Unfortunately she rolled a natural 20, and completely obliterated one of the mermaids, bloodying the waters and sending the mermaids swimming frightened into immaculate hiding places. Fearing for their lives as they couldn't see the reactions of the mermaids, the party got to shore as fast as they possibly could and found the wizard laying on the beach. When the cleric obliterated the poor mermaid, the damage was reflected back to the cursed wizard who was on the shore at the time, and he dropped dead instantly. They resuscitated him, then got the hell out of dodge, hoping that the dryad nymph creature thingy who gave them the quest in the first place wouldn't rip and tear their bones and blood. If yall thought this story was funny for whatever reason I think I'll post another one following the same group and their misadventures. Thanks court!

Anonymous

Greetings esteemed Justices and their friend Jack. I DM a maritime swashbuckling pirate campaign, and early in the campaign, my party had been shipwrecked on an island that was surrounded by an unmoving magical storm. They had come to the island to find a dangerous cursed sword they were told to retrieve by a mind flayer pirate captain. The party found the sword and set up a meeting with the pirate captain to make a deal. Nervous that the pirate might try to take the sword by force, the party decided to leave the sword with their Druid who would hide a little way away and wait for the signal to bring the sword while the rest of the party negotiated. The captain agreed to get the party off the island and give them a brand-new ship in exchange for the Sword. Finding the deal to be fair, the party gave the signal, to which the Druid replied, “I’m not there”. The Druid then narrated how as soon as the party left for the negotiations, he sprinted to the shoreline, wildshaped into an octopus, and attempted to escape the storm all on his own. Confused, I asked him why he was doing this. He explained that his character believed that the sword was powerful enough to slay the evil sea monster that had killed his family in his back story, and he was ready to abandon the party to escape the island with the sword. I then explained that trying to travel through the magical storm as an octopus would require him to beat a nearly impossible skill challenge and it would almost certainly end in his death. He said he understood, and he was going to try anyway. Predictably, the skill challenge ended with the sword-wielding octopus being smashed against the rocks as he attempted to abandon his crew. Panicking, I then began to describe to the rest of the party how they noticed their unconscious druid floating just offshore. They dove in after him and brought him back to consciousness. When the party questioned him about what happened, he said that he had gone out into the water to flank the pirate captain from behind when he was pulled out to sea by the storm. Our Cleric then asked to roll an insight check to see if he was lying. The Druid then accused the Cleric of meta-gaming, as the party would have no reason not to believe him and the Cleric was only asking for the role because he had known what really happened outside of the game. This was the Clerics third ever session of D&D and he immediately backed down and said that he didn’t have to make the roll. I disagreed and made the Druid roll a deception check against the Clerics insight. Begrudgingly, the Druid rolled the dice and got a nat 1. At this point, the Druid grew despondent and did not contribute for the rest of the session. I beseech the court; was I wrong for making the Druid roll after the Cleric said he didn’t have to? Did I go too far and kill the vibe? Or was I in the right to stick up for my friend who was new to D&D? I throw myself on the mercy of the court.

Anonymous

May it displease the justices and bring light to the bailiff, I bring forth the case of the “Under Powered BBG”

Anonymous
>>108141592

I recently started my first campaign, and this case covers the start. My players get caught up in an old keep after getting chased there by a goblin army. After several encounters of unholy beings the stumbled on a demon summoning ritual. After the Goliath barbarian drank the blood used for summoning the boss and becoming the bbg for a bit they absolutely demolished my boss. They where super happy at killing my boss in like 8 turns. So instead of giving them the happiness they got I (on the spot) made a second phase that almost resulted in a tpk. Was what I did underserving of dice Christ’s blessings? Please help me cause I think dice Christ is mad…..

