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Calling for Cases! (Patreon)

Published:
2024-11-30 14:12:21
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Hey pals! Bailiff Joke here to say that the Supreme Crit is convening this very afternoon. Please submit your brief (1-2 paragraphs, I beg!) case on this thread and we will bring you sweet justice.

Comments

Stephanie R.

To the honorable supreme crit justices Murphy, Axford, and Tanner; and the lovely bailiff Jake I present to you the case of the Ballad Belting Bard. A group of friends and I attended a D&D community event at a local coffee shop. There were about 36 people split into groups of 4. As we began to play, the table next to us started to get a bit…loud. One of the players was apparently playing as a bard. He chose to get very into character and loudly sing at every opportunity. Now, this man had a good voice, but he was opera-level belting in a very small and crowded cafe. It was so distracting and my table was basically yelling to hear each other. We even missed hearing a player get a Nat 20. Despite this, the event went well and the cafe decided to make this a reoccurring event. I told my friends I wasn’t into going back, and they are super disappointed. Am I being a jerk? I feel bad for reducing my friends to a team of 3, but I can’t listen to the ballad belting bard for 4 hours again.

Niko Grace

THE PLAYER CHARACTER CUSTODY CASE Dear Supreme Reigning Judges Of The High Crit And I think Jill’s boyfriend? I present to you a custody battle between players over a PC. Around 2 years ago me and my family as well as two of my friends started a campaign with me as the DM. My friend (we’ll call her Sam) had created an 18yo monk assimaar named Ilena (pronounced ill-eena) who was leaving her Sun worshiping monastery for her one year missionary trip to “spread the righteous light of Sol”. Things were going well until Sam texted me saying that she couldn’t make a session but asked my younger sister- who hadn’t made a character but would hang out with us when we played- to play as Ilena while she was out. I didn’t think anything of it since it had been settled between the two of them. They did this a few times with my sister taking heavily detailed notes whenever she stepped in as Ilena. All was well until Sam texted me one day saying she couldn’t make future sessions due to the new job she got. Sam told my sister to take over as Ilena as she believed she would have to step away from the campaign entirely. Flash forward two years later, our campaign is nearly at its end. Ileena having changed her diety due to corruption in the church, created her own monestary, is leading a rebellion, is multiclassed and has gotten to level 13 monk/4 cleric. When about a week ago Sam texted me. She wants back into the campaign and wants to play Ilena. Apparently her and my sister have been arguing over it for a few days. My sister saying that Ilena is her PC because she has been playing her for two years while Sam is saying Ilena is her PC because she made her. Judges, I don’t mind at all if Sam wants to come back as a different character but she really wants to have Ilena back. Is this my fault for having not said anything when this first happened? Or is my friend Sam acting out of pocket? I humbly request your ruling and accept any and all punishment. - Niko (he/him)

Austin

To the splendiferous Judges and Baliff Papa John! I present the case of the uncontestable check. Playing a game with a couple friends and a DM we had found online that we didn't know. Our party took a job from a shady fellow to get a valuable item from the back room of a casino. My plasmoid, circle of stars druid eventually got to the back rooms alone and found the item we needed. But I was attacked by the same shady fellow we had taken the job from. I got hit with a bunch of damage from a throwing knife so I retreated with the item and Misty stepped under the door back to my friends. As the DM allowed me to do this he rolled a Sleight of Hand check at the same time and got a Nat 20, he exclaimed that I Misty Step and appear by my friends but the item I had was gone. I didn't know how he was able to take it in the first place being at a distance when he attacked, but I said since I had it directly in my hands that it should have been a contested roll. I would also have to roll a Nat 20 but the DM didn't let me try. Later on in the session, (because we roll digital dice on Roll20) I could see the Sleight of Hand modifier for the shady fellow was a +20. I was a level 6 character so I had no chance of beating it regardless. Was I roped into an unwinnable situation facing a +20 Sleight of Hand or was Dice Christ against me by giving the DM a Nat 20 anyways?

Andrew Fournier

To the most esteemed council of Dice Christ, I lay myself at your feet in the pursuit of forgiveness. A few years ago I was in the tournament arc of our dnd campaign, and I was playing a wild-magic barbarian, battle master fighter multiclass. Our DM said that the breaks in between each round would count as a short rest, so as we were using D&D Beyond, I would press the short rest button between rounds. After 4 rounds of using my battle master maneuvers and rages, my DM asked if I had been regaining my superiority dice and rages between rounds as he didn’t mean “Short Rest” he meant we could roll hit dice, not a full short rest. I then panicked and lied and said I was not and was down to my last dice and rage so as not to get in trouble. So I ask for forgiveness for misinterpreting my DMs use of “Short Rest” and accidentally breaking the rules

Another Samantha

Long time believer, first time visitor. When my nephew was about 7 we started playing D&D and we've been playing off and on ever since - he is now 16. I come to the church, not for absolution, but for inspiration. For close to a year he has been asking when we're going to play again, but alas I have been suffering particularly long bout of depression and can't find the will to continue campaign. Most benevolent Cardinals of Dice Christ, how do I find inspiration to finish what I started?

Maddy Thaller

To the most excellent, esteemed and extremely sexy supreme crit justices, and the lowly (but also sexy) bailiff jake I bring you the case of the horny ranger For just over a year my partner and I had the pleasure of playing a fairly intense campaign with another couple. We were living together at the time and got to play frequently because of that. The boyfriend of the aforementioned couple was the DM, and he was really good at it, we played in a home brew world that he’d been building for years and knew like the back of his hand. It sounds like a dream scenario, but DMing proficiency was actually part of the problem. Eventually me and my partner noticed that the better a session went, the sooner the session would end, always due to Dms gf (our parties ranger) being So Extremely Tired. We also noticed that on these occasions we would almost immediately hear the telltale squeaking of their broken bed, despite the alleged exhaustion of the couple. Your excellencies, once is understandable. Twice is understandable. But it got to the point that we could guess before they would adjourn to their room which sessions would be fodder for their sometimes loud romps in their room beside the living room. So, your honours, are we to be sentenced for being annoyed with our ranger, or is she to blame for cutting our adventure short to prioritise non table top role play?

Krysha Syrin

Mighty & merciful justices of the court & bailiff, Hank Hogfish, I bring a case of Christmas-based tomfoolery, oppa Naddpod style. Myself & other members of the Naddpod discord played in an online Christmas-themed one-shot during the pandemic. It was in the midst of Campaign One & my Elven Druid, inspired by Moonshine, & our party found ourselves fighting a Sentient Christmas Tree in Santa's workshop. I had cast Flaming Sphere (sorry Murph) & because trees are flammable, it was highly effective. Herein lies the case. On their next turn, the tree used Ice Knife on my Druid. However, at the end of my turn, I had moved the Flaming Sphere in front of me, hoping it would be a shield from any tree-based attacks. I posited to my DM that the Ice Knife spell wouldn't work as the ice would melt as it passed through the flames but my DM said the tree had just been burnt by the orb & would know to cast the spell in a way that avoided the fiery orb and that the spell isn't actually Ice, just a spell flavored as Ice. Judges, did my Druid pull a Zirk before Zirk existed or did my DM just want his Sentient Tree to get a few swings in while our party continued to be attacked by living Gingerbread Men & Krampus, kidnapper of Santa Claus himself? I humbly await your judgment & also shoutout to DM Nemo & our amazing crew of Naddpoles who came together during a difficult season & brought the joy of D&D to one another with Christmas shenanigans.

Felix Principe-gillespie

To the gru-tiful judges and despicable bailiff I came to you with a preemptive case of love and minions. I’m a long time DM for a party of 4 and recently someone I’ve been seeing for a couple of weeks asked if she could join one of our sessions as she’s always wanted to try DnD. There’s only one slight issue. A few sessions back the villain of our campaign summoned in armies from other dimensions, as a goof, I found a stat sheet for a minion (from despicable me) and threw some of them in. Sadly, since then minions have become a huge part of the campaign, their ability to detect good and evil has become a core aspect of the characters journey. So I ask you judges, should I let her join our world, knowing that she’s going to see me making minion noises and using fart based attacks on my foes, or is it better to keep her out of this banana filled madness for now. I await your verdict.

Matthew

To the extremely hot judges and the strange looking bailiff I bring you my case of the campaign ending counter spell. While playing in a pirate campaign we had planned a stealth mission to get some documents for our pirate boss. This compound we are attempting to raid was surrounded by cliffs, we decided to attack from above and target the biggest threat. We were able to successfully sneak to our positions and waited for our bard to cast hold person on a surprise round. When hold person was cast the boss was able to counter spell without knowing the hold person was being cast ruining our plan. We argued that since the enemy had no clue the spell was cast it wouldn’t work but the dm wouldn’t even give his reasoning for counter spell working. This made everyone kind of lose interest in what was happening in the session. After that along with other issues we had with the dm as a person we stopped playing that campaign for good. So I ask you judges who shall have to spend eternity in davy joneses locker me crew or the dm

Andrew Fournier

To the esteemed crit judges who are looking pretty cute up there, are you guys free after the hearing? I bring to you the case of the “Short Rest” disparity. A few years ago in a campaign with my friends online in our DMs homebrew world, our party came to a new town and participated in the combat tournament to win a large cash prize. My wild magic barbarian-battle master multiclass half orc tiefling entered the solo pool, and our monk and eldritch knight entered the duo pool, the parties warlock stayed in the crowd for fear of being flattened into a pancake. Our DM stated that in between rounds counted as a short rest, and we alternated between my solo fight and their tag team so one group would rest while the other fought. However, after a few rounds of me regaining my superiority dice from clicking “Short Rest” in D&D Beyond, my DM asked how I was able to do so many battle maneuvers and I replied by saying I was taking a short rest like he said to do. The DM sounded irritated and remarked that he only meant for me to roll my hit die and that I shouldn’t have been regaining my superiority die. I mentioned that the monk had been regaining their Ki points with each rest and the DM stated that the Ki points weren’t as powerful as my barbarian having access to maneuvers so they were allowed to get their Ki back. So I ask you, oh wise and powerful judges, and the other guy I just noticed he’s here, was I wronged by my DM or was my PC wrongfully and unfairly neutered.

Josh Zellers

To the honorable justices and the tuck cuck. I bring you the case of scientific reasoning. A while ago I started a campaign with a group of friends. Our one friend decided that everything should have a scientific reason within the world. This game is full of magic and dragons but NO they want scientific reasons and answers for everything! I beg of you please help me resolve this case

Amanda M

To the highly exalted supeeme crit and the goated bailiff Tonathan, I present to you the case of the “Nat 1 Stomachache”. I am usually the DM for a group of friends, but one of my friends wanted to try their hand at dming. She ran a one-shot from a very old 1980s module of DND, which I helped supplement with 5e equivalent monsters. The module went fine, but my gripe arises within the ruling for a nat 1. When investigating a cave full of dragon viscera, my goblin cleric rolled a nat 1 on investigation. My DM said I “instantly ran out of the cave and started vomiting”. I laughed and said “actually, I think I would rather vomit inside of the cave rather than run out”. She countered with “No, I’ve placed you outside now”. I was slightly miffed, as this meant I could not participate in the ensuing exploration of the cave, and instead was told later by my party when they reemerged what they found in the cave. Albeit a minor slight, I still find myself grinding my teeth at night at the agency of my freaky goblin being taken away from me in this way! Justices, do I deserve to be puppeteered or am I in the wrong for not honoring the nat 1 and its squeamish consequences? I lay my neck at the foot of the court.

The Wizard Shield

To the judges in their infinite glory and the bailiff in his limited capacity I ask for judgement on the case of “Reasonable Requests” I DM for my 3 friends and when this case came about we had been playing for some 2 years. We played mostly online after work, roughly every other week. The party had been split in a new city because the Rogue wanted to go meet up with his thief friends while the Wizard and the freshly rolled Bard went to a church to do some recon on some holy items they would need to fight a devil that was chasing them, and had recently kidnapped a beloved NPC. Since this was the Bards first time playing a magic user (the player had just sacrificed his first character in an epic last stand to save all his friends and raise an undead army to help in the finale) and we’d just come off of a huge fight last session, I didn’t want to do any combat during the session if possible. So when the wizard and bard went into the church they listened to a sermon about the majesty of these 3 magic items wielded by grand heroes, and how they were laid to rest here at the church as holy relics. They went to talk to the cleric running the sermon after and she showed them the cases holding the items. The wizard then cast mass suggestion and said “give me those”. Above the table I told him that the wording of the spell says you specifically have to make it a reasonable request so what exactly do you want to say? He responded “I tell her ‘give me those’”. I told him that “give me those” was a strange request for 2 complete strangers to ask of this holy woman, so she wouldn’t immediately just hand them over but instead the spell would make her more willing to help and she gave them her signature on a paper and told them that if they showed that to the king he could give them an audience and could be persuaded to help allow them to take the holy relics. (This was a way to allow the players to regroup and would let them meet the kings court which had some people who were important to the wizards backstory although he didn’t know that yet.) The wizard argued this was his first 6th level spell and since the spell worked on 12 people it should be 12 times as effective on 1 person which I disagreed with and said if he wanted to cast regular suggestion that could work but short of dominate person you weren’t going to make someone give you holy relics. The Bard then said that I was taking the fun out of it, and the wizard said he cast cone of cold on the cleric. I stopped everything there and we talked about everything and continued on later, but I’m curious. Judges was I taking the fun out of the wizards spells? Or did my players overreact to my table rulings? We still play to this day and we completed that campaign nearly 3 years ago now, but it still bothers me sometimes.

Secret Grandpa

Dear First Team All-Pro Surpreme Crit Justices and that Waterboy Baliff, I come to you seeking your divine direction on my dismal dilemma. This has multiple layers so bear with me. Many years ago I was running a Curse of Strahd campaign for a group of friends bi-weekly. This was large group of 8 in total with differing schedules but luckily we were able to make Saturdays work. Everything was going great until one of my players approached me and said he joined a soccer league on Saturdays and could no longer do this day. Keep in mind this was his 3rd team he joined and no other day worked for the party. So, naturally I was hurt because I enjoyed those nights and I don't like playing without the whole party. Other players were upset too and this led to it coming up during a night of drinking at a birthday party. Things got emotional and a bit heated, but nothing crazy (i swear). Here's the issue...partway through the argument one of my bestfriends who lived out of state (and also plays dnd) heard we were arguing about dnd and I guess misunderstood and told me, "Clearly none of your players are having fun" and other things like that. I was too confused to defend myself and I believe this has led him to think I am not a fun person to play with. Quickly the OG party made up and is still active years later, but this other friend hosts online dnds and even after some subtle nudging I've never been invited to play with him or he says he will and doesn't. Justices am I crazy to think he still considers me a problem DM because of this night and if so do I try and explain after all these years? I am at your mercy.

