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Cases Please! (Patreon)

Published:
2023-07-03 12:41:11
Imported:
2023-07

Content

Your honorable bailiff is BACK! Supreme Jake here to collect your grievances for Dungeon Court. Please submit your brief (I do beg!) right here on this thread and we will get you that justice.

Comments

Anonymous

To the ever present justices and the freshly minted papa Jakob, I present to you the case of the “Heinous Homebrew” (may it of course please the court). My good friend was gearing up to run his third campaign with me and some other friends, and at our session zero, introduced a few home brew mechanics to “up the intensity”. At first, it was only a few small things, like a chance of instant death on a nat 20 (ala Neverafter style). However, the final and most significant change he wanted to make was changing the short/long test system. He told us a short rest would now take a day, and a long rest would now take a week. I, of course, was appalled, and told him that this was too tense. If we ever got in two combats in a day, we would be absolutely womped. I also said that my character as a bee-themed Druid (shameless plug for Axford support) would become a heal-slut, my few spells going to healing my companions. I expected the other players to also be upset, but I was sorely mistaken. One player was completely for it, as he was playing a character with a 24 AC and never got hit. Another player was “indifferent”, and I ended up healing him the whole first combat, and the last player (the DMs little sister) stayed quiet, and she ended up playing a home brew cleric that used hitpoints to cast spells instead of spell slots. In the end, the dm allowed us to get back abilities and spells after a short rest, but it didn’t solve half the problems. Justices of the court and Gemma’s dad, was I correct in feeling upset and miffed, or was dm correct in wanting to try his new home brew? Thank you, and shout-out the bean rat.

Anonymous

To the nigh omniscient judges, and the barely educated bailiff Jake, I present to you the case of the inter-dimensional straw. In a more recent session that I DM for, the party had to work together in order to sneak into a gang’s home base. After much discussion the party decided to shove some of their lighter members into a bag of holding, when I told the party that they don’t have infinite air, they told me that they’d simply get a big straw, stick it out of the bag, and breath that way a la hiding in a river. After I instructed them that that would not work, they were insistent that I was wrong so I settled that they would need an “inter-dimensional straw” in order to traverse the magical properties of the bag and exist in two planes. This then started an argument that lasted 20 minutes with the whole party, and a 15 minute long phone call with one of the players where they were ALL convinced that they would simply need to go to a restaurant in the elemental plane of fire and get a straw for it to be “an inter dimensional straw”. When I brought up the example that if they got a straw from the moon and brought it down to earth that it doesn’t change the property of the straw they said “well duh that’s the moon”. Am I in the wrong here? Would a straw from a different plane of existence suddenly gain magical inter-dimensional properties? Or are my players trying their best to get one over me? Waiting your judgement patiently, A bari saxy man

Anonymous

To the honourable supreme crit justices and the guest bailiff Jake (I know it’s your first time on the pod but you’ll do great, buddy, I know it) I present the case of the disruptive boy-toy. I DM for a group consisting of my 72-year-old neighbour Doreen and her friends. It’s my favourite campaign that I’ve ever run and they all dress up as their characters whenever we play. Generally, it’s a great time. Last session, however, one of the players arrived a little late and, as she was walking in, nonchalantly mentioned that her boyfriend would be joining us. I glanced up briefly to see this new boyfriend, because I had heard a lot about him. She had spoken about how attractive he was a lot and described him as her ‘new boy toy’, but, to my horror, I found myself staring into the wide eyes of my own father. I tried to make a joke out of the situation and thought I’d played it off well, until we started actually playing. My dad complained about everything. The zombie minis looked too gross, he didn’t like my music, I was speaking too loudly, then I needed to speak up because he couldn’t understand me, if I put this much effort into studying for my PhD I might have finished it by now, and so on. I tried to keep the session going as best as I could but the players kept talking to and about him all throughout the session. All-in-all the session was ruined. Nobody was engaged with the plot because they were all fussing over my dad, who spent the whole time either complaining or glaring daggers at me as if it was my fault. After the session, I called him and asked him not to come back, but a number of the players have asked me to make sure he comes to the next session because they like him and were disappointed when I told them he wouldn't be there. I ask the court: what the fuck am I supposed to do here? Would I be right to stand my ground and demand that my dad doesn’t come to the next session or should I just do whatever the old ladies want because they’re nice and they bake for me? My dad says he’ll come to the next session if his girlfriend wants him to, but he obviously didn’t enjoy the session anymore than I did and I don’t have enough time to 4 hours being insulted by my own father while surrounded by horny old ladies. Help me. Please.

Anonymous

To the magnanimous justices and the freshly new dad.... Jim? I ask as apart of an issue my party had with lets call it: Trap Dementia. Our party is in a dungeon where we are about midway through where we have just finished going through two traps one which was a hallway where if you were not standing in the correct spots you were zapped with lightning, and another which was even simpler fountain that if you stood next to it for a full round it would attack you with the statue. We got through this part and found a room where we could rest, so we did the long rest. The next adventuring day we had to eventually go back through there and the DM instead of either handwaving it since we found the solution or letting us do the correct motions to get through safely, had us all do Intelligence saves and if we failed we somehow triggered the trap, and in my case I went down to 89HP to 11 due to being "critted" since I rolled a Nat 1. The other players were fine with this as no PC is smart in our party but this just feels rude. Am I correct in being outraged and allowed to complain louder about this or is this just the DM doing a bad job of using resources.

Anonymous

COUNTERSUIT: If it please the court, I beseech the honourable justices to hear my pleas and overturn their ruling with newfound evidence. In the case of the "players turned NPCs". I am the DM that brought the level 25 homebrew in. Facts were greatly exaggerated and misconstrued in this case. I did spend 20 minutes speaking to the Cleric. To nerf him, incase our murder hobo party who clearly likes to be the victim; tried to gang up on their help. Which they did. After natural 20 striking the cleric and attempting to assert dominance, the instigator was met with a back hand. The plaintiff forgot to mention it was their own member who meteor stormed the PCs and caused great damage to the party, although his wife was slapped, she earned it as her attack killed any residual chivalry in the air. Had the players made a team effort to destroy the Cleric, it would have been a fight. But ultimately a full focus of effort failed (because the mission was already a success) but could have killed the Cleric rather quickly. The only player that did not attack the cleric survived. I humbly succle the wife worm toes in efforts to try my former players for murder hobo in the first degree.

Anonymous

To the illustrious judges and the newly patern'ed Bailiff, may it please the court, I present the case of the metagaming DM. Early in our campaign, our party of three had just left an arena with several powerful artifacts we had won as prizes. Pursued by ruffians, we encountered some priests who offered to cast the haste spell on us to hasten our retreat, and we agreed. Immediately as a reaction, they dropped the haste and caused us to lose our turn and gave the bandits time to catch up to us and initiate combat. The DM argued that, as willing creatures, we had no chance to protest this heinous removal of action economy, based on the rules as written. This DM has spoken out against metagaming in the past, so it was really frustrating to see him do it to us, gleefully at that. My esteemed crit justices, was the dm's duplicitous trick above board and was thus a righteous whomping, or did we get screwed out of a clean getaway with the prizes we had rightfully won?

Anonymous

May it cause a creeping sense of dread in the bailiff and please the rest of the court. I present you the case of The Space Hamster Fashion Faux-Paw. My friend is playing in a Spelljammer campaign with his brother and his friends. He's playing a Mechagnome Wizard named A.C.E., and the group has a pet giant space hamster named Angry Germaine, who they are all deeply attached to. During a session, they were approached by a ship that was basically a traveling town of wealthy penguin people, and had an entire shop dedicated to giant hamster barding. They decided to buy an outfit for Angry Germaine, and their problems began. The shop they went to had several options with no statistical difference, but with slightly different pricing, and no one could agree on an outfit. They decided to each choose an outfit and roll for who would get to decide, agreeing to split the cost of the outfit that won. ACE ended up winning, but after rolling, he changed his mind about which outfit he wanted Angry Germaine to wear. Two of the PCs, one played by the DM, said he couldn't do that, because he was rolling for the OUTFIT, but ACE and another player said they were rolling for the CHOICE. The DM ended up ruling that ACE could select the outfit, but the other PCs had to split the original cost agreed upon and ACE had to pay the difference. Should ACE be thrown out the airlock? Or should he and Angry Germaine get to watch the others die in the vacuum of space? Supreme Crit Justices, we leave it to you.

Anonymous

Welcome back daddy bailiff! Esteemed court I bring you the case of the uninterested DM. Back when I was but a highschooler I was invited by some friends playing in a campaign to join their game. I had just finished doing PA work on a documentary and went to the DM's home to play. As soon as I arrived the DM (who was a slight acquaintince of mine) begrudgingly helped me roll a Rouge halfling character. They instructed that I wait to start playing until they can work me in to the story. I waited for almost 2 hours before they decided to introduce my character (Lylia Thistlespring). Then as we crawled through the dungeon I wanted to be helpful although I had no idea how to play so any time I asked to do something like pick a lock or try to find a path I was told it wasn't my turn yet even though we weren't in initiative. Then finally we encountered a steel vault door which had a small glass window and I thought it was my time to shine. I asked the barbarian to simply chuck me through the window since the DM wouldn't let me pick the lock. My friends and I found this idea rather amusing but the DM clearly didn't as they rolled my damage and declared I was down from the move. We had no healer so I just layed there on the ground unconscious for the rest of the game. I regretted my decision to not go with my director to help edit the documentary I worked on for this game severely and it still haunts me to this day. I beg you esteemed justices, was I a problem player or was I simply hated by my DM?

Anonymous

To the Honorable Justice and the newly fathered bailiff, I present to you the case of the polymorphism lair action. My level 12 party and I were gearing up to fight an ancient black dragon, an encounter that would surely lead to our deaths without proper planning. We resolved to target its legendary resistances and once all three were gone our bard cast polymorph on the dragon under the effects of hex and cutting words. The dragon failed and was transformed into a bat which gave our party time to heal and gather the op magical items we were meant to steal from the dragon and use against him. However the DM, my brother, began to narrate a lair action . We argued that the polymorphed dragon would not have access to this ability as it was now a bat but the DM held firm that the bat maintained the dragon's personality and so would still have a connection to it's lair. Our bard rolled three nat 1s in a row to maintain concentration and the dragon broke free. A few well timed Crits from my hexblade warlock as well as the already depleted legendary resistances allowed us to walk away from that fight alive but I humbly ask the court, can a polymorphed creature still use lair actions?

Anonymous

To the holy robed representatives of dice Christ, forgive me for I have sinned. Years ago I used to fudge rolls. We were playing virtually and if I got a bad roll, I would just reroll it. I was young and did not understand that the failures make the victories sweeter! But I have felt dice Christ turn from me and have not rolled a nat20 during combat since then. I played a paladin then and a rogue now and I miss the sweet opportunity to double all the smite or sneak dice. Dice Christ forgive me for my transgression of fudging rolls

Anonymous

Congratulations Jake!! Many love and blessings to you and your family

Anonymous

To the illustrious and magnanimous justices Murphy, Tanner, the reinstated justice Emily, all hail the wife-worm, and a special shout out to the new dad-liff! I bring to you the case of the not-so-free object interaction. My level 4 party and I were ambushed by 9 thugs who quickly began to get the best of us. After only three rounds, our cleric and ranger had both dropped, been revived, and dropped again, while we’d only managed to take out one thug. Without healers or remaining healing potions we were forced to retreat inside a building with our enemies clustering at the door. Then it was my turn. My dwarf wizard picked up a bead of fireball off our downed rangers necklace and prepared to throw it at the enemy, ready to turn the tide, but my dm ruled that picking up the bead would count as my action, and throwing it required another action. I found that strange, as simply grabbing a small bead felt like something that should be a free object interaction, but I respected the ruling. I tried to make a deal with my dm, asking that I be allowed to walk outside into the center of the enemy group and ignite the fireball by simply dropping the bead at my feet. My dm refused, stating that it required more than dropping the bead to activate the fireball. In the end, I used my turn to pick up the bead and misty step outside into the center of the enemy group. My plan partially worked, and as the enemy focused fire on me my party managed to stabilize our ranger and fight off the thug that had followed them inside. On my next turn, with 3 hp remaining, I activated the fireball and took out all but two of the remaining thugs, and myself. Even more tragic, my party’s cleric failed his last death save the next turn, something I feel could have been prevented had I been allowed to activate the fireball a round earlier. In the end we’re both excited to make new characters and look forward to continuing the campaign, but I still wonder if the loss could have been minimized. So I ask, was my dm wrong to rule that I couldn’t pick up the bead of fireball and use it in the same turn? Should I have fought to use my free object interaction? I await your judgement and appropriately harsh punishment.