Anonymous

Hello esteemed justices and lowly bailiff, I bring forth a case that I will call the Benevolent DM vs The Malevolent DM. I am DMing a campaign with a short timeline that will end in two sessions. My friend who has also dm-ed and is a player in this campaign, thinks I go too easy on the players, because in about 10 sessions we've only had a few times when someone went below 0 hp. My arguments are: 1. I don't want the PCs to die with 2 sessions left, it would suck for them to make a new character and 2. They have one healer who is a 5th level paladin who only has lay on hands no other healing spells. He thinks that if the PCs don't drop to zero the stakes aren't high enough and I need to make combat harder. I will add that I have only had one other player say that a fight was too easy but that was the second session and I agreed and made every fight after much harder. Should I make the next two sessions much more difficult, or should I keep doing what I'm doing which is make the combat interesting but not particularly deadly?

Anonymous

Greetings juicy justices and bottom of the barrel bailiff, I bring to you the case of the crime-encouraging DM. It was one of our first sessions playing dnd a few years ago going through the mines of Phandelver adventure. It was going pretty well and people were having a good time. When the characters were having a long rest, the dm suddenly turned to the rogue and word for word said "so do you want to, like ,steal something from the other players? You're a rogue afterall". Then the rogue, who was quite a shy guy, just said "yeah I'll take *my characters* gold". When I protested, the dm just told me to "deal with it". My character asked to duel him for it, and he accepted. When I was going to strike a killling blow, the dm described a literal God coming down to save the rogue. By then, I had lost my temper and started shouting at him out of character. So I ask justices, was I right to be annoyed, or should I have respected the dms wishes?

Rhea

To your graciousness, the former judge of Boston and current judge of our hearts, John And the others. I come to you with a plea, recently I have been re-listening to campaign one and whenever I envision the unfolding story I can only ever see Paw-Paw as Momo the flying monkey from Avatar, I know this is sacrilege but my mind won’t seem to change its perception, how can I reckon with my mind and rejuvenate my recollection of Behumia? Thank you for your time.

Mynne Maxine

May it please the buff and beautiful baliff Josh and his sexy sidekicks, I present to you the case of the player hating DM. I'm in a campaign where my backstory is I'm a bounty hunter who works for the mob and I teamed up with the rest of the players in hopes of coming across my main bounty. I take other bounties here and there when we arrive at new cities. We entered a new city and my character was approached by some local thugs who wanted me to bring my group's cleric in alive, which I agreed to. At the start of the most recent session we roleplayed me subduing the cleric and taking him to the drop off location. After getting paid I then asked my cleric if he would like to hire me to take care of his captors for him for 1 gold. My DM lost his shit and started yelling at me, informing me I can't go back on a bounty, to which I reminded him I'm only loyal to the mob and I didn't go back on a bounty, I finished it and started another separate one. After some yelling back and forth the DM decided to let me play my character, and he drily narrated the rest of the session. My question is: does the DM have the right to tell me what my character would do in a situation, and did I ruin the session by not informing my DM ahead of time that I was going to help the cleric? Sincerely Ron Burgundy

Tim R

To the demeaning crit justices, and the under appreciated baliff, i bring to you the case of the under appreciated baliff! Your honors can’t treat our sweet Jake like this. He’s a delicate flower, he can’t protect himself from such harsh words. I beg of you, he’s just a lowly Baliff, release him from such humiliation!

Anonymous

May it please Jake, Jake, Jake and the guest from 8bit book club. I bring you the case of untrusting barbarian. I dm a party of two players a wizard and a barbarian. After the party pulled the deck of many thing the wizard pulled the balance card and we came to the conclusion that the wizard will reroll a new character as his wizard will become a new villain in the campaign. Now rolling a bard the party sets up for war. When war time comes to the barbarian abandons the new bard in the middle of the battlefield saying and trying to justify by saying " oh well my character would just be suspicious of him because of the incident from the deck of many things ruining the fun for my wizard/bard and quitting the campaign. Was I wrong for letting the barbarian get away with that was there anything I could of done to prevent that I am at your mercy