Fuzzboxx

Hello my Honorable Judges and the nubile Bailiff Jack Today, I present the case of the deadbeat Dad My cousin joined my already running campaign and his character's goal was to rescue his kidnapped 6 year old son. In real life he is an incredible father. This gave me idea of making the boy vital to the main plot of the campaign, meant to travel with them once rescued. He however never brought up his missing son to the rest of the party. After about 6 months and 25 sessions it finally got brought up. Everyone in the party was obviously shocked that he never mentioned it. He said there were more pressing things to do -- There were not. After ANOTHER 6 months they finally rescued the son. My cousin's first reaction was to get rid of the kid immediately, he wanted to put him in an orphanage, a school for magic, even a brothel?? The party was obviously shocked by his behavior. Am I wrong for having made the 6 year old boy a major part of the campaign expecting my cousin to be all for it or should I have waited to find out what kind of relationship with the boy my cousin wanted to have?

Rebecca N

To the beloved and benevolent Justies (Justice Besties) and the lowly Snore-liff John, I bring to you a case of unwitting identity theft I was incredibly lucky with finding my first ever dnd group online, and have played with them for about seven years. In a previous campaign, I played a no-nonsense astronomer who hated astrology as the party's "Straight Man". As a fun foil to my character, the DM introduced an NPC named Rachel [IMPORTANT], who was *incredibly* into magic/astrology and could read fortunes. That campaign ended prematurely, but our DM is getting ready to start a new one. Recently, our DM mentioned that he'd like to bring Rachel over to this new campaign. However, he got her name wrong and called her Rebecca... Normally I wouldn't worry so much about such a little discrepancy, however... Rebecca is my name. These guys only know me by my Discord name, and I've never told them my real name. I don't want to correct my DM for fear of seeming rude or pedantic, but on the other hand, I'm not sure how I'd feel about an NPC having my name. I've definitely known many other Rebeccas in my life (there were three of us in marching band!), but I worry that the comedy of the situation may wear off quickly, much like the previously ruled on "Maggie" case. Do I correct the DM on his own lore, or sit quietly through something that only inconveniences me? I await your verdict. P.S. To add to the hilarity, once when I was younger I went by the name Rachel for about a month because I didn't want to correct the person getting my name wrong (I've also done this with the name Jessica). I'm sure the Baliff can relate

AwkwardFish L

May it please the judges and tickle the esteemed bailiff Jank, I present the case of the absent father. I DM a pirate-themed campaign for a group of friends and my dad. We’ve played bimonthly sessions for nearly two years and we’ve been enjoying it, except for one thing: my dad rarely shows up. He has physically attended fewer than five sessions. Sometimes he calls in over discord, but it can be hard for the other players to hear him and vice versa. Often he is not present at all, in which case his character is drunk in his cabin. Would I be a terrible son and/or DM if I kicked him out of the group? I have a good relationship with my dad and I think he plays as a way to spend time with me rather than actually enjoying the game. Other players have asked about why he never shows up, and I’ve always covered for him. Additionally my dad is a “Margaritaville-type” dad who fits the pirate aesthetic perfectly. What should I do here? Thank you for your consideration. PS: 8-bit Book Club is my comfort podcast. I heard about this guy named Jake Hurnitz and I think he would be an excellent guest!

Dave 3D Art

To the honourable justices of the supreme crit, and their cowardly dog sidekick Jake, I present the case of the missing elephants. In my online 5e game (which has been a blast btw) we have done some colony building in a northern territory. As a talking scarecrow I naturally became minister of agriculture, and invested my gold in 6 war elephants to help till the soil, and defend the territory. This was done with my DMs permission, enthusiastic permission actually. The issue is that whenever I bring up my elephants, he immediately changes the subject. It's not a game balance thing, I'm a 15th level killing machine. He just seems to not want to deal with my elephants. Justices, I want my elephants.

Ellie

To the oh so talented judges and also I guess Jacob, I present to you the case of “the wrong game dialogue” I’ve been playing in a campaign for about over a year now with some friends. Overall, despite a few hiccups, things are going well! One other player and I are both playing tiefling clerics, so they both quickly bonded over it, despite the fact her character is the quiet brooding type and I play a very friendly and maybe a little too eager to help lil guy. Over the course of many sessions, my character has been working on getting her to open up and helping her find herself beyond her parents’ expectations. Recently, she announced she now had “unlockable dialogues” planned for said character and that if we “use the right words” we can unlock the dialogues. I was unsure, because I liked our silly improv, but still excited to see if it could mean the sibling dynamic would get better. However, I seem to be VERY BAD at finding the right words with her now and I have been unable to reach her in a way I was able to before with this new mechanic. She even said I once got “very close, but not quite.” Our characters don’t really talk as much now and other people seemed to have been able to “unlock” the dialogues. Am I wrong to be a little discouraged by this, or am I being a whiny baby at my grown age? Should I reach out and talk to her about it at the risk of upsetting her since she seemed quite proud of her idea? I humbly await your judgement.

Andi

Honored Crit Justices and Crit Justice Adjacents, I come to you today with the case of The Fountain Crit. My DM has shown a tendency towards evolving villians & sneaky encounters. In a recent session, we were to meet with a supposed ally in a garden and were instead met with an ambush from her and a few lackies. We were told this garden had some trees and topiaries & a fountain in the middle. As some of my party members closed with our combatants, I commicated to my fellow rogue that the fountain seemed kinda sus & he agreed. On my turn, I miraculously rolled a nat 20 & asked the party to trust me as I rolled damage on the fountain. The DM says that a chunk gets taken out of it, but nothing else happens because it's just a fountain. My party argues that I should have done an insight check to see if there was anything going on with it before attacking. Honored panel, I ask you, was I justified in going with my suspicion based on previous encounters, or should I have done an insight check before even rolling for the attack, risking that fated crit on information over getting ahead of a potential threat.

Storybored

To the austere justices and the swagalicious JayJay Herwy, I present my case: The Mask of Zero Faces So a while back I was in a campaign where the DM wanted us to start at level 18, and have our pick at 2 rare and 1 wondrous item so we could immediately get the ball rolling. My wondrous item of choice was the Mask of Many Faces, which would allow me to disguise myself as other characters for an hour at a time. I built my character around this item, hoping to be a charismatic conman with high stealth, who could get one over the NPCs through fun disguise trickery. So needless to say, I was disappointed in session 2 to find my DM had instituted a homebrew magic system in which I could only disguise as those equal to my “Hero Rank” or lower. This mask was kind of my whole character concept. I even worked it into his backstory where he never removes it so he can hide the burns on his face, and enjoys impersonating others because he doesn’t like being himself. Now he just has burns and depression for nothing! We’re 6 sessions deep and I haven’t been able to use it once. I assumed the challenge would revolve around the inherent risk of using this item (getting caught in a lie or running out of time a la Cinderella), not that I’d need to kill 9 more magic turtles if I wanted to impersonate the Rank 4 barkeep. So tell me, is my grievance valid, or should I just mask my salty frustrations and get over it? I humbly await your judgment

ksm11

To whom it may concern, (except for the bailiff) I don't have a case or confession to make at this time. I just wanted to say thank you for all of the laughter you've brought to myself and many others over the years. Cheers gang, hope everyone had a great holiday. P.S. I guess that bailiff guy might not be so bad after all, but I would still keep an eye on him if I were you.

Jack Bradley

To the supreme judges of the high crit, and the now even juicier balliff, I come with a confession. More than two years ago now, in April 2022, I wrote to the court asking a simple question: should the DM know how deep every body of water in the world is? And were my players right to razz me when I didn’t have it prepared? On that fateful day, the court was unable to decide as I did not give enough information - and you were right to make that judgement, as I did leave out some details which will show me to be the fool. After 2 years of hiding my shame away, I feel it’s time for me to face the facts, and my judgement. When the players came across a lake on their search for the mad mage of ravenloft, they asked me how deep the lake was. What I left out in my last submission was that, just as the court predicted, I panicked and said “I don’t know, two fathoms?!”. As you might be able to guess, I did not know how deep a fathom was, and this is what ended up with the endless razzing. Furthermore, this was relevant to the campaign as they were planning to cross the lake, and I had foreshadowed that there was something amiss beneath the surface. You can probably see why I left those details out, because it makes it quite obvious that they were right to razz me. Now I feel you can give your full judgement, and I lay prostrate for your mercy. Please don’t make me buy a lake house for my players, they would use it solely to prank me and beat me at Mario party 😩 Your humble, two fathom deep servant, Jack

Andi
>>156846104

As an update on the situation, in a recent session, I said I was doing an insight check on an element of the battlefield, crit on the insight check, and my party said I should have used it for the attack. I think they may just want me to use my crits for damage lol

Charlotte Lofranco

May it please the court, and Jake, who doesn't seem that bad, but what do I know? My spouse has been playing DnD for years with his friends. He started DMing a campaign for me and a few friends, who were all n00bs, and a friend from his OG campaign. The first campaign was great and we all had a blast and decided to keep going. We started our second campaign and he invited another friend from his OG DND group to join. Playing with 2 more experienced players seems to have shifted the dynamic a bit. Rather than feeling like a beginner campaign, things have gotten more complicated and I feel it's harder to keep up. I feel like everyone's waiting on me in combat, even when I have tried really hard to prepare my actions, or spells (I play a half-elf druid, circle of wildfire, level 8). Recently my spouse asked me if there was anything he could do to make the experience more fun for me, and I asked if he could try suggesting possibilities for my character in those moments, or remind me of items/spells I may have forgotten about. He got really frustrated and told me I needed to do more research on my character and that he didn't know all the ins and outs of what I could do, but also that these are just the limitations of my character. Now when we play, he is clearly frustrated with me when my turn comes around in combat and loses patience with me, but is laughing and joking on everyone else's turns. I am not the only newish DnD player in our campaign who has a fairly casual attitude to the game (another player barely listens when the DM is talking, then asks questions about what we were just told, and my spouse doesn't get annoyed with him). I thought this was supposed to be an easy and casual campaign, but since the other more advanced player joined, I feel like I'm being told I am not taking it seriously enough and if I want to have fun, I have to do a bunch of research. Your honours, is it possible to have a casual DnD campaign? Am I the asshat for giving my honest feedback when my spouse/DM asked "What can I do to make this more fun for you?" Sincerely, Casual Cathy

Cornelius Schnooz

To the honorable justices and that guy that is the one for Jill, what’s his name? Tucker I think. I bring to the court not a case, but some advice seeking. I throw myself humbly at your feet. I am a new DM currently into one session of a homebrew campaign with my boyfriend and best friend (I don’t have a lot of friends, gotta keep the circles tight and the holes tighter) and I’m having to play a bard to help round out our three man band. My question is: how do I balance this party with a character that knows everything? Do I let my players take on most of the role play? Thank you for your time. P.S. I’ve been listening to the pod since 2017 and now I’m finally able to pay for a sub, thanks so much for all these years! P.P.S. I lied about having tight holes Dice Christ please forgive me of my sin.

OddestOdyssey

To the [1d6] justices and the [1d6] bailiff. 1. Crabster 2. Highly, highly, highly, high as a kite 3. Rat(s) riding loose 4. Binky 5. Grinch-like 6. Calypigian “I accuse the author Aaron Reynolds of having committed Usury of Authorship, and I seek the judgment of this honorable court.” I submit the following as evidence from the book authored by the same Aaron Reynolds "Fart Quest: The Llama's Fart": "Now git up," she says, unlocking the door. "Y'all been summoned." "Summoned?" asks Moxie. "By who?" "By the madam of the muck. The soul of the sludge. The head honcho of the Holler." Peat Blossom smiles broadly. "Y'all been summoned by the Grand High Meemaw." We are led to a great hall. The ceiling is ribbed, like the underside of a giant mushroom." It goes on like this and there are many other examples that suggest that this is not a pure coincidence: swamp frogs, fiddle-playing, muck elves drawn with overalls, and dialogue that sounds like every Petree I know. May this court see fit to examine the truth of these claims and administer a verdict as deemed righteous and just. I also have a confession: I read this book with my 4 year old son and we thoroughly enjoyed it. It was a rare moment to share my love of DnD (and more specifically, NADDPOD) with him...even down to reading the dialogue to him with a crick elf voice. May her dicey-ness have mercy on our rolls.

Annika

To the lavender-scented judges and the pea-scented bailiff Jake. I bring forth the case of the illiterate dragon: My boyfriend DMs a campaign with me and my sisters. My pact of the chain warlock was in a trial that involved stealing an egg guarded by a dragon and her magical wards. For my turn, I had my lovely pseudodragon familiar (who can understand common and draconic) fly to the egg and read the draconic glyphs guarding it, then translate the details to me via our telepathic bond. My dm ruled that my familiar can’t read because “although it understands draconic, it cannot speak”. I lost the argument but have since stayed salty. Judges, am I wrong to be offended on behalf of my son who is a very smart and special boy?! I prostrate myself before your 80 foot tall bench.

Celeste H

To the exemplary crit justices and the self-proclaimed bailiff Joke, I present the case of the Nerfed Familiar I’ve been playing a divination wizard for the past few months with my group, and during a battle I attempted to use my owl familiar to give me advantages on attacks, as one does. But one of the other players and former DM said that familiars can’t give advantage on spell attacks, and the less experienced DM agreed. I later looked this up to be certain and brought up the issue to the DM again privately, and we came to the eventual conclusion that my owl would give advantage to melee attacks only, but not spells unless I was in melee range. Justices, am I right to feel as though my wizard character has been quite nerfed by being unable to make proper use of my familiar? I await your judgement.

Friendly Bog Hag

I have not a case but a confession. Esteemed high priests of the church of dice Christ, hear my voice and judge my soul. I’m a new DM and started my first campaign with a group that turned out to be ne’er-do-well murder hobos. For example, season 1 they destroyed a pixie village and slapped a grandma cleric. After a few sessions they had only one faction left to be friends with, the goblin rebels. The rebel leader had one rule: do not hurt the flail snails. What did they do? Tried to kill the flail snails. When the rule was broken, something in me broke. The party was quickly captured oppa seal team 6 style and left with an ultimatum to deliver a magical keg of beer or else the rebels were going to hunt them down. They left and were presented with a cottage to long rest and instead made a vest out of dynamite and blew themselves up because they had “been bad”. They rolled new characters and we kept going. I’m relieved to have new more serious characters, but I fear my anger made them blow themselves up. Did I do a sin? I’ll go to hell, it’s fine.