Anonymous

To the Supreme Crit Justices and that other guy, I think his name might be, like.... actually, I have no idea. Do you guys do Dice Christ Exorcisms? I'm a support-others-first, heavy on the RP kind of player. I love to engage in a cheeky lil' hijink or two if everyone wants to be involved. My favorite thing about combat is the cool ways people apply their spells and abilities. That said, I am either Dice Christ's most heinous sinner, or I am possessed by something on par with, perhaps, the literal devil because I rarely roll above a 10. I've changed dice three times, I've switched seats at the table, I've even played a game with my sleeves over my hands to avoid touching the dice-- to no avail! Every time I want to do something fun-- or frankly, anything at all-- the single narrowed eye of the '1' reminds me of my place. Sometimes, the dice will even teasingly rock on the side of a '20' only to fall into a '2' the minute I even begin to hope! I'm a DM as well and I've started artificially inflating the HP of my monsters and making up abilities on the spot because of how poorly I roll. Justices, I beg of you, am I cursed? It seems rather silly, but rolling so low for so long has started to take the fun out of DND. I don't want to give up on my favorite hobby, but it seems to be that Christ or a darker power is guiding me that way. My question here is: do I need to be exorcised or should I pick up a pair or knitting needles next time I'm at the store.

Anonymous

warning: drama. like serious drama. better watch out for drama otherwise you’ll get wet with the drama for the eyes and ears of the justices who are firmly on the right side of history and the corrupt daddy bailiff, rotten to the core. weclome back bud 🥂 i’m running a campaign with a genuinely good group of friends. it’s my first group to span multiple years. everyone for the most part is vibing and keeping it tight. but i’ve noticed some discordance when it comes to the general tone people want the game to be. generally, the players who have been playing dnd since before the recent popularity boom, want to play a more drawn out game with extensive looting, a graver tone and a lot of that kind stuff that doesn’t make it into most actual play shows. whereass the players enjoy shows like naddpod, d20 and other more comedic shows, want to play something a little tighter with a more comedic tone. wanting to cut out stuff that gets in the way of story flow. one of the players even requests a smash cut when a scene of theirs is going on “too long.” benevolent justices and guests of jan and troy, how do i make the game be exciting for both types of players? and how do i get soy sauce out of white pants? ps: theres not any drama. i just felt like i needed a hook. sorry for fibbing up top. won’t happen again.

Anonymous

To the honorable Justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner, as well new Step Dad Jake (huge congrats to Tucker and Jill btw). I bring to you the case of a problem player named Todd. We showed up to the DMs house, all ready with character sheets. We then went around to introduce our characters and you will imagine my surprise when Todd introduces his character as it's literally another person at the table. Same first name, same last name, same brother, same parents. He said he graduated the top of his class at the Academy of Academic Farts and his whole motivation is to resserect his brother (the same brother as another person at the table) after killing him by hitting him with his car (it's a 1930s campaign so there are cars). Am I right to be confused and maybe a little annoyed or am I being to judgemental of this case of stolen identity. PS The DM looked annoyed as well but wanting to get the session going allowed it.

Anonymous

To the wise yet ,still in their physical primes Justices, and the bae-liff jerms, i present the case of the waterskin wetsuit. My younger cousin joined our extended family campaign a couple months in and fit right in. We finished his first session with a bounty at sea as one of our options for our next session. My cousin came to me and told me he had something that would help with the ocean voyage and enventual encounter on the high seas, his waterskin. He thought a waterskin was a wetsuit. He is completely new to DND and i could have told him what a waterskin is, but couldnt help myself. At our next session after a member of the party fell in the water, he confidently stated that with his waterskin on he could save the party member. After a moment of confusion the DM explained what a waterskin was and everyone had a good laugh and our tortle saved the pary memeber. My younger cousin shot me a death stare and was like "bro wtf". Was i wrong to have withheld info in order to get some laughs at the table. I humbly await your firm yet gentle judgement.

Anonymous

To the man, the myth, and the legend of the jury (and the one who pulls the cases), I come with a grievance, as well as a response from my DM. I was playing in a 1 on 1 session in a video game inspired world. My character, Pretzel the Arakokra, entered a royal grave in search of a lost relic, and upon entering, was greeted by a skeleton of a dead grave robber with a note (which gave clues of the puzzle), and a bandana. This bandana had the number 6 on it, indicating there were 5 more to collect. As I began to find the other skeletons and bandanas, I entered the 4 other rooms in the grave. In most, I found a skeleton with a bandana and a note, something of value, or two Mech-shrooms (large mushroom creatures with armor). However, upon entering the 3rd room I was told “inside is another grand tomb, but outside of that, there is nothing else.” I continued on my quest, entering all other rooms, and solving the puzzle to find the artifact. I made it out by the skin of my teeth, but one bandana short. Judges, this is where my complaint lies. Should I have been asked to make a check to find the skeleton, or should I have been the one to question what my DM said? I posit the fact that I never had to ask for a check in the other rooms, but was told to make various checks throughout the tomb. Should I have not trusted the word of my DM and scoured the room anyway? Does this mean every room I now enter I should ask for an investigation check? How am I ever to believe my DM again? I humbly await the courts decision, and hope you all have a wonderful day. - Zach Honorable Crit Justices, as the DM in this case, I present my side of this encounter. The last bandana was hidden in a secret compartment in the 3rd room. While I did ask for checks in the other rooms in regards to what was readily apparent to Pretzel, my thought was that describing one empty room amongst 3 others that had clues within them would be enough of a hint to beg further investigation, but Pretzel turned from the 3rd room without asking to investigate beyond the surface level description I gave. I prostrate myself at the whims of the court. PS - Hey Caldwell, this DM is Tanner from Foes and Fables, the one we established as your long lost son during our interview. I hope, as your nepo baby, this unfair advantage may help defend my case.

Max!

*with reverence* Justices, *with spite* jake… I bring you a simple question of time equivalence. I have a friend in my game who is constantly cancelling on us, rescheduling, no heads up or lots of heads up, predictably unreliable when it comes to dnd. That’s fine, it’s a game! It’s the one our friend group spends the most time on now without reschedulingfriend (RF) but recently RF has started to ask for my patience outside of dnd too! She’s been putting me down on her resumes and i’ve had to fill out a bunch of surveys for the jobs she’s always applying too and by now it’s added up to well over a few sessions of dnd of my time. Am i right to tell RF that i will only be doing more of these surveys if she starts showing up to dnd? I get that work and play are separate but now mine are getting smushed together and torn apart because of her! I humbly await your help.

Max!
>>112085732

for context we don’t always have to cancel because of RF but sometimes we forget ourselves and she is the lynchpin that falls out of the Dnd copter

Anonymous

To the venerable judges and bailiff 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.

Polina Milashevskaya

Congratulations, Jake!! Hope Gemma and your wife are feeling great and healthy ❤️

Anonymous

Honorable justices and new daddy, Bailiff Jake! I’m running Out of the Abyss for my partner and friends and I let them use third party sources for their character builds. My partner chose ratfolk plague lord (inspired by the Skaven) from Valda’s Spire of Secrets which has been very nasty and fun so far UNTIL his new ability at level 6, projectile spew (it buffs his main ability but also allows touch spells to have a range of 15ft instead of touch). This is great for attack spells (which is flavored as “you use magical projectile vomit to deliver your payload” per Valda’s which is gross but on point for his nasty rat) but now him and the other players are trying to argue for him to cast identify from a distance by throwing up on items. This was tricky with a particular artifact they found: (spoilers) a cursed gem that causes madness when they touch it. I think it’s clever that he thought to use that ability for it but I’m still trying to work out how throwing up on something, even magical vomit, would allow someone to understand it better. I didn’t allow it for this item but I ask the court; going forward should I allow my partner’s ratfolk the ability to cast identify and other utility spells by throwing up on the target?

Anonymous

Honorable Crit and the bailiff Jacob whos status is in super position, I bring the case of the Italian Chef PC, I started a new game with a 3 friends and things are going well, one character is a knight redeeming honor, a special agent finding a way back home, and an Italian chef trying to make the best pasta ever. Things are going well however sometimes the italian chef breaks the emmersion. He reacts to tense moments with a poorly done italian accent with phrases like "Mamma mia" and generally seems less invested in the world. Am I doomed to give this chef the fated spoon 'stirrers-bane' or can I kill this pasta totting fool?

Anonymous

To the courageous, wise, highly esteemed justices, and the lowly, lowly, lowly, lowly, lowly, lowly, lowly bailiff Joke: if it pleases the court, I present the case of the fireball casting craze. My wizard loves to interrupt every description and monologue by casting fireball and insisting it counts as a surprise round. The party is currently in hell and conscripted a little devil to help them out. The next time I began describing the enemies they could see the wizard predictably casts a 6th level fireball. The issue is all these devils are immune to fire. I asked if there would be any indication of what he was doing when he cast the spell and he said no, it was cast before anyone could react. So I let it happen, and it had no effect. He is mad because he wasted a spell slot and is trying to argue that the devil broke his deal of helping them by not informing him of a fire immunity. I feel like I covered my bases by asking about how quickly he cast the spell, the devil wouldn’t have known in time to tell him otherwise, and he never cared enough to ask. Am I wrong in that ruling, and how can I get him to settle down a little and maybe listen before he acts?

Anonymous

Forgive me Dice Christ for I have sinned, for you see I have committed a sin so foul it may have been to start to the end of my career as a dm, as a new dungeon master for a small group of online friends I wanted to have some fun and do my own thing rather than follow a book, cutting to the chase my players were following the trails of a “Rat man” who has been seen around town, and after a few days of tracking him down my the one player (sorcerer) who can fly, decides to “fly ahead and scope out the cave” while the 2 slower (paladin and cleric) walk; after following a figure into a cave the sorcerer decides to head further into the cave where I had 2 wererats hiding. Which attacked him, rolling 2 nat 20s and him rolling a 1 on a curse save, he would have died on the spot, Not wanting to kill my player I lied and held back only knocking him unconscious and miraculously at that point the other 2 players appeared and rescue him. The campgain only had a maybe 4 more (short) sessions and we never played again. Please forgive me daddy dice so I can play again

Anonymous

To the esteemed justices and the newly returned bailiff turned papa (congratulations!!), I am a longtime listener but a first time submitter, coming to you with a crisis of Dice Christ faith. I have been running a homebrew D&D campaign set in a superhero world (unaffiliated with major comics) for nearly five years, which mostly consists of the players realizing that each of their parents were unsuccessful in stopping a cultist from ascending to godhood, whom they must now defeat. At the start of our campaign, almost all of my players were brand new, and I was their first dm. However, they are experienced players now, and I felt that my players were in need of a new threat that felt more personal. So I introduced a longterm turncoat NPC who would betray them. I employed a system that included numerous deception checks, performance checks, and stealth, to get around them, but my players were suspicious from the start, and they eventually confronted this foe in a conflict that arose to a battle. I really wanted to challenge my players, because I felt they were ready, so at the time of the NPC’s creation, I pulled a Death Knight stat from the monster manual and reskinned it. I warned my players of the difficulty of the fight, and they were prepared. But when it came to the fight itself, I found myself pulling punches, like completely ignoring abilities and legendary actions of the Death Knight, in favor of my level 8 players. (That said, they did talk their way out of the end of the fight, leave their opponent alive, and lose a major NPC ally in the process.) I’ve purposefully cultivated a goofy and fun space with serious and grim undertones whenever I can, and I often describe the campaign feel as a playground (since I often let bits and jokes continue on for far too long, because I myself am having fun). So I ask you, humble court, in the eyes of Dice Christ, did I rob the players of a potentially game changing event that they earned as a party? I await your verdict.