yeow

Massachusetts is always welcome for you to preside, Bailiff Jake

thatoneguy

To the Imperial Justices who wield the mandate of heaven and the treacherous eunuch Jake. I present to you the case of the burning gear. My first ever TTRPG campaign was set in Pathfinder using a pre-made pirate module. The basic premise was that the players and a bunch of other customers at a pub would be drugged and shanghaied onto a pirate ship where would would be force to work for an evil captain and crew until we were strong enough to take over ourselves. Most of our starting equipment was stolen from us and stored in a ship store, where essentially we'd have to buy back our own property. I and a couple other characters had managed to buy/steal back some of our gear after a couple of days, but none of us were fully equipped. Enter, our parties cleric/warlock (I forget which) who we shall call Seeker. Seeker got the bright idea to send his familiar into the store in the middle of the night to set fire to some barrels of rum we were forced to drink. His plan worked and his little fire spread to the the store and the gunpowder stored below deck, setting our ship ablaze. The crew was forced to work all night putting out the flames, we were all flogged to shit when the culprit wasn't discovered, and most importantly, I lost my fucking armor in the blaze. Seeker's defense for destroying our shit? Well because he was an evil cleric of a Pirate God "It's what my character would do!" Was my friend right in sticking true to his character or does he owe me a new suit of armor? I await your divine justice.

Aether

To my beloved Justices and to Jake, I bring you the case of the coworker who immediately 'went there'. I'm running a club at my workplace for brand new players, lots of coworkers who fancied trying their hand at D and D. Sounds fun, right? Well, it is; for the most part. In our very first actual play session, one of our new players decided that on their very first turn, they'd make a weirdly heated racist remark about goblins. Fictional creatures, yes, but right out of the gate, it was a bigotry remark. As this is someone I work with, I don't know how to handle it, as I don't want it to spoil the other new players' experience with D and D, and I really don't think that goblin racism falls under our HR policy, so they're out of the picture. I beseech thee, fair Justices (and fine Jake), how do I handle this anti-PC PC?

Anonymous

May it please the sweeties and also Jake, I humbly come to you with an issue that I'm sure many tables know all too well. I am in a group that now wants to play every week, which is unsustainable for my work schedule. At first this wasn't an issue and we would play every other week. The issue is, the DM is roommates with one of the PC's, who pushes him to schedule weekly. They will play even if two of four PC's are missing. This is resulting me to feel a little left out, and not as engaged in the campaign. I understand needing to play without me due to scheduling conflicts, but am I wrong to feel a little left out at this point?

Anonymous

High bishops of Dice Christ, I come with a confession. It was my first full campaign after a handful of one shot sessions, and I was playing a cleric (life domain). I was the designated healer, and chose lots of different healing spells to fit a variety of situations. One of these was Prayer of Healing, which at the time I thought was broken. 2d8+8 HP to up to six creatures? Why would I ever need Healing Word or Cure Wounds again?

Anonymous
>>108181677

Unfortunately, it was not until the final session, when I was looking at my character sheet to retire it, that I saw a vital error: casting time. While other healing spells cost one action or a bonus action, Prayer of Healing needed 10 minutes to cast. I cast it in combat as an action multiple times, and my DM never said anything, but I still feel the guilt to this day. If it helps my penance, I have since started a campaign in a home brew setting of permanent night, and the former DM, now a PC, went Gloomstalker Rogue and has insane advantages for the setting. Please wash me from my sin!

Anonymous

May it please the honorable crit justices and some guy who’s name escapes me at this moment to hear the tale of the Gunslinger’s Goof. I run a home brew 5e campaign set in a nautical world and this story comes from a few years ago but it still haunts me to this day. The party were all level 3, a fighter, a barbarian, a rogue, and a wizard and this was our second session of the campaign. After arriving back in port they were looking to get up to some antics before turning it in for the night and the fighter suggested that he know a place to have some fun. For context in this characters backstory he had a checkered criminal past and had been kicked out of a gang under threat of death (his writing, not mine) The fighter suggested that they head to a bar he knew about that was owned by that gang (neglecting to tell his fellow party members about that fact) and after stealing some clothes off a homeless person as a disguise headed over there. They all had a bit of fun but after a short amount of time with what I thought was a flimsy disguise I had one of the members of the gang recognize him and begin to make threats about revealing him to their old boss before breaking a bottle over the counter in an attempt to initiate a bar fighter, the fighter rolls high initiative and on his first turn proceeds to pull out his gun, dump all of his grit points into one attack, and blow the lowly bandits head of his shoulders… this quickly spiraled from a fun bar brawl into an all out battle for their lives that culminated in the fighter being knocked unconscious and the entire party being strong armed into a several session long mini arc to rescue him. After of which the fighter told me privately that due to the fact that the entire party was quite angry at him for this in character he would like to switch characters to a new character and start fresh. I’ve always felt bad about making him not have fun playing the character and ask humbly of you, Should I have punished this player for getting a little bit too excited about his backstory right of the bat, or should I just have let his transgressions against the gang slide and went on with my original plan for the story, maybe to cause him to continue playing the character he was so excited to play.