Kevin Alman

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

Kate W

To the Most Honorable Justices and the Cool Cool Bailiff Jeff (Geoff?), I have been playing dnd with the same group for about four years. Our usual set up is three players and a DMPC to help balance the party. One of our players was really new to dnd when we started so we tried to go out of our way to cater to them. We let them drive the party choices most of the time, we regularly bent rules that were too complicated for them, and we had to institute a no pc death policy since they found the idea of their character dying really upsetting. This special treatment has persisted to this day. Recently we finished a campaign, and that player asked if he could try DMing a one shot before our usual DM started a new campaign. We agreed, and he told us all to roll level 7 characters. As soon as we started playing it became clear that our Interim DM had not prepared. We were supposed to spend five nights in a haunted hotel, fighting the monsters. Instead we were subjected to a long, incoherent, and confusing shopping episode in the town around the hotel. This happened multiple times and stretched the “one shot” into six sessions. When we tried to go back to the hotel at night to fight the monsters, we were not allowed to fight them. They instead made idle threats but ran away and vanished once the party tried to fight them. And we got the feeling that the Interim DM didn’t have any stat blocks prepped. We tried to be patient since this was the first time he was DMing, but then came the final fight. Despite telling us to roll level 7 characters, he had us fight: a bone devil, two nagas, four skeletons, and four ghasts all at the same time. He kept targeting my Paladin because I was the only one with healing abilities. He never attacked his own DMPC, claiming that he “forgot he could do that”. The fight resulted in a TPK where only his DMPC survived, and the DM was both smug and gleeful about killing all of our characters. Judges, I know that DMing is difficult, but was this unreasonable? He literally cackled when our characters went down. I humbly await your verdict. [Jake, please wait until the moment you think it’s funniest to reveal this] PS: Our Interim DM is my 10 year old nephew.

Dave 3D Art
>>156846077

For the record, I play a Reborn Rogue/Ranger/Fighter. 5 levels Phantom Rogue, 7 levels swarmkeeper Ranger, and 3 levels of Rune Knight fighter. I am an unstoppable force of death, the elephants are a matter of pride.

Rob

To the unimpeachable supreme crit justices, Brian “normal dude” Murphy, Emily “Murph” Axford, and Hugh “Caldwell” Tanner, and Baliff Joke (that one wasn’t a typo but the rest were), I present to you the “Plague of the Pancake Party” In my first campaign with my 5 closest friends (I was the DM), our high-elf monk lost his life by touching an orb of annihilation. This was well and good, and the player accepted and enjoyed this twist of his fate. The issue, however, came with his follow up character, a dwarven pirate arcane trickster rogue. The new character was immediately loved, with strong roleplay and characterization in the form of a grudge against the players previous character. The monk was a deviant with up to 80 sired children across the realm, one of which had been pawned off onto the dwarven pirate under the guise of a “life debt”. When the other players informed the monks girlfriend of his passing (a tender and emotional scene), the rogue initiated a “pancake party”, cooking pancakes and singing a song about how glad he was that the monk was dead. This was hysterical to all involved, including the two players who were having the tender scene. The issue though, became that almost every time the two players had an emotional roleplay moment, it just so happened to be undercut by another pancake party. I thought this was funny at first, but they became so frequent that I eventually had to declare that the party had run out of pancake batter, and could not get any more. The pancake-players were furious, insisting that as heroes of the realm “they would realistically have a lifetime supply of batter”. Judges… did I fuck up? Should I have shut these breakfast themed bashes down or should I and the emotionally charged roleplayers just sucked it up (like the others sucked up their plethora of pancakes)? I humbly await your judgment.

Luke Jarrett

To the speakers of dice Christ and their hype man Jork. I have sinned and need cleansing. This was about 3 years ago in my groups first dnd game, I the DM was running dragon of icespire peak. As all modules I run, I use them as the skeleton and flesh out with homebrew which leads to the sin I committed. My players (best mates and girlfriend/now wife) were fighting the white dragon at the end of the campaign, with the dragon on its last legs it put down the last player up. My girlfriend who had a pet dog asked if the dog could feed her a potion, I said on a nat20 it could. I rolled behind the screen and it was a nat1 but I claimed it was a nat20. I described how due to the icey floor of the battlefield the dog crashed into her body which smashed a health potion and some of which went into her mouth. She popped back up and the whole table watched a bitch call lightning winning the fight. I have never told them of my fudged roll and we all still play together in multiple different campaigns with different DMs. Please take this weight off me

Poorna Athreya

To the most bubbliest, benevolent, smash-tastic-ified judges and the wicked bailiff Jelfaba, I present you the case of the Icebound grandson. My friend and I decided to enroll in a PvP D&D tournament as part of a fun cross-D&D discord-server event, as a grandma and grandson. (The grandma is a wizard and is disappointed in her sorcerer/cleric grandson's lack of academic appetite) One of our opponents (a bladesinger wizard & a college of swords bard) cast Rime's binding Ice on my grandson which froze him in place and brought him down to zero. On my turn, I administered a healing potion to him as my action and used my bonus action to fae step him away to another part of the arena, as a spring eladrin. My problem is this: our DM ruled that the ice stayed with my grandson and would restrain him until he used an action to get free from it, as according to him the "area is hindered by ice formations" and the area would travel with him when he was teleported. I would go so far as to say this ruling cost us a victory. Was our DM incorrect or must I and my grandson hang our heads in shame and act out this drama at the family dinners?

Tanner Spriggs

To the problematic at best justices, and the bailiff whose just trying to put his wife's boyfriend's kid through school, I bring to you the case of fudged Stat rolls? (context, this is an online group that meets on discord.) Within one of the groups that I run, I have two great friends as half the group. However, they always seem to roll their character stats before I can even announce when a session Zero will be. We just started our second campaign, and both times they both had AT LEAST one 20 on their character stats. As someone who brews character ideas all the time, and often gives my NPCs character sheets, I roll stats frequently and have rarely had a 20 at level 1-3. Yet these two have had have had FIVE 20s between four characters that started at level 3. I don't want to accuse them of fudging their stats, but... Am I just unlucky at rolling stats, or are they commiting atrocities before our Lord and Savior, Dice Christ?

Flying Mongeese

Dearest Judges of the court and Dear-less Bailiff of whatever-it-is-you-do, I bring the case of the Agile Giant Spider. I played a Goblin Alchemist focused on buff/debuff in a One-Shot where our evil lord would send us through a Death House as a test run for the heroes. He told us that we would most certainly die (which maybe should’ve been a red flag), but we got through alright. There was one moment when a player rolled a Nat 20 to hit and the DM said to negate it for whatever reason. That isn’t my case though. Cut to the final battle, we are fighting a giant spider thing and I go to cast Grease to trip up this spider. My DM, however, informs me that Grease would only work if I could get it under all of the Spider’s legs, and that would be impossible since the was Huge and the Grease didn’t have a wide enough range. Judges, what? I know if I had half my legs (which is one) step in grease, I would trip. So why would this Spider be any different? I felt like the DM bent the rules in order to make his one-shot more ‘dangerous.’ Long story short, we died and I am still a little miffed to this day. Please deliver judgement and if I am somehow wrong, I will bear the brunt of your ire, so help me Gods.

Jarod W

Revered Crit Justices and Scorned Bailiff Justin. I come to you with the case of skipping meetings. For at least 6 years my friends and I have been able to maintain Weekly meetings with the exception of holidays and family events. There are 7 of us total (6 players and DM) Usually if only 1 person will be absent, we proceed with the meeting and the DM balances on the fly. Recently one of the other players has been consistently unable to attend due to obligations with his girlfriend. As a result, there have been a few near TPK moments. He claims that if we were to have shorter meetings, 2 hours for example, he'd be able to attend more often. My counter point is that 2 hours for our group is not enough time to do much at all, seeing as larger combats could easily take 2 hours with 6 players. So my question to you is should we shorten our meetings to accommodate this one player, or continue as we have and he just shows up to play whenever he is available?

Max Bailey

To the lovely judges of the crit and Jumble, I bring the case of the two-timing DM. I started a DnD club in my university, and far more players signed up than i had expected, meaning i had to split the players into two groups, with me alternating which group I DM for each week. It went well for the first few weeks, but eventually running two separate campaigns, on top of attempting to get a degree, became too much. I decided to end the campaign with one group, but continue with another. I let the dropped group know i wouldn’t be playing with them anymore, but i haven’t told them I will still DM for the others. Judges, am I wrong to dump my less favourite child so i can spend more time with the favourite? Do I confess? Do i do some other goofy thing related to a bit from earlier in the episode? I await your judgement.

Benwahah

Hello court people and that one guy reading the cases, I recently dislocated my shoulder at a dnd session, i the dm was setting up a roleplay scene with one of my players where he was supposed to talk to a dragon turtle that his character works for. Unfortunately the pizza we ordered arrived so we needed to pause the game. My friend jokingly said "ending with a cliff hanger" not even a minute after i went down the stairs to get the pizza but slipped and dislocated my shoulder, thus also ended the session on a actual cliff hanger Should I forgive my player upon giving dice christ the idea of a cliff hanger or slam down my one good hand of judment and punish his character by falling down some stairs aswell

Courtney F.

Honorable justices, There is a weird guy in the corner. Anyway, I bring to you, the case of the clerics. I am a forever healer and as a 5e life cleric, I have an ability to heal several members of my party for a total equal to my level times 5. BUT I can't heal them with this ability to a point that would bring them to more than half of their hp. I am apart of an online group (red flag) with strangers (redder flag) and called for hp max and current hp of my party when my DM stopped me. "you don't know that" the DM said. I mean... I kinda see their point but also, I don't want to waste any of that hp pool. Do I need to metagame and keep track of their hp so I don't waste healing, do I just wing it, or should the DM lighten up a little bit? I look forward to your ruling and please, look into that guy in the corner..

G.X. Barnett

Dear illustrious judges and lustered bailiff, Jim Just so we’re clear there are no heroes in this story. So I was playing in a campaign where there was a weekly charge, but I kept on getting the zoom and Roll20 invite emails so I just kept entering for free. The DM wasn’t charging his daughter and two of his friends in a nine person campaign, and I think he picked up on the fact that I wasn’t paying after a few weeks because immediately after I got to my feat (polearm master as a bugbear wild magic barbarian, a great broken build) he immediately destroyed my magical platinum pole arm that I had been building up for 8 levels in the game, making my entire build pointless. The game kind of took a turn because I chose multiclass into a wild magic sorcerer and mixed with my rage and a whole bunch of buffs and the chaos of a double wild magic build, along with an AC of 21,I was pretty much untouchable and was causing anarchy at every turn. Was it my fault for raining hellfire down on a game I was getting for free or was it the DM’s (who may or MAY NOT have known I was doing so) who destroyed my weapon on purpose as he saw my build being maximized? Love the show.

Tea

To the most honorable representatives of Dice Christ, in sin I prostrate myself before you. I've been the DM of a multi-year homebrew game. During the first session one of my players begged me to let the bugbear barbarian Brett Pain join the party as a DMPC and I relented. Cut to 50 sessions later and the party is fighting a recurring villain who hates the player previously mentioned. The NPC hadn't been able to land a hit on the high AC paladin, so looked him in the eyes and said, "I think I know a better way to hurt you." At the same time the NPC raised a finger to Brett the Bugbear barbarian and used Disintegrate. I rolled damage behind the screen and added up the many dice. I looked at Bretts 70 HP and shouted 69 damage! While the real life players celebrated his survival I looked down and saw one lonely die had rolled farther away than the rest, which means the magical 69 moment wasn't real. I held my tongue and let the players bask in the moment and it has haunted me since. I beg for the divine cleansing only this council may provide.

Sean Cullen

May it please the court and that other guy can feel okay too. I DM for a weekly game with my 4 friends and my wife. My wife is my favorite person in the world to play with, she’s funny, creative, and always finds ways to make the game more fun. The problem is, she rolls insanely well. Not just at dramatic moments, but all the time. When rolling her character stats, her lowest rolls was a 15, she crits upwards of 5 times in a 3 hour session, and she consistently rolls above 15 on the dice (no matter which dice I make here use) it’s a dice Christ miracle! But this causes the narrative side of the story to suffer. Other characters look so weak compared to her, her character doesn’t fail at much so it’s hard for her to find growth points narratively, and I end up having to make DC’s and combats harder to compensate for her insane rolls but at the cost of raising the difficulty for the rest of the party. What should I do? Is it fair to have dynamic DCs for each character? Or do I just accept that dice Christ wants my wife to eternally womp me.

Ken

To the esteemed and beautiful justices Murphy, Axford, and Tanner(Congrats justice Tanner!), and to the bailiff who I think was a guest on 8bit bookclub once. I come with a plea for help! My group started a new campaign in an ancient world filled with dinosaurs. My character is a dual wielding Leonine ranger who specializes in hunting raptors. I imagined him as a grizzled vet, who knows the jungles like the back of his paw. My problem came during our first combat. We were ambushed by a boar. Not a dire boar or a were boar... just a regular ass boar. I went first, an easy kill I thought. My first attack - a nat 1. Good thing I have 2 swords. My second attack - another nat 1. The boar gored me and tried to trip me. My saving throw - a nat 1. I proceeded to roll 6 natural 1s in a row and almost got trampled to death by a boar. Thankfully the rest of my party saved my fumbling lion man. Please! What can I do to redeem myself and my traitorous dice? Thank you Justices.