Anonymous

To the providers of potent polyhedrons and whatever their favorite bit has been this episode, if it pleases the congregation I would love to testify the love of Dice Christ. In a recent encounter, one of the goals was to free the twin brother of my Eladrin Wild Magic Barbarian/Battle Master Fighter from the Gaes of a chain devil using him as a boy toy. After the cleric broke concentration on Banishment and the devil came back, I did what all good barbarians do and cast Hit Them With My Greatsword to save my bro. The first two attacks, both natural twenties on the Eldermourne die I received from merch club. I managed to rake up some bonkers damage that turn with a combo of those Bookvar-blessed rolls, Goading Attack, and Action Surge. After the battle, Bookvar came back twice on an Insight check on if my brother got laid in the Fey Wild (he did) and an Investigation check that totaled 34 when I rolled an eight on Tactical Assessment superiority die. It truly felt like a little guardian book familiar was making sure I was able to reunite my buff elf with his twin brother he had not heard from in months. Have a Trickser-blessed day!

Anonymous

No court cases here, but I hope you had a wonderful time with your family during paternity leave, Jake! 💜 Congratulations on your new addition!

Anonymous

To the esteemed justices and the steamy bailiff Hurwitz, I present the case of “The Forced Fade-To-Black.” In the midst of the pandemic, I was lucky enough to be invited into an online D&D group by a good friend and fellow NADDpole, and so began our adventures through the Lost Mines of Phandelver. The group started working together seamlessly, the RP flowed naturally, and all seemed to be going well. That is, until my Warlock started taking an interest in a shopkeeper NPC after a few increasingly flirty encounters with her. Finally, I decided to ask her on a date, and she coyly accepted. When the time for the date came, what I thought would be a simple scene at some sort of outdoor picnic or other chaste affair instead became a very sexually charged fade-to-black moment that I was not expecting. I was really bothered by this, enough to retire that character a couple weeks later due to how all the PC’s started treating my Warlock after this forced affair, and the DM didn’t really seem to care or understand why I was upset. Am I justified in feeling a little violated by this moment, or should I have been more flexible and rolled with it? My case is in your capable hands!

Anonymous

To the omnipresent existence of the justices and the mediocre bailiff. I am a long time dm for a 2 years long campaign. My players keep kidnapping and tortureing almost ALL of my npcs, most notably my quest giver from the empire. I would not have a problem with the need to torture some of my npcs but it’s honestly scary how much detail the do it in. They are all having a lot of fun and I don’t wanna be the one to ruin it for them. I humbly thank you for your time

Anonymous

To the honorable Justices and the DNDaddy Baliff Jake (long may he daddy). I present the case of the Misty Advantage. My Wild magic Sorcerer cast misty step in combat, appearing behind an archer that was raining arrows down from a roof top. The Sorcerer then attempted to push this archer off the roof. The case is this; the sorcerer argued that they should have advantage, as they appeared behind the archer with misty step and surprised them. I argued that it is a spell in the middle of combat which would create some visible effect, and they aren't surprised (it being several turns in). I ended up giving the advantage as other players joined in the discussion, but I ask you, should I have stuck with my ruling, or would the Sorcerer have advantage?

Anonymous

To the illustrious judges and the newly established Papa Bailiff Jake. In a campaign I’m playing with a friend and his family, My friend and I are both playing monks. We ended a session falling into an area with 2 Half dragon big bads and 3 brezerkers. We convinced the dm to let us Dragon Ball Z Fuse together into one being. We then won the encounter after slight of handing the enemies sword out of his hands mid fight. Were we in the wrong for convincing the dm to let us fuse? We are at the Honorable judges and Papa Bailiff’s judgement.

Anonymous

Dear Honored Judges of the Highest Court and disgraced former judge of Boston, I present to you the case of Stackable Shapeshifts. I DM for my younger sister, who plays a level 10 Circle of Stars Druid in a homebrew campaign. She was in an underwater cavern, trying to prevent a faction of anti-Fae fanatics from accessing a portal to a pathway between the Material Plane and the Faewild, guarded by a dragon turtle. Before the bad guys got there, she attempted to convince the dragon turtle she was friendly by using her last wild shape of the day to turn into her starry dragon form, hoping that a dragon turtle would be more receptive to another dragon. She was successful, but not before the bad guys got to the cavern. She decided to flee to the pathway between planes and destroy the portal from the other side. Destroying the portal would destabilize the pathway, so she would have to do a Wisdom check to re-stabilize it or become unmoored in the emptiness between planes, possibly forever. While she was in her starry form, she cast polymorph on herself to turn into a giant shark for enough strength and swim speed to grab her NPC companions and get to the portal first. She then dropped polymorph on the other side of the portal and destroyed it. She rolled her Wisdom check and got a 5, which is a fail, but she argued that she should have dropped out of polymorph back to her starry dragon form, not her original form. The starry dragon lets her treat any Wisdom check of 9 or lower as a 10, which would pass. All of this took place within the 10-minute time limit of her starry form. I thought that dropping polymorph should drop her to her original form, but ultimately ruled she could drop back to wild shape because I thought the move was rad. The question we put before the court is this: was my sister correct to smugly rub it in my face that she once again bested me and my petty obstacles, or should I have cackled madly as I let her spin out into the great nothingness between planes? P.S. Welcome back and congrats on the baby!

Anonymous

To the amazing judges and the bailiff who is awesome, just ok, or sucks dragon pussy (depending on how Murph is feeling). I bring to you the case of the player who doesn’t seem to ever be happy with a character. While running a campaign for my 3 players, everything seemed to be going well for the first 3 sessions. However, after finishing up in the starting town (while running from the current enemies) the session came to an end. Before the next session, my friend playing a wizard decided he wanted to completely change characters and be a sorcerer. Which I was fine with and allowed him to completely roll a new character/stats (which ended up being slightly lower than his wizards stats but overall all players were within 3 total ability score points) all players had 2 highish stats, 2 average, and 2 lower. My main problem comes from after ONE session with his new character he decided he wanted to roll yet another character. I told him that was fine, but he must keep his previously rolled stats but may reorganize them if he would like and change them based on his chosen race. He decided he didn’t like that and we went back and forth but eventually I let him have his way and roll all new stats… the raw numbers were 17, 11,12, 9, 9, and 7. Obviously he then wanted to have his old stats back. I said no because this is what he wanted. Now I’m not cruel enough to have him play a whole campaign with these stats, but a few sessions? I mean this IS what he wanted right? I should note that his newest character is a paladin so I had plans on his god granting him more power (improving his stats after a few sessions). My question is am I in the wrong for making him stick with shitty stats for a while? If not, am I being too easy on him giving him an out? Should I be more harsh? (P.S for Murph, finding new friends isn’t much of an option in this scenario because all players are going to be part of my upcoming wedding party)

Anonymous

Corrupt judges and Golden mic winner, the pinch himself, Josh, I bring forward the case of Vidcen’s broken bow. A while back I was a PC in a campaign wherein the DM decided to make Nat 1s more impactful. A typical nat 1 would leave a PC or NPC prone or something similar. The DM did a really good job with this mechanic and it made combat more dynamic and funnier. The problem lies in the fact that our party had a halfling ranger named Vidcen. After dozens of sessions of re-rolled 1s, Vidcen rolled two 1s in a row which led his beloved, overpowered bow, “Mama’s Longbow”, to shatter. This revealed a crystal linked to his story arc which we never got to see because our DM moved to Denver but I’m sure it would have been amazing (we miss you Nic!). For some players this moment would have been awesome, however Vidcen’s player was quite upset about it as 1. Vidcen was A ranger and his slightly overpowered bow was one of the only ways he could have an impact on combat, 2. He was A first time player who should not have been playing a ranger as he was really into combat mechanics etc. the next character he made was a Druid, and then an artificer, both of which I think suited him much better and 3. Although he was all in on roll play, he didn’t seem too interested in this character’s story arc and just wanted to ROLL SOME GOD DAMN DIE. So, was the DM overly harsh in taking away Vidcen’s pride and joy, or was a broken bow a fair outcome for something that only happens 1/400 rolls?

tonytheoneandonly

Brick v. A Dire Rat's Prick, 69 U.S. 420 (2023) I present my case to the Strong, Dexterous, Constitute, Intelligent, Wise and Charismatic Supreme Crit Justices. jake. Many years ago, my brother was DMing a campaign for me and my cousin. I was playing a Minotaur Barbarian named Brick. During an encounter with a pack of Dire Rats, I asked my brother if I could roll a CHA check to charm the leader of the Dire Rat pack. Since as a part animal, I can understand their instincts. Reluctantly he agreed and l proceeded to roll a 20, all natural. Elation! But since I succeeded so well. My brother decided that the Leader Rat became enamored by my Minotaur nose, as it is roughly the same shape and color as a Rat. On its turn, the Dire Rat leapt onto my face and started to make sweet Rat love to my nose. I objected. I argued that as a Minotaur I am wearing a septum ring, which would block the entryway into my nostril. My brother ruled that cows have notoriously long and wide nostrils so there would be ample clearance for a Rat's little dick. Reluctantly I seceded, Brick and the Dire Rat went on a few dates but nothing serious ever came of it... jk Brick killed the Rat. But more a decade later and I still believe the Septum Ring Defense would have protected my nostril from the Dire Rats advances, was I correct? I lie supine and humbly await the Supreme Crits decision.

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 if when faced with a challenge he tries to use his wealth or army to get out of it. Mighty judges I ask what do I do?

Hannah

Dear esteemed Justices and the ultimate cuck bailiff Jack. May it please the court, I beseech thee to judge my older and taller brother's table. My brother has been playing various ttrpgs with his friends from uni online for some time now, most recently Traveller. His table has since been rocked by many a conflict (they pivoted from trading to opening a ski resort only to find out one player only enjoyed trading, my brother attempted to murder and then saved the life of another pc etc), but the most recent is most egregious. A new player, not a real life friend of my brother but of the other players, has been acting weird. His character is extremely paranoid (accused a npc of being a body-snatcher alien with no evidence), and has been potentially rping a DID character that makes my brother uncomfortable. He has roped another party member Into his shenanigans and both refuse to answer my brother when he asks (out of character!!) if they have a reason to act like this. My brother and the other PC were more than happy to play along with this, but they refuse to communicate any narrative direction. It has reached a point where it's no longer fun for my bro and he is more anxious than excited to play. He has suggested starting over completely but the rest of the party think that's unfair since it's the new guy's first pc. So Honourable Justices and little rat bailiff, would my brother be right to order a hit on these two pcs and cull the party? PS. The party had already agreed that PvP was completely fine, otherwise my bro would not consider this.