Anonymous

Hello 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.

Anonymous

Hello and Calloo Callay to the venerable judges Axford, Murphy, and Tanner—as well as [REDACTED]! I present to you a case that I hope both pleases you all, as well as sparks some debate to the topic of: which is more important, Rules as Written or Rule of Cool? I DMed for a campaign with 3 players, who were all level 6 at the time—a Halfling Barbarian named Bizkit (spelled like Limp Bizkit on purpose), a Tiefling Warlock named Amino, and a Half-Elf Rogue named Ozzy, as well as my DMPC, a dumb but well intentioned meathead (very much like Luna from C1) who is a Dragonborn Fighter. My party was in a combat scenario against a group of Half-Dragon Marauders (I’m using Half-Dragon stats from the Monster Manual, so these guys are beefy). Long story short, Bizkit the Barbarian was brought down by the Marauders, who—after being provoked by her very constant but admittedly funny shit-talking—were 100% willing to kill her if the party didn’t surrender their valuables. They were in dire straits as well and no one was backing down. Amino, on his turn decided that he wanted to use his movement to go into the fray between two of the marauders, put his hand on Bizkit (who is at 2 failed death saves currently) and cast Misty Step, taking her out of the fray. I looked up the spell’s wording, and ruled that because it had both a Range and Target of Self, that it could not be used this way. Amino (who is being played by my longtime best friend) slyly looks at me and asks, “I mean…but could I do something like that anyway because rule of cool?” It was all in good fun, but I told him no and said that I was firm on my ruling. They ended up saving Bizkit anyway through healing potion spam and taking a few hits themselves, but Amino and I go back and forth about this every now and again. Honorable Judges, I ask: has my adherence to the rules brought upon us a tyrannical, anti-fun reign that must be ended and brought to justice? Or shall Amino suffer the wrath of the court for his flippant disregard for the laws we follow as D&D players? I await your just decision.

Rose Smith

Dear Honorable Judges and lowley to infinity bailiff, I present to you the case of The Do-Over Player. I was new to playing D&D and joined a group of 4 roommates in starting a new campaign. I was really excited and decided to play a rouge to offer utility to the group. As part of my backstory I wanted my character to by trying to join a secret organization i helped designed. My issue is this. My player character throughout the first few sessions was trying to join this order and once I did join the organization. One of the other PCs decided to roll insight to see if I was lying. I rolled deception and beat his roll. The issue being after he failed he said, "Oh I roll again to see if she's lying." We ended up doing this five times until eventually I rolled low enough. I begged my DM but he sided with the other player (his roommate). This ended with the entire party joining my secret organization and my character losing their cool plot line. Honorable Judges: I throw my case at your feet. (P.S. I ended up getting new friends to play with)

Anonymous

Dear esteemed adjudicators of the court and the bog-standard bailiff that looks like he might work out. I have the quarrel of the chaotically aligned party and non-adherence to rules. I'm playing a Harengon monk-druid in a witch beyond the witch light campaign with 4 other players. Being a monk druid, my character is relatively good and lawful, he tries to help others, honour his god and balance nature. We have another Harengon cleric, that is True Good denying combat and violence in pursuit of peace. Our problem is two chaotic players. Where one is a neutral fairy druid; that like kirby, wildshapes based on characters it has eaten. Including trying to eat NPCs and PCs (me) as well as an Evil Elf Wild Magic Sorcerer that *spoilers* immolated a camp of Harengons in the Act 2, keeps demanding a war galleon for unknown reasons and keeps railroading the party into hairy situations where the outcome is wholly uncertain and has lead to me going to zero hp twice. The dynamics of this party is hilarious and broken, I am stumped as to how to navigate a game where the characters are completely misaligned and have resorted to bapping the evil PCs with my quarterstaff when they try to eat or threaten innocent NPCs. I await your judgement and advice.