Kyle Bowlby

To amazing Jake, and I guess the justices. My best friend, the best man in my wedding, basically my brother, wants me to ‘guest star’ in his campaign for a cannon session. No big deal right? Except he wants me to play a character that his OG DM several years ago created. The problem is this, he sent me 15 paragraphs of backstory, 2 pages of character lore, and instructed me to watch a movie(flatliners) a TWO HOUR phone call with his OG DM, and matching the voice of goofy gophers. Should I hang up the dice because I’m scared of playing a character with this much weight? Or should I do it and pray for the best. (P.s. Hardwon deserved a happier ending)

Maeve Pagan

To the sweet, supple, and sensuous judges, and the man in a shockingly realistic Bailiff Jake costume—Hell, it could be Bailiff Jake himself— I present to you the case of the vampiric vibe avoidant PC. About two years ago, my amazing roommate DMed a vampire hunting one shot for our friends which was set in late nineteenth century Transylvania. She was meticulous in curating a certain spooky aura for the evening, even lighting candles throughout the otherwise dark room and wearing a black cape throughout the session. With a story taking place during such a specific time and place, one would assume that the players would create characters that at least somewhat match the energy, but one friend (let's call her Z), a first time player, insisted on role playing as a valley girl-esque 21 year old interpretive dance major at UCLA named Chastity, all the while being adamant that she’d maintain a toxic long distance text relationship with her boyfriend Chad back in California. Upon frequent gentle yet exasperated reminders from our saintly patient DM that her intention was for us to play a Victorian gothic horror session, the friend argued that she could play whatever she wanted as long as she was still hunting vampires, even if that involved her role playing texting her Californian situationship. In her defence, she did play a crucial role in avoiding a TPK by appeasing the vampire queen with a meal of blood from a 5 year old who at one point donned a propellor hat and wielded a comically large lollipop who we tried (and failed) to save earlier on in the session (she made a point of mercilessly sapping the kid's blood while my character, whose backstory consisted of wanting to avenge the deaths of her children who she was unable to save from a previous vampire attack, wept in horror). Wise judges, was my friend in the wrong for refusing to adhere to the DM’s carefully curated vibe of the one shot, or am I just being too grumbly towards a first time player exploring the magic of dnd? I seek your wisdom and prostrate my humble self before your greatness.

Kiera V

To the most honorable supreme crit justices Murphy, Axford, and Tanner who are equally blessed by dice Christ herself and—oh man sorry for bumping into you, uh, Jacob?, didn’t see you there. I present the case of Mr. Bone Daddy and the sewer system. In high school, I played session one of a new campaign that was set in a port town. The DM’s best friend played a skeleton wearing a top hat who would only respond to his full name: Mr. Bone Daddy. Very soon after starting the session, Mr. Bone Daddy decided he wanted to go off on his own, and the DM let him. This ended up with the rest of the party sitting quietly as the skeleton player described how he wanted to blow up the town via the sewer system, because of fart gas and such. The DM let him do it, then the session ended because the DM said that the port town was crucial to our campaign, so we couldn’t continue. So dear justices, what the hell? Was this even a thing he should’ve been able to do? I don’t think there was anything I could’ve done, right? I humbly await your godly verdict.

PlausiblyPJ

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

Laura Guebert

May it please the venerable justices Murph, Caldwell, and the Lady Emily, and besmirch the honor of the lowly Bailiff Hurwitz, I come seeking supplication from our Lord and Savior Dice Christ. I know not what crime I have committed against our benevolent deity, but crime I must have committed for I come also with a tale of rolling woe. A few weeks ago, I was playing in an Adventurer’s League at my friendly local gaming store both for my own enjoyment and to support my partner who DMs these adventures. Over the course of the 4 hour evening, I proceeded to roll no fewer than 6 natural 1’s…the first four of which were rolled back to back to back to back…with 3 different dice. I beg of you, show me the error of my ways so that I might beg forgiveness of Dice Christ and restore my favor with our beloved deity. I cast myself at the mercy of the court.

Ally

Dice Christ I fear I have strayed into the lands of goof and away from the road of rationality. My crime, my sin, the red in the ledger of my DMing life is called Bodega Simulator. After wrapping our first multi year campaign the group I DM for we decided for the next campaign we wanted to play through the character's backstories before they set out on their adventures at level 1 in 5e. To do this we've been playing in the rules light system kids on bikes. The intention was to see the highs and lows of these characters growing up in a small spooky town together. However due to the fantasy band Copperback needing an opening act, a great roll for a signing bonus after the gig, and a lucky gambling streak at an underground boxing match, the party have pooled all their funds and bought the 'fantasy' bodega across from their school. Everything has become about the bodega. They finish school and go straight to the bodega, they employed their school friends at the bodega, they host gigs at the bodega, if they find out a clue about a monster or mystery they regroup at the bodega. There's even a Excel sheet for the bodega's finances. We've hombrewed more rules for the bodega's mechanics than there are in entirety of kids on bikes. The party now refer to the game as bodega simulator. I fear my desire to follow the fun the party is having with this will negatively affect the characters they had been developing. The necromancer witch, dumpster thief, silver tongued guitarist, and bear knuckle boxer have all taken a wild left turn into bodega owners/employees.

Tanner Spriggs
>>156845712

I wouldn't blame you. Sounds like that dude had main character syndrome and had to be the center of a attention across the whole Cafe.

snakes !

Judges (and the bailiff if he is there I guess), I have been accused of a crime. While I believe my intentions were good, I come to you with a confession and the hope that you will judge me fairly. Due to a lot of strange circumstances there are 3 separate tabletop games that have lost a DM that I have ended up taking over. (Not in quick succession, many years apart). The first campaign I volunteered to start DMing for because people were still attached to the characters and world and I like running games. The 2nd time I was asked. This most recent time I was asked due to having a reputation as a “campaign thief”. I have said yes since I don't want to leave the world and players alone. However, I fear that there may be some truth to the reputation of being a campaign thief. While the plot and aspects of the lore are changed it is still the foundation of the world and several NPCs someone else wrote. My intentions were to give the players a satisfying end to games that would have otherwise been abandoned, but does my intention matter in the face of the law of the crit? Judges, I throw myself at your mercy and I will accept whatever punishment you bestow

Taylor

To the most Honorable Justices and that guy who is only important in Boston I think. I present the case of the Urgent Sending Spell. I am currently playing a Life Cleric in a Curse of Strahd campaign. I will avoid spoilers as much as I can for anyone who might be planning to play. My party is in a town and we got word that a woman we've befriended has been kidnapped by the head of the town's guard and been brought back to the mayor's home where he resides. We have to figure out how to get into the home and get her out without just rushing in because we are already at odds with the mayor. I decide because we have befriended the mayor's son and he's expressed the want for the head guard to be killed due to his cruelty, that I would get him to let us in. So at the start of the day I cast Sending to message him in his mind that we need his help, it will involve taking care of the guard he hates and to meet us at the church. Once I send that the DM says you wait two hours and nothing happens. He has me roll an insight check and tells me "you feel maybe your message wasn't urgent enough to convey he needed to come right this moment." I just stare at the DM and say "I think someone using magic to directly send a message into your mind shows quite an accurate amount of urgency." and the DM responds "not to an absent minded wizard who mostly spends time in his room." We are only lvl 5 so I have two third level spells slots a day....but I use my second to send "GET HERE NOW!" Fast forward and because our wizard cast mage armor "loudly" my negotiations turned into an all out fight. Int his fight our Barbarian's head was "smashed in" We won, but because I had to use both 3rd level spells just to get the son to us to have a way into the home, I now couldn't Revivify (I had the components) our party member. I ask for your judgement, am I wrong for thinking the first message was enough to have someone come see what is going on right away? Or was my DM correct in basically tricking me to waste my final highest spell slot right before we got into a fight that he even deemed "the boss fight of this arc"?

Doug

To the honourable justices and the unimpressive bailiff. I bring to you the case of the deceased DM — I’ve played in a party of 4 online in a homebrew LOTR style campaign. Our mission as orcs was to find a capture two halflings carrying a powerful magic item that our lord Syron is after. The first few sessions were going very well but another player and I weren’t necessarily role playing in a “traditional” orc style. As I roleplayed my character help a struggling farmer in exchange for food, my DM said “that’s not really how a lawful evil orc should act” i said “fair enough” and started slaughtering everyone on the farm. My DM said don’t change your actions based on what I said. Perhaps in spite I continued this dark behaviour and resulted in some interesting choices that my fellow players assisted on. It got REAL dark. Eventually… leading to my DM’s friend coming online saying he PASSED AWAY and obviously can’t continue. We didn’t really know him as we played on Roll20. Well we found out through snooping on social media he’s not actually dead. Should we reach out and apologize for ruining his vision or was he over exaggerating. I dunno. You tell me. With love, the The Dark Ones

2fastBicurious

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

Barlosaur

Warmest greetings to the sweeties who reign on high; and a smile that doesn't reach the eyes for the bailiff. I bring the case of the overreacted reaction. I'll cut to the chase, this disagreement led to one of my players leaving the table. I'll spare you the full mechanics Jake but effectively what it liked down to was a player wanting to use their reaction to cast featherfall, i said no. They were holding a spell to cast on a another player's turn, which would end their concentration on Fly. Ignoring the fact that RAW you can't hold a spell while already concentrating on another, I said that holding a spell uses the reaction (something I explained on his turn). He said it was his turn next so his reaction would reset and let him use both. I said that it isn't his turn until we've resolved this one. Justices, this went over poorly. I mean, this guy kicked off to the point I heard him coating me off to the other players when I left the room. At this point I know it seems pedantic and normally I would let it go ahead, but, Justices, this guy is a habitual line-stepper; and never in a fun way. He always tried to slightly bend or break rules and makes a scene if I do not acquiesce. TThis time I held firm, play continued after about 20 minutes of back and forth where I just said we're done arguing. He sulked for the rest of the evening and after the game when I had a quiet chat with him about his behaviour at the table and making it personal, towards me he decided to leave the table for good. This was 2 years ago and he's never come back, which is honestly fine and we're now more harmonious as a group. It still eats at me though. Could I have done better? I lay myself at your mercy P.s. hate the show x

Darrius Davis, the guy from that one thing.

Dear the venerated Baliff Jake, and the lowly, lowly, lowly, lowly, lowly judges Murphy and Tanner (and fairly decent Judge Axford), I bring you the case of unmanaged player trope. I run a 5e campaign with 5 good friends where they are to travel the lands, collected artifacts, and defeat a great evil. Classic stuff, you know? However, some of the players are experienced, while others are new. This usually isn't a problem, however, some of the more experienced players wanted their characters to have some flaws that may or may not show up in combat/encounters. These flaws generally detract from a roll in some way, and my players are excited that their characters are these wholey inperfect beings. I didn't have a problem with it, considering it just allows them to flush out their characters more, and gets them more invested. The problem is that none of the players want to keep track of "when" this flaw should or shouldn't appear, because they all want to hide their flaws from the other characters until it's discovered. Your honors, there are 5 of these (beloved) fuckers, and trying to remember who has a hurt hand or a tummy ache or a secret primordial power that only arises during certain scenarios is tough. I ask you, would I be in the right to ask my players to make sure they keep track of when they need apply their debuffs, or am I in the wrong for allowing them to express ththeir DnD creativity in the first place? I humbly awaiting the high courts decisions.

Philthy

To the effervescent judges and their little piss baby. I bring forth the case of the life or death action economy. 2 sessions ago my party of myself a divine soul sorcerer, a divination wizard, and a soul knife rogue, we’re committing a train heist to investigate our bosses new competition and a local research facility. As we were on the train a mysterious figure appeared who proceeded to one shot my cowboy ass (we had not had a chance to take a short rest yet between combats). Everyone has health potions just in case and we can either use an action to take them for the full effect or as a bonus action for half the healing. It’s also worth noting my two party members are new to dnd and often ask for clarifications. Anyway I go down and proceed to fail my death saving throw. The enemy has an ability like the Tasmanian devil where they turn in to a tornado and hit everything as they run up the train car so I’m at risk of being hit again and completely dying. So I’m down the rogues turn comes and goes with their action and bonus action used. Then the wizard casts firebolt and ended his turn next to my unconscious dying body. Luckily the dm rolled poorly and the enemy was slowed so I survived but would I have been wrong to get on my knees and beg the wizard to use his potion? I don’t want to tell them how to play the game but I also don’t want my nepo baby cowboy to die.

JBeev

To the ever benevolent judges and the bailiff who should put his dick away while court is in sesssion (geez Jake), I bring before you the case of… FANATICAL FOCUS V. HEIGHTENED SPELL (featuring a murph-level freak out) Last year, I was DMing a short campaign for a group of randos online. One of the PC’s was playing as a multiclass Sorcerer-Warlock optimized for damage-dealing. In one of the boss fights near the end of the campaign, the group was facing off against a Barbarian demigod whose stat block had the “Fanatical Focus” feature. In the sorcerer’s first turn, they cast an AoE spell and used “Heightened Spell” to give the raging Barbarian disadvantage against the save. The boss failed, so I decided to utilize the Fanatical Focus feature to reroll. Just before the dice left my hand, I noticed the wording of Heightened Spell states that the disadvantage only applies to the “first saving throw made against the spell.” To me, this seemed pretty clear cut that my next roll would instead be made flat, but the PC argued that a “reroll” is redoing the first roll, thus the disadvantage would still apply. Not wanting to spend precious playtime arguing, I just went with my interpretation of the rules. The player was clearly pissed they had wasted 3 sorcery points, but the party ultimately prevailed in the encounter. The next morning, I awoke to a MURPH-LEVEL FREAKOUT on Discord. This absolute wall of a message included a formal explanation of why their interpretation of the rules was correct, a declaration that I intentionally wanted to embarrass them, and an accusation that I was jealous that they had designed “the perfect PC.” And yes, this blowup was as out-of-the-blue as it seems. So Justices, was I correct in negating this Sorcerer’s Metamagic or am I, in fact, a cruel, heartless, and jealous DM to this online player that I had known for a total of 21 play-hours? I humbly await your insight.

Bri

Oh glorious court judges (and I guess Jailiff Bake) I come to you today with the case of the outside player beef! I've been running a campaign for 3 people and 1 has been less than enthusiastic since the beginning though I assumed that was their playing style since that's the only way I've seen them play (for example their character is an awakened lizard who used to be a wizard familiar so the first time I had the players run combat, Lizzy the Wizzy rolled Performance to just pretend to be a regular lizard to avoid actually fighting and he routinely does nothing to help with puzzles unless for it's for a funny bit) As previously stated I thought things were fine (albeit a little weird) since this is how the player's characters always are and neither of the other players came to me with any issue. Unfortunately this is where I was wrong. It turns out one of my players has had issues with this play style from the beginning! The player in question was actually our past DM and so they decided to talk to Lizzy's player outside of game without ever telling me. Which would have been fine but Lizzy's player has apparently brushed off my other player every time by saying "it's just a game, stop taking things so seriously" which eventually led to the two fighting and now I'm down to two players (Lizzy is no longer in the campaign) Judges, I ask you this: should I have taken better care to do vibe checks when I thought things were off? I'm not upset about Lizzy being gone since they would have been kicked out anyway if I knew they weren't taking other people's feelings into account, but I hate to think things have been less fun than I thought! I await your judgement with baited breath and shall take my lumps accordingly.