Bukvar's Assistant Isy F

May it please the court of justices and baliff juice (?). Lawyer Isy F representing fellow party member Jay. We were playing in an entirely home-brewed campaign based off 5E. Rather than leveling up, we had pretty complex skill trees that we unlocked with points assigned at the end of each session. My client was playing a clockwork tinkerer who at the end of his skill tree, got a fully functioning mechanical man. Much like a familiar. The issue is, once my client unlocked this after approx 45 sessions, the mechanical man (voiced by the DM) immediately begun to tell the party all of my clients secrets, even ones that had happened in my clients childhood and backstory. As a result of this and some other transgressions by the DM, the party disbanded. We beseech the court, has my client been wronged? Do mechanical men have the knowledge of their forefathers? Prosecution rests!

Anonymous

Forgive me dice christ for I have sinned. I was running my first ever DND one shot, and it was going great! While doing the boss battle I started absolutely WHOMPING the players. Two out of three players were down and after rolling my 4th nat 20 I decided to lie and say I missed. Ever since that game I have had guilt on my chest… is there anything I can do for dice christ to forgive me?

Anonymous

To the jovial justices and the fancy glad lad Jake the dad, I humbly stand forth to bring to you the Case of the Denied Deception. A while back I was invited to an ongoing D&D campaign by a friend of mine who DMed the game. I had never played D&D before and was excited to try it. I did not know any of the players but they were all friends of my friend the DM so I thought it’d be fine. My friend helped me make a monk and everyone welcomed me into the campaign. On the second session our group entered a temple to find a missing relic to discover that a cult had started living in the building. The cult accidentally assumed we were actually there to join them and I decided to go all in on the con. My monk proffered himself before them saying he would be a great asset as he believed he could never die, and I got a nat 20 on a performance check. The cultists were amazed and invited us to join, offering lodging and the cultist robes. I was pretty excited and thinking in my head of a way to get the cultists to help us get to the relic but the fighter put a stop to that. Instead, he just went ahead and attacked the cultists. One of the other players argued with him about the decision to which he replied, “What’s the point? We’re just gonna fight them anyway.” I also felt miffed by the action but was with a new group so didn’t put up a fight. The fighter held his ground that he attacked and the DM didn’t give any input on the argument and just went ahead with the fight. I played with the group a couple more sessions and ended up leaving after a couple other arguments and similar experiences occurred. To the court I ask this: Am I justified for leaving the group over this experience and as a followup is the person who played the fighter justified in what he did? I leave the decision to the court.

Anonymous

May it platonically pleasure the court and Schrödinger’s bailiff who exists both atop and beneath the hierarchy of power, I present the case of PvP (Peace vs. Pride) Years ago, I was joining in to a friend of mine’s home game. He was DMing for the first time and asked me to come in to help show some new players how to play. The game had been going on a few months already, but I could tell right away the new players were building some bad habits of murder hoboing, preventing the DM from having any type of grounding for the rest of the group who just wanted yo go on quests. My character confronted one of them and told them that they should probably not go around killing anyone who speaks to them as eventually it’ll catch up to them. In response, my character was stabbed. After warning the player outside of the game “hey if you really go through with this my character is going to kill yours” and being stabbed anyways, I was able to knock his character out with a sleep spell and proceeded to one shot him. I used all the abilities at my disposal to maximize damage to ensure there would be no death saves. Afterwards, the player would not speak to me except aggressively whenever I saw him after. Was I wrong to kill this murder hobo in my first session with the group? Or should I have shown mercy to the newbie? I await the court’s judgement and sentencing.

Anonymous

Dear really cool and radical judges and also the bailiff who is cool too, I submit the case of the Troublesome Little Brother. Recently I agreed to teach my young nephews, L (11 years old) and N (7 years old) how to play dnd. L is deeply invested, and is having the time of his life. N, who is younger and less mature, is presenting some problems. During our first session, L created a Dragonborn paladin named George. N immediately created his character, Mega George, claiming that he was cooler, stronger and more powerful than “regular George”. He then proceeded to break the minis that I had put out (which I was using for my home game), lose most of my dice, and then when I suggested that he work together with George rather than attack him, he pulled down his pants and tried to poop on my floor. I do not know if this is normal behavior for a 7 year old. Their parents are thrilled that I am babysitting for them and have offered no solutions. I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to ruin dnd for L, but N just doesn’t seem old enough or mature enough to play. Please help

Anonymous

To the Vibrant Judges and The Bailiff Jake I present the case of: The Darkest Slog We were on a quest in the feywild to collect sugar crystals from a mine for a snooty high elf's daughter's wedding. This particular DM stood out from my other DM's in that his encounters were very difficult and heavily drained our resources. The monster's were also often creatures we had not encountered before. So, when we came across a patch of what seemed to be magical darkness we were cautiously curious (Well, at least I was). Then the party warlock (the only one who could see through it) went in, was attacked and immediately dropped to 0hp. Initiative was called and thus began the most frustrating, soul crushing, 3-hour slog I have ever experienced. All of our martials dropped in the darkness, we learned the darkness could move. The spellcasters were low on resources (me the druid, and an artificer), and unsure if our attacks had done damage. Any light that went in was immediately extinguished, and darkvision didn't work. Out of desperation, I asked if I could make a check to figure out how to deal with this thing. The DM asked me why I would want to do that, and that I already had all the information I needed to defeat this thing. But all I knew was this thing was dropping all of my party members and couldn't be dispelled. He then said the two spellcasters had the solution, which didn't narrow it down for me, and it was the same for the artificer. Several rounds passed with the downed players making secret death saves. In desperation me and the artificer used up the last of our abilities. My stars druid arrow constellation to do radiant damage and the artificer's cannon that did force damage. Finally, were able to take it down and luckily our friends had made their death saves. At the end of session the DM revealed that this monster was called living darkness, and only radiant and force damage would hurt it. In hindsight shooting a light arrow into the darkness makes sense, but having seen all lights we had brought into it including magical light, immediately extinguished, I thought it would be a waste of my last wildshape. Were we just overthinking this encounter and the solution to our detriment? Or were we right in our anger toward our DM giving unhelpful advice, and letting us flail in the dark for 3-hours? I throw myself at the mercy of the court. P.S. The campaign has since disbanded, and we went our separate ways. But this still weighs on my mind.

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. Anyway, 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?

Amelia (HolodeckQueen)

Honorable Shenanigans pro and against judges and potentially lowly bailiff. I am DMing my first game since I was 12 (I am now 26). I have a table of 5 pcs currently, with a 6th set to join in at the end of the summer (he is out of town). The 5 players have been working with me to build their characters in the world I'm building as we go (all but 1 are also first time players). However, one player insists on being from the real world who, when he died, was sent to the new realm. I'm allowing it with the stipulation of "I've worked really hard on this world (drew my own map, worked on lore, helped build back stories, etc.), please don't turn it into a cartoon". He agreed completely. Now my 6th player. The potential problem pc. We are (sort of) dating and I'm really excited to have him at my table. He also has very little experience, but a while back invited me to play with his old friends and I had a blast. He played a normal-ish character there no problem. However, in our game, he insists on being a thin mint girl scout cookie. He's going to be a Triton Tempest Domain Cleric who's God is Thor, but he wants Thor to also be a troupe leader and wants to flavor all of his spells to be cookie related. His character's name is Thinmint Von Gingersnap. I went along thinking he was joking at first, but it seems that he is not. I am working on talking him into some middle ground, but I worry I'm going to ruin his fun. Am I wrong for not allowing this anthropomorphic cookie man to play in my otherwise thought out, fantasy campaign, or am I being too harsh and should just try to roll with it? I am at the mercy of the court.

Anonymous

To the honorable judges and a great guy, Jake. I've been playing at the table with my girlfriend and a few of our friends. We rotate DMs and we always had a blast no matter who was running the game. In a recent session, where I was the DM, we were all partying beforehand and started late. We were finally getting into the game when my girlfriend was setting up her dice. The rest of us were having above-the-table talk about our last session, and what we got with our new level up! My girlfriend wasn't engaged and when I asked about us being ready for a recap: she told us she hadn't leveled up or picked any spells. I was immediately furious! I told her it's unacceptable to show up unprepared. It got heated and ultimately she toughed out the session. Now we haven't played in a month and it's a point of contention for us. I believe she was disrespectful to the table, and I also believe I was out of line in my confrontation. I understand she plays for fun, but it's hurtful to me that she won't accept responsibility that it takes a level of commitment to play. Should I be steadfast and play without her? I've been remorseful and explained to the table that how I acted wasnt right (though they supported me for standing up for myself).

Anonymous

No case, but welcome back and congratulations!!

Martian

Dear Supreme Crit Justices and Papa Bailiff Jake, whose wisdom equals the heavens and is only matched by y'all's beauty. I beseech thee to rule on a case of corruption and persecution not seen since the trial of Socrates! Long story short I play a hotheaded but ingenious Fairy Artificer named Zorn who, in an attempt to free other members of the party from the clutches of a hag, offered to play a game of hide and seek with the hag where we competed to try and find a child she was hunting. I knew she couldn't find the child within the time limit but didn't account for the hag to grow frustrated and start attacking us. I managed to hit her with a suggestion spell and get her to take us to her bedside while she takes a nap. I then told my entire party to ready attacks for when she fell asleep so that we could take her out all at once and then loot the place. There was some trepidation as we all barely survived my last plan when we encountered a hag but eventually I convinced them. Unfortunately the Hag survived the onslaught and we will be starting next session in combat. One of the players has called for a vote to oust my character if anyone dies in the encounter because my previous plans have also had similar rough spots but I maintain were ultimately successful. Please judges, should I be punished for merely trying to help my comrades and enrich our pockets? Is not some sacrifice necessary for the greater good? I bow at your feet and beg justice be done.

Anonymous

To the Honorable, Beautiful Judges and also.... Jake.... I have a question if I made a mistake letting a player become a Demon Lord? At the end of a 4 year weekly campaign, the last BBEG of the campaign was a fight against Orcus. The party was approached by a messenger of Asmodeus to get boons for the fight since they did not want demons to get a stronghold on the material plane. Some of the groups took the boons for the price of their soul. Before the fight the Barbarian sought out lore of Orcus and found out that he can only be killed on his home plane, and if he is killed on the material plane he will be resurrected on his home plane after a certain amount of time. At the last fight, Orcus showed up from a portal to his plane and fought the party. At the end of the fight my barbarian got the killing blow and then he told me that he wanted to do non lethal damage.... I let him, not knowing what he was planning, and he dragged Orcus back through the portal and killed him on his home plane. I was not expecting that and improved it that since he killed him on his plane he is now the Demon Lord of that plane. We play this campaign on the anniversary of our first time playing and now weekly we play a campaign that one of my players wanted to DM for. Now I have made it the mission of the group to save the barbarian and regain their souls for each anniversary one shot. It has been working out thankfully since I have such a great group, but did I make a mistake letting him become a Demon Lord? I look forward to the judgement of the court if I made the right choice in the moment as DM.

Anonymous

Dice Christ Advice - is my son and campaign cursed? Praise be to Dice Christ, I prostrate myself and ask for your advice. 2 years ago, I started my first home-brew campaign. At the same time, my wife and I had just welcomed our first son into the world. For fun, we had him roll the campaign’s first dice. We had to have him hold it in his hand and wait for him to drop it. His first ever roll in his life? A Nat 20. We took this as a sign of fortune both for the campaign and my son. 2 years later, the campaign is still going strong, and my son is growing up beautifully. I write to you now and take us back to a time when we had just welcomed our second son into the world (the same day Jake welcomed Gemma!). To keep the tradition going, we had him roll a D20. His first ever roll? A Nat 1. Dice Christ I ask for your help. Is my campaign now set to fail? Is my son cursed like Murph? Does Dice Christ look favourably on one son and not the other? As a loyal servant I will humbly wait for any advice you have, and act any way I need to ensure my sons have a prosperous dice filled life.