Anonymous
>>108243857

Also forgot to say, our DM does not appear to understand initiative, action costs or HP. As he often allows NPCs to auto-die on a crit as well as letting the chaotically evil player cast Aganazzars scorcher and 2x firebolt in one turn, allowing for the immolation of the Harengon NPCs. They are a new DM and I don't want to step in and throw my weight around, as I have DM'd alot previously

Anonymous
>>108243857

Aside from this and for your own interest, it is interesting to note that with the exception of myself, the players are devoutly Christian, upstanding lovely people. And for some reason their characters are personifications of all their repressed evil. It is excellent and somewhat terrifying.

Anonymous

To the divine and ever fair and just supreme crit justices murphy, axford, and tanner and the modest bailiff hurwitz, i submit the case of PvP and metagaming. i am playing in my first ever campaign via a discord chat and roll 20 as our virtual table top. we are a year into the campaign and are level 8, we all know each others abilities pretty well after dozens of combat encounters. the setting is a magical university and there is a mechanic for students to duel to settle conflicts. one of my party members challenged me and we began our 1v1. during combat, i was confused on how my opponent was able to do so many attacks and use his breath weapon and fly in one round as a level 8 Monk, Way of the Ascendant Dragon. when i was trying to ask about it, party members who were not in the combat said that i was metagaming and i shouldnt comment on what attacks my opponent can do. (worth noting: i was also trash-talking a good bit and mentioned how many Ki points my opponent had and this sparked the debate). when i tried to explain my confusion and get clarification, i kept getting talked over in a very condescending way and got really upset and ended up leaving the discord chat and not finishing the 1v1. later, i discovered i was right and that my opponent was able to do way too many attacks, wasnt using his ki points correctly, and was using incorrect damage die during the entire fight. he was rolling the incorrect die for unarmed attacks (a d8 instead of a d6 for his martial level) and his breath weapon (2d10 instead of 2d6), he wasn't using a Ki point to fly using his Wings Unfurled (which is his subclass version of Step of the Wind), and he was able to do 4-5 attacks each round without using Ki points but the most he should have been able to get was 4 with using a Ki point for Flurry of Blows. i spoke with the DM after and he said he would talk to the other player and audit everyone's character sheet. we never revisited the 1v1. i come to you today to ask: was i really metagaming and if i shouldnt have left the combat and just kept going?

Anonymous

To the ever radiant Supreme Crit Justices Murphy, Axford, and Tanner. and the lackluster bailiff…Jack maybe? I submitted a case of suspected level tweaking. I play in a wildness beyond the Witchlight campaign that my good friend and DM set up. This is his first time DM and is in his own world “Not knowledge about the ins and outs of the different subclasses”. The problem arose in the first session. Our party consists of Me (Eladrian Fey-wander Ranger), Ty Lee (Human), Lark (Fairy Lore Bard) and the point of my concern Slithertwist (Lizardfold Wildfire Druid with an amnesia storyline) all of us starting at level 3. While exploring the carnival we had the chance to participate in a cake eating contest. Myself and Slithertwist signed up as contestants. We did some pre-game shenanigans where I was trying to charm the other competitors into loosing. Slithertwist on the other hand wildshaped into a fire elemental to try and burn the cakes instead of eating them. I thought this was strange knowing that wildshaping into a fire elemental wasn’t possible until Druid level 10. I brushed it off and figured it had something to do with his amnesia backstory. That was until the next session when got into a fight with a giant stage puppet of a Tarrasque and used Guardian of Nature (which he should learn until 7th level) as well as wildshaping into the Fire Elemental. My DM has made some comment about how powerful Slithertwist has been but hasn’t questioned if the player has been playing him wrong. My question is, Do I bring this up to my DM at the expense of the tables fun or do I just let it slide knowing the rule bending ways of this player. I humbly await your verdict