Adam Fux

To the hot, honorable judges, and i guess the bailiff John or whatever: I present to you the case of the of the Unavoidable Apocalypse. A few years ago, I played in a campaign with a group of friends. There were several frustrating things about this game, such as the DM completely disregarding multiple player backstories and focusing mainly on one PC and the game shifting to revolve around him and MORE. However, the biggest grievance I have is with how the game ended. We were all level 5 when we discovered an evil cult planning a ritual to end the world. Despite our best efforts to stop the ritual: the cult was able to pull it off, creating a black cloud that destroyed everything in its wake. We raced back to our city to do research on how to stop the cloud from reaching us, but despite our efforts and HIGH rolls on checks made by the PCs the DM said that we were unable to find any information and that the shadow would reach our city in the morning. Feeling defeated, we all went home to spend our remaining hours with our loved ones and the session ended. We haven’t played since. Judges were we wronged? Furthermore, are we wrong for this effecting our friendship?

Ben Kaufman

To the fully satisfied after a perfect Thanksgiving judges and the bailiff who I personally hope sat through deeply uncomfortable political arguments and overate to avoid participating: I bring you the case of the left out mom. Shortly after both my brother and I got married a few years ago, my brother offered to DM a homebrew campaign for his wife, her sister and brother-in-law, my wife and me, and our mom. The in-laws, my wife and I had all engaged in some sort of D&D media, but we included our mom because she said she wanted to see us more regularly and a weekly zoom D&D seemed a perfect opportunity. Our mom made a druid and we started out playing with her once a week. It seemed immediately clear that, despite our best assistance, she couldn't get the hang of spells. After a handful of sessions over a few months, we suggested and convinced our mom to change her character into a champion fighter and it seemed like she really enjoyed the change! However, because our table was so big (6 players), we could almost never play regularly. When we did, my mom would have tech issues that delayed our play. Eventually the game just fizzled out without comment really from anyone. The problem is that my brother started a new campaign cutting out ONLY mom from the invited players. My wife turned it down (she prefers watching or listening to playing herself), so it was just me of our household participating. We live in the same state as my parents and my brother lives on the East Coast. One night when my wife and I went out to dinner with my parents, my mom asked if we were ever going to play our game of D&D again, saying that she really missed playing with us and that it had been really fun. I was experimenting with radical honesty and confessed about the new game and that we'd already played a few times. Mom was furious, but restrained by the public setting and could only quietly demand information about the new game. She seemed genuinely upset at ME for the situation as the one who reported. My brother's games repeatedly fizzle out like our first one and we've now started at least 3 more in the 4 years since. Every time I am the one who my mom asks about D&D and must report that we've started another game without her. Justices, I am seeking an order from the Crit against my brother that compels him to disclose when we start new games without her. I await your judgment.

Jen

Dear fabulous judges and the baliffee jauck. I bring the case of “DnDidnt.” I run a club for younger teens. I unfortunately had to remove someone to due them just not clicking and making the game straight up not fun for anyone else. But my case is not about them. While regaling my woes to my friends in my dnd group, i mentioned that whenever ANYone rolled a nat 1 that kid ALWAYS, and I’m talking ALWAYS, yelled “no you DnDidnt.” So now my mid 30s friends have started yelling that as well whenever a nat 1 appears. Dear judges, what do? thanks. good night.

Gabriel Balog

To the most honorable judges and to the bailiff that went so low that, following PacMan rules, became elevated. I bring you the case of the NAPPER'S REVENGE. 😴🤜🧙‍♂️ My older cousin invited me to play in a Pathfinder campaign with some of his friends and, even tho I'm DnD's little bitch, I got excited (especially with my PC, Arthur PenGaton). On the first session, the party was preparing to rest before an invasion that would happen in a few hours, and I started happily interacting with the Magus, asking him about magic. That’s when it began... The Sorcerer, impatient to start the long rest, said: "You want to see a cool spell?" and casted Sleep on the party. The spell lasts 1min so, when the Magus woke up, he stated that he was "attacked" and "would have his revenge". They rolled initiative and, in one turn, the Magus dropped the Sorcerer with punches. He would keep going and kill the guy if the DM, my cousin, wouldn't have said that the invasion was starting and we had to deal with it. The group was silent, we never played again, and I miss my unused PC. Judges, I beg of thee to awnser: what the fuck just happened? Who's fault was it? PS. Love from São Paulo, Brazil 🇧🇷

Katy Howells

Judges and the other one, yes that’s you Jake thank you for actually showing up today. This isn’t really a case persay, but it’s been on my mind. My girlfriend’s best friend has DMed for years but it came up in conversation that they don’t let their players use feats because “there are too many and they don’t want to go through all the lists.” My dearest judges… what the hell is that??? What a lousy excuse to not let your players have treats like feats. Is it fair that this DM stifles the fun for their players? Side note: That DM doesn’t play D&D anymore because they decided to switch to a MUCH more complicated system of gameplay.. which my girlfriend hated. Ironic!

thatoneguy

Dear Jake and the Jakettes, I present you with the case of the dual wielding giant. In one of my first real campaigns I was playing a Rune Knight Fighter Centaur. As a Rune Knight I could use a bonus action to become a Large, and at later levels, Huge creature, I would gain a 1d6 (later 1d8) to my damage roll, but my weapons would stay the same size. I imagined a giant centaur holding a glaive and later a great sword meant for a normal person and felt like my cool Worf mode centaur man must have looked liked an absolute dork. I asked my DM if I would be able to dual wield great swords to at least give me the appearance of a guy with a couple of daggers, but was struck down. My simple question is should (for the sake of balance, immersion or simply the lulz) Large or Huge characters be able to dual wield weapons meant to be wielded alone by smaller creatures? PS: I'm probably gonna lose whatever grace Murph is granting me so far, but can I push for using them as throwing weapons? I'm willing to take feats.

Tyler Jackson

To the Supreme Crit Justices and their little buddy Jake, I present a cold case dating back over 20 years ago, and the story of a son wronged by his father. It was the year 2000 - I was a young lad with a slap on bracelet, an N64, and a love for fantasy. My father decided to introduce my older brother and I to DnD, since it was something he had played back in the day with our mother, so we decided to play a game as a family around the kitchen table. This was right before 3rd edition came out, so we started out using 2nd Edition rules. We rolled for stats, dice and pencils in hand, and my brother rolled up an Elven fighter, since of course Legolas kicked ass. I also rolled up an elven fighter, sort of a brother to my brother’s character, and allocated my stats accordingly. As the game was to begin however I had doubts - my adolescent heart began pushing for independence and I realized I wanted to be a wizard, casting spells and wielding great magic! I told my father this wish for change, who stared at me for a moment before saying simply “okay.” He then reached over, erased fighter on my character sheet, and wrote wizard. That was it. I was given a spell book and robes, removed my armor - and off we went into the dungeon. There was no changes made to my stats at all - I was basically a fighter now larping as a wizard. And I was kind of dumb- we’re talking a wizard with 15 strength, 10 intelligence, and a dream of casting spells. As soon as we enter the cave, we see a large rat- eager to flex my magic muscles, I rush at it to cast a shocking grasp. I miss, because I have 10 Int. The rat then bites me, because I’m wearing just a robe, and back then wizards had a d4 HP, so it instantly killed me. They had to drag my first character, the might wizard Castilin, out of the cave to be revived, and so my first ever DnD character came to an end. Justices, was my father wrong for not letting me swap stats when switching from fighter to wizard before the game began, or was simply a dumb wizard with a dream?

Emily Wall

Apropos of nothing, I was listening to Juno by Sabrina Carpenter and my husband yelled downstairs ‘she sounds like Emily Axford in this song.’ I instantly knew exactly what he meant (we listen to Is This Love or Mass Extinction all the time). That’s not a case though, so I guess I’ll also say that I (as dm) killed my husband’s character during our second ever session of DND. The bugbear rolled over twice his hit points, twice (I rerolled it to try to not kill him). He occasionally brings it up to prove I hate him. Should we get divorced?

anna ryan rose

Hello honored and righteous clergy members and maybe that other guy that’s standing in the corner in a slightly different colored (possibly dirty or soiled) robe. I’m not sure if that means anything religiously but it feels pitiful, anyways, I have a confession. During the pandemic, one of my best friends (at the time) reached out and asked me to join their campaign. I was absolutely ecstatic. It was my first campaign, so my dad gave me his dice from when he played as a child in the 80’s. They are very cool red and white dice with a slightly overzealous font. Everything was going great until I rolled initiative for the first time and rolled what I thought was a 19. My character went first in combat everything went well until the next time I rolled the dice and I actually got a 19. I realized for initiative I had gotten a 13 and it just looked like a 19 because of the weird font. I didn’t know what to do. This was the first session of DND I’d ever played so I lied and exclaimed “You’re not going to believe this!! I got another 19!” and turned my laptop so they could see it. I have no idea why I emphasized my lie soo much but it haunts me, I genuinely think about it at least once a day and I haven’t played with that party in 2 years. I am on my knees in the confession box and it’s a weird fit but I really need to emphasize my desperation. I am begging, please bestow upon me forgiveness or a punishment worthy of my horrendous mistake so I can live free of dice related sin.

Lady Jacqueline P of Castle Whitestone

To the right and honorable Judges and that super cute bailiff who has the same first initial as me. May I present to you the case of the Nerfing DM. I was in a Call of the Netherdeep campaign over a year ago and due to a set of flame skulls was required to make a back up character. I decided to run with a wildfire druid because I loved the idea of using spells like Heat Metal and Pass Without a Trace to help our chaotic party use our brains to get past puzzles and combats. I used Pass Without a Trace to sneak us past a dragon and Heat Metal to kill a BBEG before he could really hurt us by heating his armor and his saving throws were so bad the fire damage killed him in three rounds along with my wildfire spirit's Flame Seed hits being really good. Well I was allowed to use those spells as written ONCE each, because the session after I used them they were suddenly nerfed. I was only allowed to use Pass without a Trace on one person plus myself and it was only +5 instead of + 10. And Heat Metal was only on one small object or weapon and the DM would never allow my druid to heat armor or in one case use it to on a clockwork droid cannon to damage the droid over all. I ask for your opinion on if the DM was fair to nerf the spells to make my character less OP or if it was sour grapes because we easily handled encounters he'd planned to be much longer and he was mad at me. I await your honest and fair judgement. Yours, Lady Jacqueline P

Aqueluna

To the blindingly bright supreme crit justices Murphy, Axford and Tanner and the dingy moth-swarmed motel lightbulb of a bailiff. I bring you the case of the BBEG-smitten party. I ran a campaign a few years ago where the big threat were functionally two eldritch horror-style gods of a long-dead religion and their creepy dream-manipulating demigod priestess. Upon besting an undead champion of the priestess, the group was able to steal an idol that spirited them along during their next rest to a nightmarish recreation of the temple she was sealed beneath. Facing off with nightmares, tantalising offers and eventually, a creepy puppet-like effigy of said priestess described as "dubiously animated" "slimy" and "ominous". Despite this, to my initial amusement - the group flirted up a storm with the increasingly frustrated priestess. They dedicating the rest of the campaign to finding ways to return to her to "hang out" and flirt with her. Never agreeing meaningfully oppose her efforts, or aid them. Or to engage with any of the other factions or really each other, leaving everything stagnant. Eventually she refused to talk to them for "wasting her time" and they threatened to quit the campaign if I didn't have her change her mind. I did not, so the campaign ended. Was I being a stubborn butt refusing to give the players what they wanted, hoping they'd engage with the campaign? Or should I have let it become casual hang-outs with their creepy eldritch wife?

James

To the slimy and slippery Justices and the painfully dry and crusty bailiff, I present the case of the Reviving VS Attacking Conundrum. A few weeks ago, my wife and played our first tabletop session, DMed by my wonderful sister. My brother in law played martial bard, friend a battlemage, wife played assassin rogue, and myself a swashbuckler fighter gunslinger. The world was based on an arcane pirate setting, with a soul stealing necromancer captain BBEG, fighting on a boarded ship. As the final battle began to reach its climax, our bard went down, just before my turn. As initiative reached me, I asked "do you want me to revive you or should I just attacked the BBEG?" and he said to focus on dropping the baddie. So I took my attacks and unfortunately didnt drop him. After that the wizard went down, from lair actions, then on the BBEGs turn, he dropped my wife. When initiative came back to me, I was in the same boat (pun intended)- fallen comrades and a standing threat. So I ask you, judges and that stinky bitch Jake, how do you decide the times to forego attacks, as a martial class, when your party is in death throes?

Red Wynn

To the wonderous, salubrious, effervescent, and overall magnanimous Justices- also tuckers girlfriends husband, sup dude?- I bring to you the case of the Liar Liar NPC on fire About a year ago I was running a Sky island style campaign, in which the party used a stolen pirate ship to travel around. A long the way they encountered and NPC named Ezik, a wizard/ship captain, who invited them to a Skyship race. Along the way Ezik told them the rules, or so he claimed. When the race began the party had prepared a few spells to get them off the starting line faster, and one of Eziks crew members attempted to a sneaky counter spell. This upset the players, as Ezik had told them they weren't allowed to cast spells on each other, a lie. During the race the party was in first place the whole, and even managed to defeat Ezik, The Liar, and a time magic- orc muscle mommy, quite handily at that. Along the way they had encountered a few set backs but nothing that jeopardized their victory after the first three rounds. After wards one of my players told me they thought it was unfair that Ezik had lied to them, and that it had upset them I didn't offer an insight check into the rules Ezik gave. So justices is it wrong to let your players believe a lie if they don't question? Or should all lies have Insight checks stapled onto them?

writeathome

Howdy and good day to the ethereal judges and the esteemed baliff jack. Today I present the case of the drug dealing DM. May it please the court: I recently GM’d a highly anticipated game for some friends while I was visiting them. I wanted to give my first time players a chance to kick my ass by giving them as many fun magical items as I could reasonably include, at least one for each character. I started the session by giving the Kendall Roy esque Noble vampire Hunter homebrew drugs to share with the party (as had been previously discussed). However upon receiving the items (represented by candy that I handed out at the table), the Hunter kept them to herself. She also refused to share any of the magical items she found, including an item the bard had begged me to incorporate for her character. This quickly delved into a game of insight vs deception checks after the trickster cleric threatened to pickpocket the hunter for the items. The hunter won, and later, when the cleric discovered a mimic and was attacked, the hunter refused to join initiative and was the only PC to do so. It tangibly killed the vibes in the room, but I kept the game going, trying to ignore the awkwardness, and flipped back-and-forth between the PCs in the fight and the hunter as she continued to loot the next room. Lo and behold, she found a mimic too. Luckily the rest of the party finished up their fight quickly and were able to save the cleric and hunter both. We played for several hours and while not completing the one shot due to time restraints, the hunter did not once use any of the items I prepared for them or the party. I even messaged her a table of the drug effects in case she had forgotten, but during a fight, the bard kept going down and the hunter still did not share. When the topic was broached the next day between the bard and hunter, it felt like mom and dad were fighting until the hunter shut down in a sulky silence that lasted hours on my last night in town. Did I fail as a DM? What could I have done differently to make sure everyone had a good time at the table and used the items I prepared for them? Am I wrong for being frustrated with the vampire hunter? How do you handle such awkward tension at the table and mediate bad moods amongst players? I humbly accept whatever sentence or advice y’all bestow.