Anonymous

To the Honorable justices of the court, and the cool dad bailiff Jake. I bring to you the case of The Husband versus the DM. I DMed the module Waterdeep: Dragon Heist for my husband and a few of his friends. We were at the very end, which usually takes place in the vault. In one of the areas of the vault, there is an enthralling fresco, which requires players to make a DC 12 wisdom saving throw or be charmed by it for 24 hours. While charmed, you cannot willingly move out of sight of the fresco, and you defend to the death. After 24 hours, you can gain a level of exhaustion and can repeat the saving throw. This is straight from the book. (I usually don’t go strictly by the book but I thought this was cool) However, my husband failed the save and then saw fit to argue with me in front of everybody about the specifics of this challenge. I told him it was a charm effect, but said the rest of the details would be unknown. He then tried to use various things such as dispel magic, but I told him he was under the fresco’s spell and wouldn’t act against it. This bickering became awkward but eventually he let me continue. After the game I gave him a peak behind the screen of the specifics and told him he owed me an apology. Mighty and sultry members of the court, was he in the wrong to so brazenly challenge me, or was there something I could have done differently while still keeping the mystery of the setting? I will accept your ruling with the most wife worm type energy.

tacticalgrandma

Beloved justices and cardinals of the Rolly Spirit: After friending a fellow player on Steam (Jake this is a gaming platform), I noticed that they'll start playing an fps (Jake this is a kind of video game that requires your full attention) during sessions. They'll then often be confused about what's going on when it gets to their turn, or be unengaged in problem-solving and puzzles. Most recently, they booted it up right when my DM started narrating an Emotional Scene for my character. Is this an egregious enough breach of dice dogma that it warrants table tattling? Or do I just mute Steam notifications during gametime?

Anonymous

To the honorable Judges and dearly beloved Jacob, I present the case of the Burnt Out Players. A year or two ago I pitched my group a campaign where they would play fallen Greek gods on a quest to gain their godly powers back, not remembering why they fell. They weren’t completely sold on the idea but eventually agreed(except for one player who INSISTED on playing a talking squirrel). Session one I revealed to them that they had to travel to the Olympics where they would compete against other teams in an attempt to get their godly status back. When they arrived I had set up their main antagonist and his team that they would be facing as the final BBEG encounter. We almost made it to the end of the campaign, having done a few events at the Olympics where they then said they were burnt out and didn’t want to finish this game. Awhile later I asked them about finishing the game and they revealed they didn’t like the mechanics of the Olympics I had set up and didn’t wish to finish the campaign. So here I lay and humbly ask the judges, was I wronged that the party didn’t want to finish a campaign where part of the final encounter was contested skill checks, or is it ok to mix final encounters up sometimes with things like this? I accept any sentence wether favorable or not. PS. I played with this group on and off again for a while but haven’t played any games recently with them and instead DM two different games with other friend groups. PPS. There were 9 total events, including archery, a chariot race, 1v1 duels separated between casters and martials, and finally team vs team battle.

Anonymous

May it please the court and tickle the bailiff: I recently joined my boyfriend’s long-running campaign, in which he and his friends have been playing together for 6 years. I want to make a good impression and hope to find a sense of belonging at this table. I put a lot of time and effort into creating my PC, a level 15 Leonin Cleric, with a lengthy backstory and multitude of achievements that I created in sessions with the group’s DM. One of my tasks has been to create some followers or ally NPCs for my cleric to have been in touch with during her travels. Inspiration for a few of my followers came from fantasy characters; however, I had an idea to create a character based on a real person and I am unsure of how cringe this is. A friend of mine passed away unexpectedly last year and one of the cities where my cleric spent some time reminded me of him and his Polynesian heritage. I’ve thought about making a follower based on this person (who the others at the table do not know) as a way to remember him by. I think I would make the character loosely resemble him and give him a similar personality. I feel like there is something heartwarming about the idea of his memory living on in my game. Is this a nice idea, or am I crossing a line here? I don’t want to weird out my new table mates or make people uncomfortable. I’m not sure I would explicitly advertise I’m basing my follower on a deceased friend, but would I need to keep it a secret? I eagerly await your ruling.

Lorelei The Succubus and Kyra her busty Queen

Greetings and salutations to the wettest of judges and to the newly appointed Father Jake!(no way I could be mean to him first session back) so I play in a Greek themed campaign with a group I met online. After recently having a PC death, my player has come into over 1 years worth of out of game knowledge. Shortly after that session I got my player back, plus all this new information through memories and shared experiences. My question is simply this, how much lore should I diverge to the group? I really want to trickle just enough to keep everyone inticed and help the DM as best I can tell a thrilling narrative. I don't plan to just put everything I know, but having all the knowledge is killing me inside to let it burst like a balloon. I also just wanna be punished by you guys. ~Youre lovingly Lorelei. Ps step on me

Anonymous

forgive me dice christ for i have sinned this is my first confession i’ve ever had to give: My dnd party and i have regular sessions every week or so and relatively recently my dm has decreed a new, really radical houserule (one discussed during Dungeon Academy’s Contested Roll) about hiding death saves from the party and only the dm and player know the outcome. Well my character was ambushed by a trap and immediately dropped to do death saving rolls. i rolled my first save and it was a natural 20, excited i exclaimed this to the entire table! i only realized later my grievous error and apologized profusely to my dm (who was cool about it). Humble priests and i guess jake, is there anything i can do to make it up to my dm and party, or should i just keep rolling along and make sure this never happens again. Thank you for your time, i await my punishment.

Anonymous

May it please the court: I recently joined a new table of people that met online. We have been playing for 3 months and a couple of the other players have chosen to keep their characters very close to their chest. During combat, they will often say: ‘I do a thing.’ And move on. This really confuses me. We as a table, have come together to collectively tell a fun story, and some players consistently refuse to engage with the shared narrative. In a recent challenge, one of these character went invisible and even took their mini off the board for 2 rounds and basically ‘passed’ on their turn, saying: ‘none of you know what I’m doing.’ I have tried to bring this up with my dm and the table, where they used the excuse of: ‘the character is closed off and doesn’t trust you guys’. What should I do?

Anonymous

May it edge the court and bring Jake to completion. This is the case of the distracted player. I had a player that was constantly distracted while playing, on his phone, reading, or just generally not paying attention. He always seemed genuinely interested in the story but never seemed to pay enough attention to actually play. Eventually, since it was distracting to the rest of the party, I eventually told him it would be best if he no longer played at the table. He got really upset, but since we recorded and posted all of our campaign sessions, I thought it would be best to continue without the distraction. I ask the court, was I right to remove him from the table, or should I have done more as the DM to try to get him re-engaged at the table.

Dippity_Dip

This is in no way a dnd court case, but I found the most perfect example of “quick little makeups” from the iffy dnd court. Just look up pretty much any kissing scene from Gossip Girl - they all make out very quickly in public all the time

Anonymous

May it please the court, and the known horse lover Bailiff, I bring a contentious case of (fictional) horse cruelty vs (real) DM cruelty. Our table tends to play jerk characters but be good players, and if the DM asks us to do something, we’ll find an in-game reason to do so. The one exception was when he asked us to buy horses for travel, since he was finding the slow pace a grind. We laughed, and asked if he would give them plot armour? Previously, we’d each owned at least half a dozen horses, who would invariably die mid-journey to random encounters. Every time, his reasons for attacking the horses made sense - hungry owl bears looking for meat, hobgoblins looking to reduce our manoeuvrability, area of effect spells that auto fried them… the list goes on. Eventually, we just stopped buying horses because it was expensive and felt mean! Our DM said no, he’d continue to play by the best tactics of the monsters, so we shrugged, and suggested he get used to slow travel then. In desperation, he even offered us a quest for endless free horses deal in-game, but we still didn’t want to keep having our horses die, even if they were free, so we didn’t take it. I ask you, who was wrong here?

Anonymous

Dear all knowing and all wise Supreme Crit Justices and guy whose name I dare not utter, may I present to you the case of the bad attitude warlock. For some brief context this story took place a few years back when I first got to university and joined the tabletop roleplaying club. I was really excited to meet new people and share the hobby that I love, but that all quickly soured. Through the club's discord I got placed into a campaign that had only been running for a couple of sessions that was GM'ed by the club's president. How exciting! I quickly made my character, a Fallen Aasimar Undying Warlock named Nickel, after chatting with my DM about his world and could not wait to play. When the day of the session arrived I was ecstatic I went out and bought snacks and drinks to bring so I could help make a group impression on my (hopefully) new friends. The previous session had ended right before a fight with some cultists in a cave so my DM said "You will be a passerby outside the cave hearing the fight and will run in to help the party" followed by having me roll an athletics check after initiative was rolled. I got a nat 1 which became a 0 due to my strength dump stat. My DM said ok you can arrive in the fight after 6 rounds. In response I said, ok I cast fly on myself to fly there quicker, and he simply said "it does not work like that". Not wanting to argue and slow down the session, I accepted slowly floating through the tunnels towards the fight. Finally I arrive in the cave with the party of 3 nearly dead surrounded by swarms of enemies. Ready to jump into the action, I start my turn by narrating how my pupils darken and my ashen skin glows with pale light as tentacles from the underworld sprout from the ground to attack the cultists and cast Hunger of Hadar. The cultists went next and a big chunk of the already damaged cultists took cold damage at the start of their turn because of my spell. The GM seeing that my damage would be enough to wipe most of the cultists said "Oh shoot I forgot that the wizard recognizes your spell and casts counter spell on it" This is the first time the wizard had ever been mentioned or even cast a spell in this combat that had been going for over an hour at my point of arrival. I was very frustrated at this point and asked my GM "why hasn't the wizard cast any spells until now?" to which he just shrugged. At this point I just gave up after using my all two of my spell slots for nothing and after the session told the GM I would not be returning because I think we have different playstyles. He seemed genuinely shocked and confused followed by trying to explain to me "if you had a better attitude and didn't have to be the main character maybe I would enjoy his games more." I plead the court, was this GM power tripping or was I a poor sport leaving the game after one session and not powering through?