Joshua Levy
>>108243857

Sounds like a HARE-y situation indeed. Faced with the same I might have my chHAREicter commit HARE-i kari. As an amicus brief though, you’ve done nothing wrong and simply need to find new friends. I’m sorry and good luck. (Or do a session 0 so everyone is on the same page, then try to get a more chaotic campaign going to act as a release while you can try to keep “good” chHAREacters in the “good” campaign)

Anonymous

Intro Free 2023, I bring you the story of how one bad apple spoils the bunch, I played in a homebrew world for a friend who was attempting to create a world that he would later write as a comic. He asked a group of us if we would play in his world, and he would take aspects from our campaign and incorporate them into his story to make the world feel more lived in. The setting was a Lovecraftian inspired cityscape, separated by a working class, and an upper class. The upper class being spearheaded by this Bezos-esk genius inventor, wail in the shadow of the the lower-class, "undesirables" meddled with the occult in order to strike back at the power imbalance of the cruel world they lived in. There were 5 of us players, and we all picked races or features that made us stand out as "undesirables". A barbarian who had been marked by the old gods with huge scars covering his body, a dwarf who's arms where so large he just walked on his hands instead, a well respected doctor who was actually a giant bird/bat monster in a trench coat with a plague Dr. mask on to hide his identity, and two brothers (I played the older one) who's only decerning features was that we had tan skin, white hair, and red eyes (like the Ishvalians from Full Metal Alchemist). Me and my in game brother hailed from a country where our people were often captured and enslaved, so seeing two free slaves often made our lives difficult. This prompted us on our journey to find safety and power, gathering the other players as we went. I was a bullshiter, who maxed out charisma and had virtually no combat skill, my only goal being to protect my brother. Through some insanely lucky roles, and some wonderful DM improv, my character somehow became the leaders of their very own cult. My character didn't believe in any of it, by my fellow player characters where completely bamboozled by my incredible bluffing skills, and the fact that we were making money hand over fist a a glorified gang. Eventually the Bezos-esk character was having a ball, and my ever growing cult decided we should infiltrate and steal some of his tech. After some even more luck we got an almost private audience with Mr. Bezos where he admits to having had an eye on us for quite some time, and being impressed with our abilities, offers us jobs and more money that we could ever rightfully spend. This is it, the whole goal of what my charactor has been trying to acomplish, safty for my brother

Anonymous

May it please the Honorable Supreme Crit Justices and the understated Bailiff Jake. Several years ago, I was playing a half-Drow fighter/druid multiclass named Pyrrha Pridesworn (who had a Steller's sea eagle named Braxx as an animal companion--not relevant, I just think more people should know about Steller's sea eagles). My party was being pursued by a group of bandits (not in initiative, but we knew we were headed toward a fight). We ducked into a cave with a Hobbit-hole-esque door to try to escape, and I wanted to rig a trap to go off if the cave door was opened, hopefully softening up the bandits a little. My DM (also my now-husband) asked me to describe the trap. Not being a survivalist or engineer of any kind, I gave a general explanation of the materials I wanted to use and the way the trap might work--a rope affixed to the door that would pull the trigger on a crossbow if the door was pulled open. He said he couldn't picture it, so I couldn't even attempt it. I feel that Pyrrha, who was an Outlander and scout, should at least have been able to attempt a roll to make the trap, especially since the result would only have been a single bandit possibly getting hit by a single crossbow bolt. Was I unfairly punished for not being as knowledgeable as my PC, or was my DM right to shut the idea down?