Gekkogahiya

To the esteemed justices and the genetic parent of tucker's stepdaughter. I present the case of the sleighted symbol spell. I dm a long running campaign. Currently the players are in hiding in a drow city because one of them, the drow prince, is wanted by the crown for reasons unknown to them. Due to their lack of disguise magic, they were discovered and beset by a bounty hunter using the symbol spell. Here lies my mistake. I used the sleep function of the spell, forgetting that the drow sorceror and eladrin druid were immune to it. HOWEVER. Because the caster was a drow and knew his target, the prince, was a drow, he should have known sleep wouldn't work. I explained this and made an intelligence check for the caster, succeeding and changing it. The session ended at the start of combat after the spell triggered, leaving half the party affected by the pain symbol. Judges, was i wrong to make a roll for an npc with a higher intelligence score than my own?

M

Dear you bunch of schmucks, Please help - your ruling is vital to my weekend plans! Every weekend I play D&D in a pub, with different DM's every week and a different group of players! Last weekend our latest group began our adventure to find the cause of the haunted mansion. Our DM allowed us to fully stock up in the market beforehand. I (a half-elf bard called Aristos) bought a discounted pack of 10 potions that came with no info on what they do (important to know). Cut to 4 hours later and we have yet to fight a single enemy, yet to fall into a single trap, and yet to encounter anything haunted within the mansion. Finally we uncover that the child of the family who lived there was cursed, and the family had left her! After another hour of walking around aimlessly we uncover a trap door, break it open and head down to find a vampire staring at us. The DM makes us roll initiative and I went first. I chose to throw one of my potions at the vampire, I roll a 97 on a d100, and healed the vampire! I then realised, this vampire was cursed as a child, had not actually attacked us (at all) and all we had done to her was heal her. So I considered that maybe this was not the BBEG of the session! I rolled to persuade her to join the party, and on a 23 persuasion she joins to find who cursed her. This stopped the initiative and as a group we found a map leading to a dock. To cut a long story short - we spent a further 2 hours walking around before the DM packed up their belongings and told us that the vampire was the BBEG and I had ruined the one-shot. The players then turned to me, with one saying "that was your fault". 7 hours of D&D with 0 attacks, 0 damage taken, and only a single action in initiative. Dear schmucks I ask - did I ruin multiple peoples weekends and can I show my face back to this group? Your ruling will decide whether I attend again.

Vincent

I have a confession, for I fear I have sinned against dice Christ, and caught red handed by my fellow parishioners. I was playing a long term campaign with a friend and his extended network of dnd loving companions. After an arduous conflict our DM told us we could level up - mana from dice heaven itself - and I decided to do it then and there. I rolled my hit dice through roll20, and instead of clicking once in the randomizer decided to click 20 or 30 times in quick succession. Deacons of the dice, every roll showed up in the public feed of roll 20, something I did not realise until another player awkwardly pointed this out. I felt embarrassed that this would look like I was cheating the dice, and in a panic said ‘I didn’t know it showed up like that’. My party were left to speculate if I had just rerolled until I got a good level of HP, and I felt I had broken a bond of trust with my new companions. We’re all friends now and I’ve played with them multiple times since since, but justices, can my guilt be absolved, or did I sin against dice Christ in trying to impose my agency on the random will of our ttrpg board and saviour?

Jason Dedrick

May it please the esteemed legitimate court, and also to Bailiff Jape, the jingling jester that he is, I present the case of the super dead little guy. Running Abomination Vaults in Pathfinder 2e; early on, the party befriended a little fae creature named Tangletop / Spookywisp, and have befriended this little guy and are carrying him around in their pack for occasional whimsical commentary as they delve further into the megadungeon. Spoilers for Abomination Vaults here: eventually the party runs into the ghostly mistress of the vaults, who cant be defeated earlier on in the module but occasionally manifests to harass and harangue. On her opening appearance, she cast a massive AOE spell - Phantasmal Calamity, look it up. The spell hurt the party a normal amount but I also had them roll for Tangletop, who critically failed his Will save and took far over twice the lethal damage. I narrated him falling out of their backpack and hitting the floor with a dull, wet thump. Justices, are silly little joke characters who otherwise dont meaningfully participate in combats fair game for areas of effect?

Dame Beeks

To the esteemed justices and the itty bitty bailiff James, I present to you the case of the vengeful vampire. Back in college I played an elven cleric in a campaign that was DMed by my roommate’s boyfriend. In game, my father was the king of a small country and one of his main goals was to rid the country of vampires. I had to miss a session when I went home for a weekend. At the beginning of the next session I was informed that my pc was now a vampire. Confused, I asked how that had happened. They told me that while I was gone they had met a hot vampire NPC and invited them back to our place for a house party. While the party was raging, the dm narrated the vampire sneaking upstairs, where he found my pc asleep in a room. As revenge against my father, the vampire proceeded to kill my pc and turn her into a vampire spawn. I was a little miffed that I had absolutely no say in this but decided to roll with it. It changed many things for my pc but most importantly her relationship with the her father, who now hated her. Overall the game was still a lot of fun and ended when we all graduated. It’s been several years but I still feel a little salty about it to this day. Judges was I wronged for having such a big story beat and change happen to my pc while I wasn’t there? I humbly await your decision.

Philip Meade

Case of the dangerous downtime: Noble justices of the supreme crit, and ignominious bailiff jake, I present to you the case of downtime misunderstandings. After returning from a perilous adventure, our DM declared that we would be having some downtime. Setting the scene at our home-base town, they narrated an eventful night at the local tavern, presenting several plot threads and points of interest that we could investigate. Each of us split off to check out one of these threads, and my ranger chose a missing citizen from the town. Arriving at the missing person’s house, there was a very bloody mess that curiously included lots of dead rats. It seemed nasty, but I made a metagame assumption that this was downtime, so my character wasn’t going to step into something too far out of my depth. Instead of gathering the party and wasting time, I went after the townsperson. I tracked the missing person into a cliffside, where I was attacked by the same creature that had abducted the missing person - a full vampire. Justices of the Crit, my ranger was level 7. I ran, but the vampire easily caught me and tucked in for dinner. We rolled to see if my character died or became a vampire themself. Later on, I learned that the clues of excessive blood at the crime scene and dead rats were meant to be indicative of a vampire’s work. My DM seemed a little surprised that I hadn’t managed to get away from the vampire after discovering them. For my part, I was very surprised and confused to learn that following a plot hook in downtime could be so deadly. Wise Justices of the Crit, does downtime mean anything? Was my sweet ranger’s grisly fate deserved, or did I get turned into this vampire’s personal Capri Sun unjustly? I prostrate myself before the Crit.

Finkleburg

To the beautiful and upstanding but sitting justices and the bailiff… who seem to be covered in glitter… Gross. I bring the case of the ridiculous name. I’m trying to become a DM for the first time and during character creation with one of my players he wanted to make a character spin off of Frodo Baggins with “small changes”. Instead of being a halfling he demands to be a hobbit and instead of the ring of power, he wants the cock ring of power. I think,cool, I can work with all this. A small name change and a I can obviously curse my player with no problem. Until he tells me he wants to be called (redacted last name of to problematic). Dildo Redacted(out of fear of being banned). I refuse saying I can’t have serious moments roleplay in game calling him Dildo and plainly did not want to deal with a character called that. Now everytime I ask about his progress with creation. It becomes a laborious because he refuses to pick a new name and it’s become more of a joke at this point instead of effort for a new and first time game for everyone. Judges I ask should I fold on having him change names or give up on planning a session with my Bestfriend/roomate and move on to find a new group?

DJ Matty Lil Crits

To the Wife Worm and Wife Guys of the Supreme Crit, and whatever Jill is legally obligate to call Jake, I present the Neglectful Husband. We were a group of lv 7s fighting a lich and his minions. the DMPC cleric had thrust her sword into the lich's chest to absorb his magic so we would take only half damage to lower the difficulty of the fight. Knowing the lich couldn't remove the sword, my bard cast heat metal on the sword. After 2 rounds of my bullshit, my DM ruled that I'd heated the sword enough to melt it, even though that's not how the spell works. I was fine with it, and took it as a compliment for my spell usage. We won without any permanent deaths thanks to the cleric's revivify and her father, a Duke of Hell, dragging the boss to hell to completely skip the second phase. My actual grievance is that on the way home, the cleric's husband, an ancient silver dragon and my DM's pathfinder character, arrived to guide us home. As we celebrated our victory, the dragon cornered my character demanding I buy his wife a replacement sword, as the sword I melted had been an anniversary present. As a lv 7 bard, I did not have the funds to buy a new legendary class sword. He said don't worry, I can pay it off later. Judges, I do not want to buy him a sword. if he wants his wife to have a sword to defend her, I recommend he be more present in her life. What say you? I humbly await the wisdom of her worm-li-ness and the compassion of the court.

Jeremy Skeele

May it please the honorable high justices, and also Hurwitz. I bring you the case of the Shield/Rapier Barbarian. We are currently level 4 in a seven player Curse of Strahd campaign & it has been going well, but recently, an argument arose between the DM and a fellow player. We were in a combat against a single fighter who was supposed to be very powerful and intimidating. In the fight, the Path of The Totem Barbarian kept hitting the enemy — and with the Barbarian’s level three subclass feature, the enemy now had disadvantage on any attack that wasn’t towards the Barbarian, and even if they hit someone else, the damage would be halved. The DM then claimed that this feature was absolutely busted, essentially gave every character ‘rage’, and that they would talk about what to do about it later. The player pushed back, saying that it wasn’t busted, simply working well, and that the DM was just upset because he didn’t know about the feature and was now overreacting to it. While I agreed that this seemed like a harsh reaction from the DM to a core subclass feature, the player has a bit of a (in his opinion, unfair) reputation for being a sweat. In this case, he made his barbarian dexterity based with a shield, medium armor, and a rapier, specifically to evoke this feature instead of focusing on strength or damage. So, dear justices, I ask — was this an unfair usage and build, or was the DM simply overreacting? I await your judgment with quivering anticipation

Felix Adams

Dear Clergy of the Crit, and alter boy, Junior I kneel before thee to give my witnessing of dice Christ. This is neither a case nor confession, but testimony! We weren’t even playing DnD. This happened a handful of weeks ago, but I simply can’t shake it still. My girlfriend and I have a huge collection of board games and one night we were playing Backgammon. Key parts of backgammon, is that you roll two D6 and move up to 2 out of your 24 chips in respective rulings. However, if one rolls two doubles, (2 of the same) that players can move twice as many as the total split up amongst 4 chips respectively, which is a HUGE advantage. The hour was upon us, my girlfriend was winning and I needed doubles. So in front of my girlfriend I did what any sane person does and I prayed to dice Christ out loud. She says to me, “what are you doing?” And I said “praying to dice Christ of course” proceed to roll a one and a two. She still looks at me like I’m crazy and I explain the bit, or so I thought bit at the time, she then says, “haha you’re crazy for that” and I say, “yeah I guess it’s a little silly” but what happened next was nothing short of crazy where my girlfriend then IMMEDIATELY rolls EIGHT doubles in a row, flooring me in the process and returning all her pieces to her base that turn… My friends I simply lost it. I was in awe about what happened. My girlfriend payed no mind to the miracle that happened. We both denounced dice Christ even slightly and there she shows herself. But I simply had witnessed a holy act of godliness. Thus I believe that dice Christ spands beyond the 20 and into all dice regardless of shape or material or use. I thank you for your time and will shall proceed as you see fit.

Austin B

To the able, honorable and iced out justices alongside their beauty-of-a-bailiff Jake Hurwitz. I humbly submit my case of the were-snail flavored rage allowed the death of a party member . It is my first time playing DnD and I am playing a variant human barbarian with a tragic backstory as the last of his kind, weresnail prince who turns into a 7ft, hulked-out weresnail when he rages. During a dungeon crawl during an earlier level, my pc turned into his snail form to do the heavy lifting of the elevator lift the party ascended. Later, during combat with the dungeon boss, i tried to snail-hulk rage but my DM told me that I actually didnt have any uses of rage left. He said that I had used it once during a minion wipe, again in the elevator and the party never explicitly stated they took a short rest to replenish (a mechanic I was unaware of). I protested that my pc changed form as flavor only but my DM insisted that using my weresnail form at all counted as a rage. I could’ve accepted this but one of my squishy party members DIED during this combat because i had to play more defensively with my rageless barbarian. Is this a case of an overpunishing DM or did my party member fall victim to my own naivety. I await judgement

ReynSedai

To the beacons of crit justice and He who is lower than Worm Wife, and gets to bask in their benevolence, I beseech thee advice, for as a new dm I have lost my way and seek guidance if you can spare a cantrip. Im about to run Vecna eve of ruin and crafting subplots woven into the campaign for each pc. I started with 5, and now I'm down to 3 before session 0 two weeks away. I invested so much time, effort and money into making an experience for each player, and expanding the campaign using planescape. I confess I'm very angry and hurt and I don't know how not to take it personally when they know how much work I've invested into this for them when they text that they're out two weeks before we start session 0/1. That was after weeks of canciling meet ups about his character. I would normally take the Murphy advice and find new friends but, the love of my life is close friends with him and a much better person than I am, insisting I keep giving him chance after chance because he's in a bad place right now. Am I wrong to be done with him? I humbly await your advice and judgement, all I beg is that you please shout out my loving partner who has a boundless heart, Tim, my hero. Thank you, Heirophants of Crit

Joe Lenton

Dear sweet, thoughtful justices who can do no wrong and the bailiff who knows what he did and should be very ashamed of himself I bring to you the case of the limbo trapped Luna I once ran a Halloween one shot where the players were all investigators checking out a spooky village that had become overrun with a curse after the village burnt a witch. The twist of the one shot was that all the PCs were actually once villagers themselves that had knowingly been someway instrumental in the death of an innocent person, and despite their current characters being ostensibly good people, a God of spite was punishing them in these new identities by making them live this experience over and over forever, each time getting to kill the party gruesomely the moment they figure out what is going on. My fiancée was a player in this group, a Whispers Bard named Luna, who since this one shot in 2020 brings up that she believes that, eventually, after an infinite number of cycles of this torment, Luna and her companions would figure out a way to break free of the nightmare. I, of course, always like to argue that yeah, of course that’s what Luna would think. Judges, I request that you decide definitively on our behalf - does the party eventually figure out how to outsmart a God, or does the nightmare endure for all time? I should clarify that everyone had a good time and the twist was pretty well received, but after 4 years it is time we received a definitive answer. I humbly await your judgement.