Anonymous

May it please the supreme crit justices, newly appointed judges, and... Jake. As a constant DM that enjoys writing, I have taken on a DM persona type character which is an Ingame npc bard that writes of my players character adventures. Given the opportunity to fill in for a missing player in another campaign, of people I had only met once, I decided to actually play the bard in question. I was asked to arrive early to play one on one with the DM to get caught up on the story. It was off to a good start; mystery, fighting, and role play. Although with some odd subtle themes of rape. I did not think much of it at first, but as the main villain of the story entered the game, things took a slight turn. The DM described with great enthusiasm and gestures how the villain cast hold person on my character, then groped and humiliated my helpless character sexually. I was as stunned as my bard character, and at this moment the other players arrived to the session, the villain retreated and the pre game was broken off. The planned session kept going with the other players and the next arc of the story for another few uncomfortable hours. With many of the same themes, although the villain did not appear again to harass the others in the same manner. At the end I thanked everyone for the session and proceeded to never speak to these people again. It has left a lingering mark of sorts on my DM Persona, perhaps it has left a mark on me? alas it is all make believe. I ask, how engaged is it healthy to be with the stories that we make? and, should I have played along with the theme the DM and other players set?

ksm11

Dearest esteemed judges of the high crit, (and that one guy who guested on 8-bit book club that one time) I must ask you to absolve me of my sins so that I may once again look upon the glory Dice Christ without a feeling of shame in my heart. I recently joined a campaign that some of my coworkers have been playing together for a few years, and I might have potentially used some minor deception to convince them to allow me to join them. It got started when one of my coworkers, let's call him Todd, and I were discussing some of our hobbies. He'd mentioned that was a big Dnd fan, and I responded back that I was as well. After a few minutes of talking he ended up mentioning that he and a few of our other co-workers and their SO's all get together a few times a month for a home game. He said that if I was interested I should tag along to their next session, and that I could even join if I wanted. I'm already acquainted with several of the other players, and none of them have any problems with me joining. Here's where my lie begins, when they ask me if I have a lot of experience with Dnd I answer yes, and that I have 5 or so years worth and several different campaigns under my belt. Several of them are very excited by this news, a few of them aren't very experienced and have only been playing for a short while. They tell me that they're looking forward to having a more experienced player at the table. Here's the problem, I've never actually played DND before. All of my experience comes from listening to podcasts, mainly this one and a few others on occasion. The group is meeting up this weekend, and the dm has contacted me and said that he wants to talk in person later in the week to hash out the details of what my character will be. At this point, I think I'm too far in to back out now, so I'm just going to do my best to wing it. Please forgive me o guardian of the dice, and grant me the fortitude to bs my way through these troubling times.

Anonymous

Dear Esteemed veteran justices and the steamy Baliff Tucker. I am currently playing a low fantasy campaign where I play an Orc Barbarian called Thragg. Another player plays Thraggs, brother Vaelmir and the other two members of our Party are Ykir and Akeem, also brothers. In an ancient sunken citadel we discovered a baby white Dragon, which Vaelmir and I promptly injured and put to sleep the dragon, on about 1hp. Fascinated by the creature, as the DM had stated how rare dragons are in this world, we wanted to take it with us. However Ykir, our sorcerer, was put down by the dragon and after being healed back up proceeded to kill the baby Dragon in cold blood, stating his character felt enraged at the dragon for hurting him. This was very fun to roleplay as Thragg and Vaelmir were about as angry as IRL we argued about whether this was okay to do without the party's consent. Which the DM ruled that it was okay. Me, Vaelmir and Akeem felt mildly salty about it, but we have continued to play the campaign and are having a blast. However, dearest justice's, we're we right to feel robbed by 1 player making a decision for the party? Or are members of a party allowed to make radical decisions for the sake of good roleplay? I leave my case, and my heart, at your absolute and unyielding mercy.

Anonymous

Dear 2 of my 3 favorite Justices, my favorite City Pigeon, and the Bailiff who is the best of them all. I present to you the case of the Forced Departure of an NPC. I DM for a group of my friends, of whom most have been playing for over ten years. 2 of my players are brand new to the game and one of them I recently got hooked into Naddpod. During one of our sessions he drew from the Deck of Many Things and got the Knight card. So i decided to give him his very own weak dad knight in Nalbor. He instantly became super attached to Nalbor and stated he would die for him gladly. After a handful more sessions one of our other friends told me he wanted to join our campaign, to which we gladly welcomed him. However this gave us a party of 5, so I felt there was no more need for Nalbor to help the party with combat, and decided it would be best for Nalbor to leave the party. During a trip to the Feywild I had the Fey Queen fall in love with him and ask him to stay and rule over the Fey with her to which he accepted. This made my one player super upset as he did not wish to see Nalbor go. We slightly argued over it for about 5 minutes before he conceded as long as he could come and visit Nalbor, to which I agreed. Was I wrong to take away my players favorite NPC for my own reasons or am I guilty of being a selfish DM? I humbly await the verdict of the Justices.

Anonymous

Benevolent Bishops of Dice Christ, I come to you not with a confession but with an eye-witness account: In 2016 during my first-ever time DMing featuring a party of mostly brand new players, I had the group do the classic "meet in a tavern" and most of the session was RP for the characters to get to know each other before being offered a quest. Toward the end of the session, the Fighter decided to get a room and turn in for the night. IRL the Fighter's player was both in college and working long nights and was nodding off for real. After a bit more RP and shenanigans, the rest of the party decided to turn in as well. Queue the Rogue, who did not want to pay for a room with her own money. She described sneaking into the Fighter's room and attempting to steal just enough coin to pay for a room. I had her roll a Sleight of Hand check - I don't recall the number but it was between 15-20. I woke up the Fighter/player and had her roll a Perception check. Nat 20. I described the scene as being the Rouge doing a perfect job getting into the room and sneaking up to the sleeping Fighter but when it came time to steal the coin, the Fighter, eyes closed, snatched the Rogue's hand before she could get to her coin pouch. "What are you doing?" asked the Fighter "Just making sure you're tucked in, good night!" replied the Rogue as she quickly went to her own room. Dice Christ be praised.

Anonymous

To the magnanimous Justices and the staggeringly handsome new daddy bailiff, Jormp, I present to you the case of the too-quick Quickened Spell - (may it please The Court): I've been running a homebrew campaign for the better part of 3 years, and in a recent boss fight against Mask, the god of shadows and thieves, my players got completely whomped. I flavored Mask as a level-20 sorcerer and used Quickened Spell more than once to cast crowd-control spells like Hold Person or Telekinesis and then to do bonus action damage - but not with cantrips. By the end of the fight, one player was down and two were banished to the Nine Hells. Everyone is enjoying the adventure in Avernus, but the look of defeat on their faces haunts me to this day. Was I justified in overpowering a literal god, or should I be flogged for completely misunderstanding Quickened Spell? I await your verdict.

Anonymous

No cases for the Justices nor a confession for Dice Christ but I pop my head into whatever courtroom or office our Beloved Bailiff Jake is diligently working away in to tell him we're so glad to have him back, and hope his new little one and his lovely wife are doing well! ❤️

Toni Conge

Honorable Justices and Deplorable Worm of a Balife. My players were in combat with some Gnomes. The Bard and Druid had entered the room when the Gnomes ambushed them. The Sorcerer "Shadow Umbrix" (such a cool name) was in the previous room still and says she cast Fireball at the Gnomes. I say "Okay so you poke your head into the room launch the Fireball then run back" The player insist that their Sorcerer should be allowed to place a Fireball in the room with the Gnomes despite not having line of sight. Justices I demand that Shadow Umbrix requires line of sight!

Anonymous

Dear Bodacious Justices and Also New Dad Bailiff Jackson, I present the case of the Uneasy Friendship- My Fiancé and I are 2 years into our DND obsession and i was declared our forever DM, we have 2 couples that also shared our love for DND. Couple 1 was the first to be involved and were very excited to have their characters story told, while also guilt tripping me for not inviting Couple 2. Taking the hint I invited both couples in and we proceeded to only play twice before the first couple stopped replying to my invites to sessions. 4 months later and we decided to start a separate campaign with couple 2, after hear of this couple 1 then proceeded to complain that they were just burned out and tired of playing and felt like they weren’t receiving enough attention even though neither of them spoke to me. Am I in the wrong for starting a new campaign without them? I await your judgement- Derek

Anonymous

May it please Bailiff John, Justices Caldwell and Axford and infuriate Justice Murphy I bring to you the case of the magically aged Verdan. My group is playing an Acq inc campaign and while we were fighting a Ghost several us failed our saves by a lot on Horrifying Visage. As we began to all rapidly age our Verdan bard, Norvie, suggested that this reveal what her future form would look like. It would have no mechanical effect, but roleplaying about what physical changes were to come and Norvie's shocked reaction seemed like a fun opportunity. Now technically Verdan don't transform until they reach level 5 and we were all still level 3. Our DM shut it down and was not happy that the whole group was all for it and told our bard player that this idea should have been brought up privately. Norvie became a wrinkled old version of her current form and everything continued smoothly, but I ask you Justices should we have got a sneak peak at what our Bard was to become, should Norvie have taken our DM aside and asked privately or was our DM right to say that is not how Verdan work RAW? I should add it was said that as soon as we cured ourselves Norvie would go back to their original form. My magically aged self awaits your infinitely wise ruling from my rocking chair.

Anonymous

Dearest judges of the highest crit court and the lowly lowly Baliff Rake. My partner and a few of our friends have been playing in a homebrew gestalt campaign going on now for nearly 2 years. In our last session, my character, a level 12 Bardaladin (Bard/Paladin) went down with the dragon boss threatening my other 2 party members to leave or he would effectively crush me to death. I intentionally stayed quiet since my character was unconscious. I wanted to give my party members a chance to role play and deliberate because I tend to be a bigger role-player in the group. I could tell one of them was a little stressed about not having my input, so I assured them that whatever they chose, I as a player would be okay and to do what they felt they needed to do. Ultimately they chose to attack (which my character would have fully supported) and I had to make death saves that I ultimately succeeded on. It was a risky move but it made the session really fun, if a little tense. My question is: should I have been more involved in the conversation to attack or retreat? Or was I right in letting my party members make a decision that could effect the fate of my beloved character?

Anonymous

hello lovely dungeon deity's including jake and his polycule ? i also think caldwel will like this one. I come to tell the tale of Matten the madleomon who died(exploded) in the first and only session that was held of a homebrew of a pretty serious digimon dnd mix where the races were different digimon who had whole fleshed out traits for every digimon. But back to matten during the first non character creating game me and the other two players both a bit older men one of which was the partner of the dm we were bounty hunters i believe but we play for a bit and then we cut to us waking up with bands on with a number 5 on it so i was impulsive and said i tap it five times after i did tap it once and it went down and the dm then explained me dying and ended the session we didnt end up playing again ever again for different reasons but i come to you all today too see if matten died justly there was no rolls of any death saves no real attempt to warn me i would die i was shocked afterwards because i had just figured out how my character would sound and how hes a fraud and wants people to think hes just a normal leomon but i lay at your dice riddled feet give me judgement

Anonymous

Greetings Honorable Judges and Baliff (who is of corse the most important man in the court) i come to you with a case of my own failure: We play a pirate themed campaign with the party being part of a larger Crew. Recently, the ship came across an island that was devided in a desert half and a forest half because, as the party would learn, there was a empowered decanter of endless water feeding a river that went to one side. the players were supposed to even out the field by eather fighting or negotiating on behalft of the desert tribe against the forest people. instead the crew voted to steal the item for themselves, robbing the entire island of their resources. (npcs under my control were part of the votes, since they were dickheads some voted to steal) so a part of the crew, including one PC went to go for the theft, another PC got help from the desert people and the wood people to try and stop them. the party is lvl 5 the crew is a bit weaker. the problem is. i decided beforehand that the island people were commoners. to make the party’s impact more significant. this lead to the stealing group MURDERING all 28 guards and support from both island groups and that bard PC in disguise that led them. The pc barely survived my rolling a nat 20 on his last death save and stealthing away. now the player thinks about leaving the group because she doesn’t feel comfortable anymore, the bard definitely left the party. i ask you judges, should i have fudged the vote or the combat to stop the theft, or was i right in letting things just play out? i humbly await your judgement and possible punishment