Anonymous

Fodder for discussion. There are multiple accounts of archers at the battle of Agincourt removing their pants and having diarrhea on the battlefield due to dysentery… so there is truly historical precedent

Anonymous
>>108156306

It’s messed up that your DM would pit PC against PC! PCs shouldn’t be able to take unwanted actions on each other

Anonymous

May it please the magnificent Justices and He of Ever Shifting Adjectives, jake. I made my players cry and I don't know if I should feel bad about it. We've been playing off-and-on for a year or so in this homebrewed campaign, and at one point, the Party had ended up in a small coastal town, besieged by fishfolk. After saving the town, they learned the fishfolk were trying to collect a young girl- a tiefling in a town of entirely humans. They learned with a little bit of context clues and her very dismissive parents that they did not like the girl, and were hoping to get rid of her- willing to sacrifice her to the fishfolk. The party, of course, didn't like that, and "adopted" this child, deciding to take her to somewhere that she can be safe. They gave her a home to live in in the monastery of the Cleric. Afterwards they proceeded to continue doing the Adventurer Party thing and got tangled up into things way bigger than themselves. At one point in the feywilds, and the death of a beloved NPC of theirs (that was partially their fault) they found themselves needing to make a deal with a Fey Queen. The Queen followed classic Faerie procedures and asked for their first child. Thinking that it would just be a thing in the future for their character, the Cleric offered her child. The problem was, a couple months back, I had asked how they had seen the tiefling- if she was like a child, a niece, a younger sister, etc. She answered that she was exactly like a daughter to her. The call was silent as I described this young tiefling being plucked from her home and appearing before them- her body shifting to become more faerie-like (sprouting antlers rather than horns, etc.) And then? The cleric sniffled. I had made them cry Real Actual Tears. And i felt Terrible. So, Justices (and jake), I ask you. Should I find a way to give them back their child and break the Fae Queen's Promise? Or should I take their tears as a compliment to my character writing? I humbly await your judgement. (sorry i do not know what brief is.)

Anonymous

To the "equally" wonderful justices and bailiff. I bring a case of character building that I think needs a precedent. Two of my players have tried to create characters with their, arguably, most important stat as a dump stat. A paladin with 10 CHA and a barbarian with 10 STR. Querying this, at session 0 they both said, akin to, we figure you'll just give as a magic item to sort that out. Now, I'm all for giving items to shore up character weaknesses, but this is taking the biscuit. Right? I humbly throw myself before you. X

Anonymous

Dear exalted justices and um, is his name Lake? I have a rather short case for you. The other day during my party’s session. I was rolling nat 20’s like crazy. It was awesome, by what must have been my 5th nat 20, my dm/boyfriend (Who was playing in the other room cause we were online) came over to really see if I rolled a Nat 20 and noticed that I kept all of my dice in the dice tray. He said that while he’ll accept the nat 20, I really shouldn’t keep the dice in the dice tray because they can bump against each other and change the results of the dice. I just kind of laughed it off since he allowed the roll. But it got me thinking, how would the other dice in the tray actually change the results of the die? It’s not like that’s something that would change the outcome of the roll and certainly nothing I could have any control over. I hope you guys can shed some light on this low-stakes dilemma.

Anonymous

Most esteemed Cardinals of Dice Christ (and their beard oil guy), I have sinned. This is the worst thing I've ever done in a game of D&D. I was playing a warforged bard in a campaign that I was unsatisfied with, since the DM had arbitrarily chosen the sorcerer to be the main character and everyone else's characters were sidelined. During a random encounter, I had accrued a failed death save and seemingly the party didn't care enough to bring me back, so on my next turn, I changed the result of my next death save to a nat 1, killing my bard. What followed was the rest of the party, in character and out, realizing how much my bard mattered to them, a far cry from the dismissive attitude from before. The resulting funeral/resurrection quest and character interactions was enough that I went from planning to leave the campaign after that session, to staying until the campaign was done. I know what I did was wrong, and that I was looking for attention. I await your judgement.

XaviorTheReaper

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, but when faced with a challenge they try to use their wealth or army to get out of it. Mighty judges I ask what do I do?