Tyler A Rowe

Forgive me dice daddy, for I have sinned. I was once a shepherd - now I walk in the valley of shadow. I was the first in our friend group to discover DnD. It was an immediate love affair. The game consumed my every thought and ounce of effort. I poured myself into pages - taking lessons from every session. Categorizing information, of which I freely shared. My game spawned 4 others to begin their own, and others spawn still. My confession: I no longer feel adequate to build and run the game, despite my friends and players frequently asking me to. The more I learned, the less I knew. The less I knew, the more I doubted. How can one build a world without fully understanding the mechanics and history of the one in which they live? Oh great and sexy judges - and hopefully a guest, how can I return to the warm, pointy bosom of Dice Christ and move with his light once again?

Bruno Fant

J'accuse !

Captain Morgan Pirate Wizard

HI Dice Christ Clergy AND bailiff joke I feel cursed please bless my Older Brother's campaign the second session is upcoming and ever since the Pirate DnD went on Hiatus for Internship reasons ive yet to join a campaign that gets to a sescond session My brother is focusing on sustainability in his words and hasnt Dmed before. But his asking for notes/criticism via Direct Message is a big green flag and i think he isnt over preping which i think was directly involved in previous campaign collapse iv3 witnessed.

Matt mckenzie

Oh great and powerful judges and the other guy. You know, what’s his name? Anyways, I present the case of the “Roleplaying Rewards Regret.” I run a campaign with 7 players (not all can make it every time, so usually four players are at a session). Some are very engaged and involved. Some just come to roll some dice and hang out and have fun. In between sessions, I ask (on discord) each player what their character is doing; it can lead to some very engaging roleplay and character growth, which is rewarded. I gave a warlock an Augury-like ability to commune with their patron. A monk got some cool-ass gauntlets. A Paladin got a special knowledge skill because of her research. But the players who don’t engage get nothing. Though no one has complained yet (and the unengaged players may never notice), I still feel guilty. Am I wrong to be giving engaged players rewards?

Jennifer Barnes

To the esteemed Crit Clergy Members and the Usher at the doors, I have a confession to lay humbly at your heels. I am a DM and I have been running a Campaign for approximately three years as of this November. The campaign had an arc in Ravenloft where they traversed the mists and explored several often unexplored demiplanes, but There was an encounter that should have ended it all and I let them live. The party had come upon a pack of 16 Shadow Wolves, and this fight was so brutal it woke a Shadow Dragon that was asleep on top of a keep nearby outside of the Forrest. I never intended for them to die here, it was just a break from our regular arc so I allowed my party of 5 characters at level 5 defeat a CR 18 Shadow Dragon and 16 Shadow Wolves CR 5. I fear I may have taken away from an epic battle of death that would show my DM Strength but I just couldn't do it. I hope you have mercy on my merciful tendencies.

Corey Collins

To the kind judges and the bailiff whose name always slips my mind, I bring you case of the XP farmers. Many moons ago during the first campaign I ever took part in (first time for the DM too) I played a ranger and another one of our party members was a Druid. We both took the Spike Growth spell. After the first session using it I (unknowingly meta gamed) and mentioned to the DM that the XP we got didn’t add up and we got much more than we were supposed to. She had mentioned that small critters like frogs and squirrels technically give XP and this was supposed to make us think about our actions/spells before using them because it may hurt “bystanders”… the next session the Druid and I BOTH kept using spike growth throughout the swamp leading to the eradication of so many innocent creatures and so so much XP… needless to say after that session it became a milestone leveling system. I ask for your judgement on this and what we must do to repent. (Note this was 8 years ago and now knowing what meta gaming is I haven’t done it since in D&D)

Tamer Of The Metropolitan Metal Serpent

To the nat 18 Caldwell, nat 14 Murph, nat 20 Emily, and the balif I shall not curse my new birthday dice with rolling for I bring you all the case of the tpk that was my fault? I was playing my first ever campaign with a couple friends and this game had been rough from the start our DM threw us into the game with no help from the start even going as far as to kill one of the PC's on "accident" with his high lvl insert character from a previous campaign who's story we ended up following after but that's a case for another day. We were deep in a dungeon and I was playing both my character and filling In playing my best friends character, since he couldn't make the session, and as we we were rapping up the session our DM said that we were close to leveling up and asked if we wanted to run a quick encounter to level up to be more prepared for what's to come. We obviously agreed since everything we went through before was fairly ok to fight and come to find out we get absolutely womped my DM knocked all of us out and asked why I didn't use any abilities or potions in combat. I said it was hard enough trying to remember everything on my character sheet. He then proceeded to say my absent friends character was dead without even making a single saving through and went as far as to call my friend say that I killed his character and asked what he wanted to do. For the rest of the campaign they would often razz me over killing the whole party so I ask am I to blame for not reading through my friend and I's character sheets and not asking more questions?

Joshua Goguen

To the resplendent judges and that guy, Jeff? I present to you the case of the chaotic player in an orderly world. I was running a 5E campaign with two groups, one with serious undertones and players who want a good story. The other was quite chaotic, the most chaotic player owned a two headed dog that exclusively bit off enemies dicks, he was titled “Chard the glizzy gobbler”. The chaotic campaign fizzled out and a player, (Chard’s owner) joined my more serious campaign. He presented the group with a character named “Didaleedo” and has been drunk constantly and is steering the campaign in a very silly direction. Do I let this persist, even though half of my original players seem bothered? Or do I dome Didaleedo and suggest a more serious character?

Darkrisky

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

Charlotte Gill

To the beautiful and fair judges and Jake. I bring to your attente the case of the subtle getaway. During a session my party came across a revenant and his clan of barbarians who were set of getting revenge against the people who destroyed his tombe. My party joined the clan to find these people as we wanted to talk to this family as they were hired to kill is by a cult that we were trying to take down. The revenant proceeded to kill the head of the family and started tracking down the his sons who had already been caught up to by our party’s Druid. Me (roguelock), our warlock and our bard decided that we didn’t want this clan to make it back to the main family who were all innocent and mostly children so we made a plan to get a head and warn the family. When we caught up to our druid the revenant started to try kill the fugitive who the Druid had made friends with by that point. Our warlock turned invisible and to cause more of a distraction our bard cast earth tremor. Here’s where the problem occurred. Our DM told us that the clan immediately knew that it was our bard making the ground shake and began to come at us. However because the three of us had already made this plan we had told our DM that we were stood a little away from the group and wanted to try and hide the casting of the spell. He said that as it was our bard casting it they would have heard is lute. We accepted this and just ran away. Leave our Druid, Barbarian and monk to fend for themselves. In the end we did kill all of the clan. However I ask you should the bard have been allowed to make some sort of slight of had or stealth check to try and disguise the casting of earth tremor. Should we have pushed more for the chance of a subtle get away or was our DM right to have us be seen?

Xavior

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

Karen Corcoran

Before the revered Murph, Caldwell, and chimera of chaos Emily, whose insight I hold in the highest regard, oh and I guess before Jake Jake, whose presence I endure, I humbly bring my question. Our DM is fantastic: they run a tight schedule, weave backstories into the plot, and are a genuinely lovely person. However, they keep forcing high level or at least Min/Maxed NPCs into our party—sacrificial, lawful-good do-gooders who seem to be the DM’s self-inserts. Each time we dispatch one, another railroaded martyr appears, saving the day, stealing the glory and exhausting our patience. The party is ready to revolt. As the eldest player at the table I feel like I need to hold an intervention, but I value our consistent game nights and it's obvious the DM just longs to be a player. That said, the rest of the party has had it and is on the verge of murder-hoboing their latest creation. Am I a coward for not addressing this problem due to my fear of upsetting our precious weekly game night? Or is the DM guilty of breaking their contract with the party by selfishly inserting their DM-NPCs?

Nebula Omega

Most Honorable Justices, and cutie patootie "Bailiff Joke". I present the case of the impulsive fairy. I’ve been running a Pathfinder 2E game for about 5 months. One of my players, we’ll call him Bubba, plays a barbarian fairy with a flair for recklessness. At level 3, he fought a weretiger solo, died, got resurrected, and picked up a fun little souvenir: lycanthropy. Fortunately, Wolfsbane exists as a cure—but it’s a spicy one, dealing 5d10 poison damage per round for a minute. I explained this clearly, expecting them to hold onto it until they were actually ready to use it. Cut to Bubba and the party healer finding the Wolfsbane during downtime. Bubba immediately announces, “I eat it!” To which I laughed, and calmly reminded them of how dangerous it is. Bubba looked me straight in the eyes and shrugged. The healer tried to stop him, but Bubba rolled an Athletics check, beat her, and gleefully narrated eating it. He then critically failed the save, went unconscious after one round, and died a painful, poisonous death. The healer tried to save him by rushing to the same NPC who’d revived him before, but I had the NPC explain that some spirits just don’t want to come back. This is where it gets sticky: Bubba’s player said he's leaving the game and won’t roll a new character because he was "only interested in playing [Bubba] and doing what [Bubba] would do." The rest of the party is fine to continue, and I’m ready to move on too—but was I wrong to deny another revival? I felt like I was protecting the stakes, but maybe I poisoned the vibes. I humbly await your judgment.

Navjeet Mann

Dear Jake, I present to you (and the others I guess) the case of the level 20 dungeon tpk. My group was playing in a long-term game at which we were told the final level we'd reach was 14, and we were level 9 at the time of this tpk. The DM warned us that the dungeon we'd be entering was balanced for level "max level" characters, but all the clues we'd obtained to this point led us to there. Once we entered the dungeon we were near-instantly tpk-ed by the first encounter of monsters (example, my barbarian had finger of death cast on him by all 7 enemies in initiative during the surprise round). We all were obviously quite peeved, as we didn't stand a chance in combat but the DM revealed that this whole time the dungeon was made with level 20 characters in mind, and stood his ground that he had continuously warned us of such. I argued that if our max level we'd reach in the campaign was 14, what was the point a dungeon being balanced for level 20, and said (quite rudely I admit), "well we assumed you'd prep a fun session, anyone can prep an instant tpk". Who's in the wrong here? The DM for prepping a combat we didn't stand a chance in even though he (arguably) warned us, or us, that players for entering the dungeon and crashing out when it didn't go out way? Thanks boo

Bugbear OrMiss

To the magnificent Crit justices, the bailiff we deserve, and also Murph who I havent found it in my heart to forgive yet, I give you the case of the Bugbearian turned Buzard. I was playing a Bugbear Wizard in a homebrew campaign and a major part of his backstory was that he was the golden child compared to his hotheaded bro who was ignored and shunned by their hometown. My PCs call to adventure was that his brother ran away to join a barbarian horde because they were the first ones to give him the attention and praise hes wanted, and my PC had to stop him. When we finally caught up to my bro, however, the DM forgot his name several times. Then, instead of being a hotheaded barbarian, my DM described him as a smooth talking level headed commander and the first thing he did after seeing my PC was teleport to the other side of the city and magically summon a storm. I was, of course, more than a little confused, but I thought maybe the DM was setting up some sort of mistaken identity twist. When I mentioned that my Bro was acting not at all how I had written him after the session, however, the DM became despondent and asked why I felt that way over messages. When I re-explained my bros character, he didnt respond for two weeks and by next session my bro just disappeared off screen and the DM later asserted that he handled the character fine. Crit judges, am I in the wrong for thinking this Buzard was not the Bugbearian brother I knew and loved?

terst

To the esteemed justices and ... Jojo is it? I humbly submit my case. I had just moved to a new city in Verona, a town in Northern Italy known for Romeo and Juliet and for having a lot of people of... particular political views. I found a D&D group through some website and at the second session with them I noticed one of the players who spent most of the time doodling on his notepad. At one point I looked closer and I noticed a whole page covered in tiny, carefully crafter swastikas that went to compose a bigger swastika surrounded by a circle of tiny tiny swastikas. He probably noticed my surprised face and said "Got any problems?" I was only able to mutter "why would I?" And basically faded in the background à la Homer Simpson in the bush. After that, I ghosted the group completely. Was I right to take the easy but coward way out or should I have stood my ground, said something, talk to him or the rest of the group? The guy seemed ok until that point, your usual power player but I've seen worse.

HighGrove

To the Right Honorable Supreme Crit Judges and the Best Left Behind Bailiff Jake: I bring before the Crit the Case of the PC BBEG. So there we were on session one, helping terrified passengers escape a crashing airship, when one of the other three players suggests to the other that they break off in a separate group. He agreed, and to my surprise I was asked to leave the room. Five minutes later I heard what sounded like the front door full on slam, and when I got a text to come back only the DM and the player who issued the invitation was left. He then asked if /I/ would group up with him, but I had (understandably in my mind) some questions first. I asked where our third friend went, and the DM said it didn't matter. I suggested that it sounded like they'd full on left the house, and in a state at that, and the DM just shrugged and asked if I was going with the other player. I asked to roll Insight to confirm that something weird was going on and the other player immediately accused me of metagaming, arguing that my character wouldn't have heard the first friend storm out. Ultimately, I decided to just cast Feather Fall on myself and jump off the crashing ship, leaving the livid last player and the unfortunate collateral passengers to their fates, ending the session and ultimately the entire campaign. Long story short, the third player was actually an ancient demon and in fact the campaign's BBEG disguised as a PC, with the idea that they'd only be revealed as the bad guy at the final moments. The infernally empowered Player, however, had decided to take the opportunity to sneakily kill some heroes because "that's what the character would do". The would-be DM insists that, if I had been more open to rolling with things during that first session, the campaign would have been super cool. So judges, I ask you: was I right to avoid the Call to Adventure when it came in the form of a backstabbing faux party member? Or was I wrong for not letting the DM and his all-powerful PC partner cook?