-DivThePervDrowBard-

Greetings supreme crit justices and our best boi bailiff. I present you a case of consequences, most of it my own making. Our DM has stressed that no matter what we do, there will be consequences and we have coined the term FAFO (Fuck Around and Find Out). I play a Cleric of Pelor, who has been cursed by an succubus called Bo, to have bad luck, because Naz walked in on Bo and her ex-girlfriend sleeping together (willingly may I add). Recently, on the rare full night sleep, Naz had a lead to go to an Arcane University to look up demon princes or bosses that relate to Bo. It was discovered that while things were patched up with Bo and Naz, Bo could not remove the curse as her boss was still keeping it on her. With no experience with demons or its language or how they work, Naz was shown a book on demon princes and did not understand infernal. Frustrated at ending up at a dead end, she asked if there were any names that she could use who would be useful to her to find a demon prince that can help with her curse. She was given three: Void, Leviathan and Orcus. On my part, I noticed the summoning circle and my party joked that I should summon them. Now, side note: my character was on her own as the rest of the entire party chose to stay in the inn, Naz had asked if anyone wanted to come but they all said no as they wanted to wait for the new quest giver (that is five people). Naz being average intelligence thought she would push her temporary good luck and simply said the name Orcus. That was more then enough to summon the big guy, it lead to Naz making a contract with him, she did not give him her name but rather a vague title. She was shocked, embarrassed and scared that she – a cleric- summoned on e of the biggest and baddest demons. Naz asked of Orcus to find a succubus called Bo in a town in the middle of no where because she needed to find out Bo’s bosses name. (a small detail my dm forgets) in return, Orcus asked Naz not to speak of his name ever again. Naz shook on it, gaining a flaming contract seared into that arms flesh. Now, cut to last nights session, Naz had come clean on her deal to her party and feels pretty bad about it as they now hear news of towns in the countryside being attacked by demons. Her party offered to help, sneak into a library and get information on any demons, they grabbed 5 random books (two cook books, one mortgage broker book, one erotica and one on fortune telling) One party member went to the local brothel, found Bo, and was charmed to find Naz and bring her to them. Now, dear court, I am feeling incredibly guilty for my actions and ask for advice on what to do as I have lost confidence on how to play my character and Naz being honest in the past has done more harm then good. What should I do? How do I rise above this or am I doomed to bring darkness to our world? Punish me how you will

Anonymous

Can you say a prayer to Dice Christ for me to find my lost dice? Prior to the pandemic I had a collection of dice I used for gaming that I collected over the years in a cute cat themed bag. Then the pandemic and all gaming was virtual and the dice bag was set aside. Now that I have opportunities for in person play I can't find it. I've turned over my rooms looking for it to no avail. Please light a candle and say a prayer for my lost dice please.

Anonymous

To the Honorable Supreme CRICK Justices and the very kind bailiff Jail, I present to you the case of the Confusing Cow. My party of three in our very close knit home game were traveling on a ship and I decided my character wanted to do something nice for the crew. So the party Druid wildshaped into a cow so that we could provide milk for everyone on board. Our DM asked me to role an animal handling check, and though untrained I rolled a Nat 20. My DM then went on to explain that when I tried to milk the cow I instead caused it to orgasm. In asking him if I had also accomplished gathering any milk from my actions the DM said No. Should I have been granted milk for the crew or was our DM astute in his givings and takings. I humbly await your bovine expertise and judgement. -KDP

remi patton-elias johnson

hail and well met, honorable and diligent supreme crit justices and the baliff who i offer my sincerest congratulations to, but you can razz him too, i'm cool with that. i dm a pathfinder second edition campaign with some friends of mine that due to the dreaded scheduling issues lost its healer a couple months back. despite that, the party has faired pretty well sans healer, right up until they went up against their greatest enemy: some bees. the party had handily defeated a war council of gremlins in the room prior, and had been warned about the bees by a group of npcs they'd ran into a few minutes before, but the bees proved too much for them and two of my three party members went down. panicking, because what the fuck, you weren't supposed to die to the bees, i asked them to wait a moment before rolling their death checks (in pf2e, you roll four of them at increasing difficulties to pass) so that i could roleplay one of the npcs from earlier coming back and helping (since these npcs are their friends and housemates and would probably check up on them). but alas, due to discord (both the platform and the situation) and some crosstalk, my players didn't hear me and rolled anyway. both pcs died. TO BEES. since i had been trying to get them to stop, i offered them a choice: to have those rolls count and the pc die, or to rule that since i had essentially hit pause before they rolled, their pc survived. one player chose to survive while the other chose to die, and it's made for some fun roleplay moments since then. but, humble justices, i ask you this: should i have given them the choice? should i have just let them both die to bees? or should both of them have survived? i submit myself to your almighty will and judgement.

Anonymous

To the lowly daddy bailiff james and the esteemed Yaunts and Yuncles of the court. I once DMed a homebrew campaign with some new players where, after earning some gold, I gave them a chance to spend it at some shops in town. One such shop was an alchemist. One of the new players attempted to bargin with the alchemist, claiming that she only wanted half of an invisibility potion because she only needed to be half invisible. Naturally, she rolled a nat 1 persuasion check, so the alchemist became outraged at her suggestion and kicked her out. The players then spent roughly 15 real life minutes arguing with me that “potions should absolutely work like that” even though I told them it would be absolutely insane of me to allow that. Ultimately I won in the end but I still get jokes about it years later. Do the enlighten minds of the court believe that drinking half a potion should have half the effect? Or do you side with me, the only reasonable person in a sea of loonie toons characters. I yield the remainder of my time. (Also for what it’s worth this episode will air on my 21st birthday)

Anonymous

Hi honorable Justices!! Aaand the guy that got his tongue kicked off by Amir (congrats! On the baby thing not the Amir thing) I present unto ye the case of: Just Being Kinda Paranoid? Back when I tried playing D&D after only listening to it for a while, I had a nice time improvising and supporting other players, trying to help them shine, but I found myself in multiple situations where I wanted to make sure a success was a success? I don't think I asked too many questions or investigated too hard, I know Emily has mentioned also feeling like that may bog things down, but after we would save someone from a dungeon, for example, they were sort of expected to make it back to town on their own? I felt they may get captured again or killed or something. So I would quickly separate to escort the person back to town. I guess no one else thought it was serious enough to come with me, but no one seemed too bothered and when we cut over to my escort scene I was very conscious to get it over with and was literally like "Okay, you're safe now, wish ya well, buh-bye" while still being nice. Maybe the DM let that scene go on a bit longer cause it did get a little cute and flirty as I was trying to quickly get back to the rest of the team, but I did try to keep it short and I think I did! Things like this happened a few times, I tried to save some dog minions a villain used that no one else felt too bad about killing but they did nicely help me save them, there was some big innocent bug grunts had tied up and beat up in a dungeon that I escorted out to make sure it didn't get captured again as there were lots of hidden rooms that could have more grunts, and I'm pretty sure there was some villain that we knocked out but were just going to leave around and I was the only one that wanted to make sure he wouldn't be a problem so I quickly dropped him off in a jail? I did try to make extra sure that would be okay, I remember asking whoever was in charge of the jail if they ever had break-outs and if they think they'd be fine and stuff? I think the DM had a nice time joking and making them seem probably good but potentially incompetent... So, all this to say: Do you think I was being annoying? I guess I probably didn't want to leave much room for getting tricked. I know getting tricked can be fun! But maybe seeing someone we saved and then sent off to get hurt again - that doesn't seem so fun. And the DM never did it, so it's not as though I was specifically responding to some slight. In the end it was a nice campaign with fun memories but a fellow player who intended to play another campaign, potentially with me, did one-on-one gently say that we probably kind of had different styles that didn't exactly go great together? I dunno about that, but no worries! It was a bit of a relief since I was thinking of how to let down the others that I didn't really want to continue for the sheer amount of time required at the time. Nowadays I think I probably just prefer listening and watching rather than playing D&D but hey maybe I'll try again in the future, who knows? But when I do...do you think I should cool it on making sure things are fine or what?

Anonymous

Esteemed Justices & ol' Bay Jay, I fear that I have unleashed mayhem upon my table. I ran a one shot years ago, and one of my new players, with my aid, created DaButt the sexy fish: a simple martial character, a Locathah Blood Hunter with high ass-kicking potential and very few abilities to keep track of, as the player had requested. She grew bored of kicking ass almost immediately, and spent the game attempting to seduce absolutely everyone. Although the one shot was a success, the player became hooked on DaButt. She plays DaButt in every game, and every session featuring DaButt is so chock-full of shenanigans that there is little time for anything but. Our heist became a jail break after DaButt got arrested for taking a commoner's baby and trying to do back flips with it to charm the crowded marketplace. Our getaway scene became a rescue missions after DaButt spent four consecutive rounds of combat standing in place and trying to convince a military ship full of soldiers shooting at her to let her come aboard for an orgy. Our post game discussions became tricky after she expressed frustration at how DaButt kept getting captured and knocked unconscious. I have considered "losing" DaButt's character sheet, but I don't want to disappoint my friend. Your Honors, should I try to steer this player towards new characters and new choices, or must I accept that every campaign featuring DaButt will become a DaButt campaign and surrender to the riptide of zany mishaps? I prostate myself before the Supreme Crit PS, can't wait to see you all in Chicago!

Anonymous

Hey supreme crit or whatever, and my boy Jake the plaintiff. I have a PC that imbibes a solid constitution throw’s worth of beverages before sessions and I have a bit of trouble sometimes deciding whether it’s okay. See, he’s a great role player, and is frequently the only one who uses a voice and gets ‘into character’, which is fun for me as a DM, but it feels like it may be a bit too much energy for the min/max gamers that we play with. I don’t think he’s ever gotten too cray to stay, but I worry that by letting him let loose I may be condemning my less exciting PCs to a night of unwanted excess in their pursuit of numerical success. Am I wrong in not asking him to tone it down? Ps. He is my brother and working to start DMing because he thinks my friends might not be into the role playing as much and I haven’t been able to DM since I had my daughter. ~best, ~bigsackdragon

Carter Carter

Grand council, honorable justices (and the lowly bailiff) of the Supreme crit, I bring before you my case. I think my DM may have it out against me…. I play in a campaign with my roomate (the DM) and some of her friends. They are all fairly new to the game while I have been playing for a couple of years. It has been a really fun game so far….mostly…. My DM is constantly asking me to roll. Everytime I make a choice. BOOM! Roll! The problem is that everytime another PC attempts to do the same moves as me, there is no roll and it is an auto success. For example, last session, my party and I were running off from a group of angry drunks. I was asked to do an athletics check to run. When I, a first level sorcerer failed the DC 15 athletics check, my DM narrated me falling into a pile of shit and getting caught by the group. The other members of my party were allowed to run without checks (and without being covered in shit). Am I being overdramatic or is my DM out to get me?

Anonymous

Hello Supreme Crit and Bailiff I have a case concerning a friend of mine who’s trying her hand at DMing and might be overstepping. I’m playing a campaign as a drowned warlock with some friends of my DM and things are getting rocky. It first started with our character intros. My character met our scholarly wizard who writes everything she sees in her notebook. In the first session, the DM sends me a private message, saying that the wizard has dropped her notebook, and that I pick it up. At the end of the session it’s revealed that I have the notebook, and when I offered to give it back, apparently I have ruined it with my drowned warlock wet ocean hands, and the wizard is furious. In our second session, we need to get a boat to travel to where we’re headed, and my character being a sailor, is the one captaining it. My DM says “player name, you start to steer the ship in the wrong direction, into the middle of the ocean”. When I start to protest saying that I don’t want to do this, she says it’s because my Patron is calling me that way, and that I lose control of myself. My team members have to tie me up Odyssey style. And we come to our fifth session, when I get to meet my patron for the first time. Our DM admonishes me as my patron, saying that I have been disobeying his orders by not taking the boat into the middle of the ocean, and threatens to take away my warlock powers if I don’t listen in the future. A few times my dm has made me make wisdom saving rolls to control myself, but not always. These instances of my character being driven by her patron are causing small spats in the group. I feel like my dm is oversteping her boundaries by telling me what my character does, but is it within the dm’s right to control a warlock as a patron? I await your deepest of crit knowledge.