Anonymous

Intro free 2023. I come to you with the case of the blasphemous westmarches style session that may have gotten me kicked out of a different campaign. A year ago, the members of my regular campaign decided that we wanted to run a concurrent westmarches style game so that our other friends who could not commit to a full campaign coukd still play with us. Three other players DM'ed sessions, the first of which resulted in a TPK (including my own character). The vibe of the campaign was that that many characters would probably die throughout, and the group had a vibe of not taking things too seriously (i.e., one character was taken over by an intellect devourer and chose to continue playing the same charcater until the campaign ended). It is important to note that while we all live in the same city, we played via discord and roll20 as it is easier to schedule for both campaigns. I offered to host the next session, and gave the group quest in which an elven woman's human husband had disappeared while on a job in kobold-controlled caves, and she wanted the party to recover his body or at least something of his to bury. After a crawl through the caves, the party discovered a small shack near an underground river. Knocking on the door, they discovered a human man, who revealed himself to be the guy they were looking for. They also discovered his kobold wife and three half-kobold children. He told the party that while he had been initially hired to help clear out the caves of kobolds, he had fallen in love and had started a second family, later leaving for good and hoping his wife would just assume he died. Immediately, one of the PCs attacked and killed all five of them with burning hands, stating that as this hybrid monstrosity family was an affront to their (evil-aligned) god, he had to rid the world of them. As I had planned a more role-play heavy ending for this session, having all five of these NPCs murdered immediately left me with 30-45 minutes left with nothing to fill it with. I chose to instead have there be other kobolds nearby who came and attacked the party, which was listed as an easy-to-meduim encounter based on CR. Long story short, good rolls on my part and bad roles on theirs, all but one party member (who fled early on in combat) died. While it wasn't their first encounter that session, they were all at or near full HP and had more than enough spells to handle the encounter. Everyone told me that they genuinely enjoyed the session, and laughed about the human-kobold twist. I joked back that they did have the option to just talk the husband, get an item from him, and return for the reward, but they had to go full inquisition and kill a 3m old baby, which everyone laughed about. I also let it slip that the final encounter was not planned, which changed the mood entirely as some players seemed upset that they lost their characters (some of them on their third already over the first three sessions) to such a low-level encounter that wasn't even planned originally. I commented back that they killed a baby and other children, the locals would hear it happen and probably not be too happy about it, so the encounter was logical to occur, joking that having race-mixing as an RP explanation for their murder was weird since the man in question was human and his original wife was an elf, and noting that the dice gods decided their fate, not me. The westmarches game went on for three more games before everyone seemed to lose interest. Not long after that, my regular game ended as the DM "lost interest" in the story he was telling. A week later I learned that a new campaign was in the works, but when I asked about it, I was told that the DM wanted to shrink the party down from six to four as he was strugging managing six character arcs, which I understood and let be as i had joined the previous campaign a few weeks after eveeyone else. A week later, I was in the friend group discord to see all of the campaign members playing in voice chat, and noticed that it included a fifth party member, another member of the original group. They started a new campaign with everyone but me. I called them out, saying that if they didn't want to play with me they could have just told me and I would have at least respected that, but to tell me that there was no more room, only to invite another player later, was just gross. Two of the members whom I've known the longest reached out, apologizing for the situation, but not explaining what happened. I chose to fully leave that friend group, only staying friends with one of them who continues to play in a campaign that i DM to this day. He stated a few weeks after everything happened that he personally doesn't know what happened and just was going with the flow, and I believe him, but he did tell that the one player I made the race mixing RP comment to was miffed, both by the comment and to the TPK encounter happening in the first place. He also said that he doesn't think it was any interpersonal issues either, which is back by some of the other players, including the one whose RP I commented on, have since expressed that they thought I should have remained friends with them regardless. I maintain that what they did was something I'm justified in being upset over as the situation wasn't worth kicking someone out for, and that they could have just spoken to me like adults instead if there was a problem to address. I humbly throw myself before the court and ask: 1. Was the joke about the player's RP too far; 2. Was the unplanned, accidental low-level encounter TPK something I should understand them getting upset about, and; 3. Am I right about the lack of communication/not wanting to remain friends with this group?