Anonymous

My brave and benevolent godly crit justices, and guest star Jake. I was doing a one shot with my girlfriend with my cause as the DM, I have played a good amount but my girlfriend had no experience in D&D at all, I played a Dwarven ranger and my girlfriend was a Dragon born barbarian, I was trying to get information from a tranp and Attempt to determine a temptation check to keep his lips tight and rolled middling, my girlfriend decided to give it a shot and rolled a nat 20, the DM proceeded to describe the tramp being scared death, and the towns people being afraid mad and disgusted, me and my girlfriend said it was ridiculous for it to be a murder! Tbh we never figured the one shot but I look back on it and think she was wronged to be framed as a killer but I await your judgment

Anonymous

Case of the ghosting dm. May it please the esteemed judges and Jake the Dog. I was a first time player a couple years ago and found a group on roll 20 to play a curse of strahd campaign. With the dm’s own “special changes”. He promised that it would be super fun and a good first campaign for me. Then we started and let me tell you, it was a horrible experience. We had a kid in the party who didn’t know how to use either discord or roll 20 or how any type of combat proceeded. Which is fine I’m a new player too. But if you still don’t know a single thing about it by the third session that’s a problem. We also had someone who would constantly be on their phone and we’d have to wait for them to catch up to what we’d been doing when not their turn. Not just in combat but for everything. One time we even got on and he was playing another video game during the session and told us he had to wait to do his turn in combat after his game ended. After that session we planned another. The morning of the session, I woke up to find that the dm kicked everyone out of the discord and disbanded the roll 20 campaign and blocked everyone from messaging him on discord and roll 20. He then posted in the official dnd discord looking for a group for curse of strahd campaign. Should the dm have told us that our group wasn’t working out and that our party needed to end or was he right to ghost this insane player group? Ps. I joined another group playing a Star Wars campaign and am having a blast. So this first experience didn’t ruin dnd for me :)

KCampbell

Not a case, but welcome back Jake! Hope everything is going well with the baby and mom is recovering well.

Anonymous

The Case of the Devious DM and the Problematic Player. May this find the ears of the supreme justices and the even more supreme bailiff Josh. Or was it Justin? I used to play in a D&D group that had effectively poached some players from a different D&D group (unrelated to the story). Both that game and the game this case is about were very lighthearted, and not serious games which took me a bit to grapple with, but I eventually got over. The DM and player in question were close friends and had known each other for a long time. As this was an online game, almost everyone new each other only a bit except for those two who knew each other IRL. I didnt care about that at all until they started to message each other during our sessions, when the problem player's character went off alone to do who knows what. Again, I didnt mind this too much. The straw that broke the camel's back was when the problem player's character met back up with the party, after having gone off alone, but this time, came back yoked out in magic items. He had some powerful shit such as +3 armor, a homebrew hammer that could turn into any tool he pleased as well as any +2 weapon, as well as similarly powerful items. I should also note, we were all level 6. After seeing this, I asked if I could talk to the dm (who is a really cool guy when not doing stuff with the other player behind our backs.) I wanted to talk to him about why he gave the player's character such op shit, and he said something along the lines of, "He is my friend so when he DMed me about wanting to go do a dungeon wile the rest of you guys fuck around, I of course obliged." I was left speechless and due to the unfairness of the game as well as the lack of fun I was having, I left soon after, though I stayed in contact with the DM and some of the players. One last thing, the problem player's character was one from a previous campaign that both him, and the DM played in previously. That campaign was set in Eberron wile this one was set in Faerun, so two completely different worlds. Everything that the character did in the previous campaign, carried over to this one, say for the his level. Now I ask you all, should I not have left? Should I give them a second chance? Or did I make the right decision? I rest my fate in the hands of the justices as well as the bailiff Jared.

Anonymous

Dearest Supreme Court Justices and Baliff Jake, who is not dear to me, I come before you today with the case of a stolen character moment and a near-death experience. I play a Paladin of Corellon, the Patron of Elves and God of Art and Music. My character had her sense of wonder stolen as a child by a hag. Undoubtedly, wonder is integral to my god's domain, and my character feared being declared unworthy of her Paladin class and shunned by her god and newfound friends. During our last session, while trying to stay hidden and searching in a scooby-doo-esk fashion for our stolen gear, my character found her gear and the lost sense of wonder through sheer luck. I had envisioned this as a significant character moment. I had even gone so far as to practice describing the whimsy and joy returning to her eyes, the feeling of profound kinship with the party and the first smile in over a decade returning to her face. However, my DM swiftly took over the narration, and I didn't even get a chance to speak before we were thrust into battle. In the ensuing battle, I miraculously survived despite being struck ten times in a single round. The DM explained that the enemies were aiming to stun, not kill. Although I should be grateful that my beloved Paladin lives on, I left the session feeling disheartened. Esteemed Court, I seek your judgment on whether it is justified for me to feel bitter about my DM taking away my character moment, or if I should embrace wonder and gratitude for my Paladin's continued existence. I humbly await your judgment Sincerely, A Wonder-struck down Paladin

Nick Lerche

The case of the congrats jake! So happy for you and Jill and Tucker!

Anonymous

Welcome back Jake! We had no idea where to put our coats while you were gone!

Anonymous

A confessional before the chief popes of the church of dice Christ I humble myself before the triumvirate of popes and also Jackson i have come to confess a sin of getting too excited about an idea. While on a date recently my date expressed they had an interest in D&D we went back and forth about some of our fav podcasts (good luck for me she’s not a listener of NaddPod, which is bad luck for her) In the conversation and after a few bud heavys, we landed on the subject “Game of Thrones but for Whales” and I proceeded to spiral into an amount of Freeform lore that can only be described as a vision from the dice themselves: Game of thrones but it’s whales and dolphins after humanity has been wiped out by global flooding from climate change High political intrigue of a hyper intelligent sea mammals living in the flooded wreckage of society A clan of sharks having dominion over the state of Florida and the American south, have a working class of manatee as their main citizens that weave sea textiles The tops of the Rockies are still above water and the seals and sea lions claimed that land Their main commerce is penguins they raise as livestock. The Midwest us has been taken over by bottom feeders like catfish from all the rivers, but it’s so much deeper now that they evolved to be like angler fish with little lights bc it’s dark down there now since the Midwest is basically one big bowl. The north east, New England area is run by baleen whales and there are crab farmers tending the coral huge reef that used to be manhattan, which attracts all the krill the whales want and in exchange the whales protect them from the southern raiding sharks. The west coast is the kings landing capital of the empire, originally founded by the dolphins left in sea world they were over thrown and exiled. There’s a young dolphin last of the line like Daenerys Targaryen, who is the mother of squids, three long extinct giant squid. The rich tyrell family can be humpback whales in the pacific north west, redwoods evolved to grow incredibly tall and poke out of the water, so they have a lumber empire. This seemed to put her off and I haven’t heard from her since. Please help me forgive myself for getting too excited about a bit.

Anonymous

Most High Judges of the Supreme Crit, and the bailiff of little consequence, I present the case of The People v. Unicorn Inflation: I've been playing remotely in a homebrew campaign since moving to another city in order to stay in touch with my friends there. We were Level 6 and in the Fey Wild attempting to assist the Lady of the Wood, a unicorn who had been mortally wounded by a cursed sword in the hands of the crazed antagonist trying to gain the unicorn's power. As a druid, I used several of my class abilities, spells, and some decent role-playing (if I may say so, myself) to gain her trust. We vanquished the antagonist and lifted the curse, healing the unicorn in the process. In return, she gifted me with a single hair from her mane which, if used, would summon her temporarily to my aid in a moment of great peril. An amazing gift (a-la Galadriel and Gimli) and a satisfying moment for my character. Well. Then the drunk, irreverent-yet-pious tiefling paladin (a vital part of our party played by a good, good friend--no hate) steps forward and asks the unicorn if he can ride her. Our DM clunked to a stop in his narrative tracks, panic-Googled, and then read out loud with little confidence that apparently paladins, considering their typically high standard of moral conduct, were of the few classes which a unicorn might permit as a rider. To which he ruled, "Uh...yeah. So, I guess she lets you ride her," with no charisma roll and little role-playing. Ever since, our paladin has been riding this incredibly powerful, sentient creature and I'm still carrying the single, golden hair from her mane which is now relatively worthless considering the unicorn is always accompanying our party. So I ask you, esteemed judges, am I a victim of unicorn inflation? Should my hard-earned treasure have become akin to a few pennies at the off-handed whims of our bumbling paladin? Or should I celebrate my friend's unlikely success after shooting his shot and scoring big? I humbly await your righteous judgment, G-Money

Anonymous

To the finest members of the court and to the joke…. I mean Jake, that is the the lowlyest… umm I meant lovelyest bailiff. I bring forward to you the case of the cutscene conundrum. I had created what I thought was to be a quick one shot session. The party were bought to the floating city of Sparrows Ridge by the great Wizard Balthazar. They chose to investigate the going’s on in the town and collect a stolen scroll to which Balthazar had the other three for safekeeping. After countless hours of puzzles and searching, the party finally defeated the big boss in a spider mech who they had found out would have been able to destroy the city with meteor swarm if he had gotten his hands on all four scrolls. At this point the party sat round the table and looked weary, I noticed a player yawning and so I began to panic. ‘I’m just very tired’ was the response from the player when I asked if everyone was good. But I had a cliffhanger planned so that the party could potentially play once again with these characters (I doubt they will now) I therefore cutscened the remainder of the session so my players didn’t fall asleep. With the bad guy defeated I described how the party returned to Balthazar via the cities transportation system of rocket ships, steam punk style, and down to the port below. When they reconvened I gave the players a choice as to wether they handed the final scroll to Balthazar or not. They of course trusted the wizard with their life and handed it over. This is where i then cutscened the moment the friendly wizard became a seething world destroying monster. With the fourth scroll the wizard had planned all along that he would destroy the city and become the rightful ruler of chaos. At this point of course you can imagine the players tried to stop him. But instead of letting them I had him destroy the city behind as the players watched and I ended the session there. This same tired player was extremely cross, leaving the screen, (as we were playing in the lockdown) screaming ‘you have to let the players play!’ There was a horrible silence but the other players said they enjoyed themselves. Was I wrong to not let the players interfere with my ideas and plans for a following campaign because of one tired soul? Or was I right to cutscene the hell out of the end and destroy my players hard work and dedication to the game? That is for you to decide my lovely court and the bailiff joke ah I mean jake!

Anonymous

To the highest and most honorable members of the crit and the bailiff Jake. I bring to the court a case that is a few years old about a new player whos meda gaming was left unpunished. So this campaign has gone on for two years and then ended upruptly. Our campaign was based on magic disappearing from the world our task was to find the reason on why and to prevent it's progress or bring it back. I played a half elf who was cruelly experimented on by fellow elves and because of this my character who is chaotic neutral and has the spirit inside of him who was forced inside of his soul. The other player who was a full elf kept going on as if he new my whole back story by even mentioning the name of the spirit or devil that was forced inside of my character saying I should just use his power. He was repeatedly told that I would have no control over a pit fiend and that his character would never know my characters backstory. But then the dm had a new job in a different state so he made another player dm. When he took over he went in two games and then had my character randomly captured in a cage and that ended the campaign with everyone running away and me recaptured. While the other player was left unpunished so my question to the high crit is this. Was this a just punishment to just end the game from a new dm or should the old dm have punished the meda gamer more harshly.