Zach

To the all knowing, all powerful wife worm and I guess also the other guys, I am a fully blind person. When I play D&D, I will usually take the time to memorize the spells my character has and their effects, since looking them up is quite a bit more time consuming than just glancing at some cards. This is important, I promise. A few years ago I was playing in a heavily modified campaign which featured a ton of unbalanced homebrew, including the removal of the class system. Features were instead bought with perk points upon leveling up. Justices, I could honestly submit several cases that resulted from this DM’s busted homebrew. I was playing a magic user who had access to at most 10 spells. In one session, my character helped out the god like DM PC, who gave him a blessing which allowed him to instantly have access to every spell up to fifth level. Being a relatively new player, I was excited to have access to so many cool options. I told the DM I would write out all the spells between sessions. He said “No, you need to do it now,” and made one of the other players leave the table and dictate every spell to me so that it would “go faster”. We spent at least 2 hours writing out spells before we were allowed to return to the table. Almost immediately after returning to the table, my character learned that the rest of the party had left town without him. He tried to follow, but was ambushed by a guild of magic users who hated the DM PC and anyone associated with him. We rolled initiative, but my character was killed before he even got a turn. When I grew annoyed about this, the DM laughed and said “You had a spell that could have gotten you out of that. You should have tried harder to learn your spells.” Justices, I have long since left this campaign and ended my friendship with the DM, but the incident still haunts me to this day. Am I right to be peeved that my time, as well as the other player’s time, was wasted on this DM’s power trip? Thank you for your time and have a day

Josh Pocha

To the credatious council and the guy who's awkwardly standing in the corner, I present the case of the floating paladin Our group and I have been running a campaign for the last 2 years playing descent into avernus mixed with a homebrew story line. While the party was adventuring in avernus they stumble upon some demon ichor and of course, wanted to try it out. The first player grew the ability to have slinky legs and could triple their jump distance but their walking speed was reduced by 10 ft. After seeing this effect, the paladin decided to take a sample for further study but in doing so, he touched it while picking it up. (Rolled a nat 1 dex check). The paladins ears now become little wings which gave him a flying speed of 5 feet. Here's where things go squirrly. The paladin now flys everywhere and often takes time to ascend into the sky and "dive bomb" enemies like a falcon. The party uses the member with greatest perception to scout ahead and the party essentially tries to ambush enemies.....which is cool and often extremely effective for ambushes. I let this continue for more than a few sessions and then introduced flying enemies who attack from the sky. In this encounter, the paladin was struck in the air with hold person. The paladin was 60 feet in the air at the time. I rolled 6d6 falling damage and the paladin hit the ground and was doing death saving throws. The party claims the flying ears were a demonic source and hence not a humanoid so the ears would stay flying and keep the unconscious paladin flying. The paladin did die in this encounter as I did rule the hold person would work. Do I need to be punished for killing the flying paladin or are my players in need of a better understanding of what a humanoid is? I await your wise judgement.

Willow Morningstar

To the prolific justices and that stinky little goblin man who lurks by the dumpsters; I bring you the case of the game that was almost over before it started. Some months ago, our group started a new campaign. The land is very horizon zero dawn; the apocalypse AFTER the apocalypse. No tech, very barren desert landscape. My character, an aaracokra skinned as a vulture that is a Way of The Long Death monk (Nonna Yelena) started as a prisoner. I was under arrest for what I later found out was cannibalism, but hey. I'm a big Russian bird woman living alone in the desert. How do I know any better? Another PC, a dragonborne paladin in the kings service (Sliith), was the self appointed leader of the wagon train moving towards the next city. We were ambushed, I escaped, but came back to see if there were any NPCS I could siphon that sweet temp HP and was captured again. Now, this player has a habit of being the one who tries to take charge and gets pretty overzealous. His character attempted to coerce mine into swearing fealty to him. I've known nothing but solitude and have spent most of my life nomadic and do not fear death, as that was the teaching of my monastery. After failed attempts, him casting zone of truth, and playing into the whole 'if I die, I die' nihilism/zen of my character, the paladin says 'okay, well let's leave you in the desert.' So for about 45 real time minutes, we were at a stalemate as to who should bend and ultimately I told him 'i won't bow to you, but you all entertain me so I swear I will not eat you'. He insisted I couldn't be trusted, even though I was in the zone of truth. Judges, AITA for not bowing to this dragon I've never met, or was he wrong to fail to 'yes and....' and almost kill a PC in a session zero?

Hemlock

Dear voices of Dice Christ, I bring you this day not a confession, but a testimonial. This past Banaksgiving Sunday, I held the first session of my new horror-themed, high intensity campaign. I made it clear to my players it's likely they're going to die; however, they don't know that dying is a key mechanic in this campaign as they'll come back to life the next day but at a loss of part of their soul. The session I proceeded to host was nothing but Dice Christ rewarding my players smart decisions with a bounty of natural 20s! Need to escape the restraints and use your ice breath weapon to make them not brittle? Natural 20. Get downed and need to make a death save? Natural 20. So on and so forth as I rejoiced for my players and how, despite all odds that I more than stacked against them, they survived and the dice told their story.

Charlie Nicholls

May it please the court, my name is June and I’ve been inspired by NADDPOD and D20 to DM my own campaign with friends from my masters program here in Denmark. There are 3 players in the party, and they all wanted to play Vikings, so we settled on a Viking barbarian/ranger/and Druid for party balance. The game is great, and we all get along well, but an argument broke out last session that I hoped you could settle. My players have a longboat called ‘The Woodpecker’ that they use to get to around the world, which is populated by lots of Fjords and Islands. Last session, I had their longboat be ambushed by rival Vikings, and launched into a ship combat. Because I had never done this before, the Druid (my friend Frederick) was upset, because he had specifically prepared his character for a land based adventure, and hasn’t stocked spells that could easily be used at sea. He asked if it would be okay to re-stock spells for this combat, and I said no, because it was supposed to be an ambush. He accepted, but the combat didn’t go well. The Woodpecker was destroyed and the party was kidnapped (it could’ve been a TPK, but I elected to avoid that with a kidnapping). I had to end the session very early to plan what to do next. Frederick the Druid was upset that this combat broke out during a period of time that he viewed as “fast travel”. He said that because no maritime navigation checks were rolled, it was unfair to expect the party to be prepared for an ambush. Was I in the wrong judges? Is it unfair to ambush a party without reasonably setting up that they might be ambushed.

Dillan Bradbury

to the Honorable Supreme Justices Axford, Murphy, Tanner, and the Baloney Bailiff i come to you with the Case of the Instakill Gun. may it please the court, this happened my junior year of highschool, with my first DM ever. we were facing off against a much higher level Pirate Lord villain, and the DM dramatically reveals his signature weapon: a magic blunderbuss. The issue? Instakill. no save, your character was just dead. a fun intimidation factor, but when it came time for the pirate lord to attack, the DM pointed to each of us, numbered us off 1-6, and rolled a d6 Behind the screen before declaring our cleric dead. my query is this: justices, should he have rolled this D6 in front of the table? it is also of note that the person playing the cleric was a recent Ex of the DM. i feel this decision may have been influenced by scorn, but i humbly await your judgement. (my name is anna, she / her! PS, you are all amazing and my fiancé and i love your show!)

Michael Beck

To the esteemed justices and the bailiff's wife's boyfriend, I submit the case of punishment gone wrong. My dad was in an evil campaign ran by a buddy of mine along with my brother and a mutual friend. My buddy the DM had come to a point in the story where he wanted to introduce the big opposing force by arresting all the characters and had me and another friend come in as high level enforcers to try and capture them. Me and the friend got a bit powergamey and we succeeded in capturing most of them, but my dad escaped. This event would later lead to the game disbanding as my dad didn't want to go rescue anyone from his party because "That's what his character would do". He blamed the game ending on the DM saying that they all wanted just a power fantasy evil game, but I think my dad was in the wrong because even as an evil character you have to play along to continue playing the game in my opinion. Judges I beseech you, did the DM do wrong by having them get captured, or was my dad out of line?

Sammo Cando

Dear honorable crit justices and the underappreciated bailiff Tucker, I present to you the case of the evasive scout vs metagaming. We were playing a 3.5 campaign for several years, and my halfling scout with evasive had a colossal DEX stat and accompanying gear, leading to a +20 in Dex saves (verified by the DM, 3.5 is wild y'all). With evasive, it almost always meant that on anything other than a nat 1, I would take no damage from breath weapons etc. We were in a cave where we found 15-20 black dragon wyrmlings, who each have a weak breath weapon. I was tasked to kite them back towards the group, and when I arrived, my scout dove out of the way around the corner. This unfortunately led to ALL of the wyrmlings firing upon our wizard, with enough damage to not only kill him but melt his corpse with the acid. We did eventually use a tooth or something to resurrect him later in the session, but the player was mad at me for not tanking the breath weapons as I was essentially immune to them. I argued that my (notably cowardly) character doesn't have the knowledge of the evasion mechanic, and that you don't have a scout kite to then also just stand there and get blasted. So supreme crits, what say you? Should my scout have used his knowledge of his in game abilities to take 15 acid blasts to the face or after bringing them to the party, dodged out of the way?

Loaf of Bread

To the effervescent judges and the bailiffs who’s ok I guess I bring the case of the exponential ouch. I played with a group of random people through my college’s dnd club. I’d only ever dm-ed before so I was excited to try being a player. It started off great, my warforged ranger became running mate for a barbarian running for mayor against magitech Jeff besos. As the sessions went on though I often found myself butting heads with the dm for what I thought were unfair rulings. This included multiple counterspell uses from the same enemy, nat 1s always resulting in massive damage taken, and being told “your perception is so high you become overwhelmed by your senses and go unconscious.” This came to a head during the final session when we were fighting the BBEG. I failed a con save against a poison to which my dm cackled. He said I took one damage after the failed save. At the end of the bbeg’s turn I took two damage. At the beginning and end of all following turns 2 damage went to 4, then 16, which then became 256 damage. Judges. That was triple my max HP. I brought this up to the DM to which he shrugged. After an argument back and forth, he ultimately relented and only knocked me unconscious. While rules as written I know that exponential damage does not exist in dnd, should I have been more go with the flow with the dm’s game or was I in the right to argue against unfair damage like this?

Guy Brill

To the absent, yet most honorable of all, Justice Tanner, and the imitators, I bring you the case of the Rat in the Hat. My players were trying to infiltrate an enemy base. The Beastmaster Ranger decided to use their Hat of Vermin to summon a rat, which they cast Animal Messenger on. The Alchemist Artificer then used her Elixir of Flight to send it up to the tower. The message was “the Rat King approaches, flee or die!” I had the rat roll an intimidation check(which failed, rats have really bad charisma) and they took the rat hostage instead of running. The Ranger thinks I should have let them use their charisma instead, which wasn’t that much better than the rat’s to be honest. The session was fun either way, but what do you think? Since the caster is sending the message via animal should they get to use their charisma or are they limited by the charisma of the animal. I submit to your ruling.

Kelsey B

To the luminous supreme crit justices and little baby boy bailiff Jake, I present the case of the Player NPCs: I am a first time DM running a campaign for 6 friends where their characters are based on their pets. What was originally a silly, pun-filled campaign became more grounded after talking to them about what they wanted in an adventure. Now we’re neck-deep in a plot about missing magic users whose powers are being siphoned for a king’s immortality ritual. For most of my group, this is their first campaign, so I asked for simple backstories to help workshop character motivations. Well, only 2 of my players gave backstories and one of them is a wizard who INSISTS on having been raised by wolves. I tried to tell him that wizards learn their magic quite literally by reading books and he countered with “there’s more than one way to learn.” So we compromised: a kindly wizard lived among the wolves, adopting orphans and teaching them magic. When I suggested that the wolves be awakened (oppa-nyack style), he said “I guess, but wolves are actually really social creatures so they don’t need to be.” I, of course, made the wolves awakened because talking wolves are awesome. Now, as the party approaches the pack (wolf-orphan commune), this same player casually reveals that he’s created full character sheets for the other orphans as “backup characters.” Judges, I have given no indication that this will be a lethal and brutal campaign! I’m panicking because I don’t want to mess up his carefully crafted NPCs, so I’m planning on having them been arrested/kidnapped since most of them are spellcasters. Judges, am I wrong for squirreling away the other characters my player spent time creating and only leaving him with the talking wolves? P.S. I have suggested that he DM, and he’s planning a Christmas themed one-shot for us!

Alysha Knaphus

Dearest supreme crit, i bring the case of a player dead on session one Back in the day for my 16th birthday I had my sister DM me and my friends my first campaign, 3.5 e. My friend Jan who had never played before made a Character names Jamal Wallace, a 56 year old monk who had all of his skill points in swimming. Every encounter she asked ‘can jamal wallace swim through this?’ Regardless of if there was water. We got into an over leveled encounter with a wizard in which jamal wallace got stabed. After the wizard fled, i attempted to heal jamal, to which Jan replied ‘nah, jamal rolls onto the knife killing himself. I want to make a new character’. We spent the rest of the session building her a new character which brought the session to an end. I ask, should I have healed jamal and just made jan play through the session with a character she didn’t like or was I right to let her stop session 1 to build a new character?

surupamaerl

Dearest and loveliest judges, and Jake, I beg you to hear my tale. It was my fourth or fifth session DMing. My players had been chasing a zombie beholder science experiment gone wrong rampaging through the city outskirts and into the forest. The party finding where it suddenly disappeared, a set of tracks led through a gate below the city walls, letting out next to the magic university. The distance from the wall to the university was patrolled. The party elected for stealth, but our Looney Tunes kobold bard wanted to dress up like students and trick the guards. The party said "No." The player went to try anyways, which, after hearing the frustration in the other player's voices, I firmly stopped from happening. After the session, the kobold contacted me with a list of complaints about the other characters. Was I wrong to flat out deny this player's autonomy for the sake of the group, or should I have let this player take the leader. I humbly await your judgement.

Kyle the Chaotic Stupid Wolf

To the Honorable Justices and the Baliff J̶a̶c̶k̶ J̶i̶b̶ Bob, I humbly ask for affirmation because I am always right and I know I must confess. During a Tyranny of Dragons campaign I sinned constantly (I'm a very bad boy 😈) by fudging rolls. Now I am a DM for the same group where the players are kobolds stealing treasure for a teenage girl green dragon named Pacifica (Caldwell will get it). What must I do to atone as a DM for my little kobolds that I love so much? Also, kobolds and gnomes hate each other so they'll probably get some chances to kill those sick, giggling fucks.

The Fun Yaunt

To the breathtaking judges and the bailiff that’s scarcely worth mentioning, I present the case of the campaign setting switcheroo! May it please the court, A friend told us he wanted to DM a sci-fi campaign, so we all made characters using Spelljammer races. To our complete surprise, our first session ended with our characters being sucked into a time machine that deposited us in an 1800’s American cowboy world! Unfortunately, the sessions that followed involved hours of fruitless role play. Townspeople had no information to share or were simply too freaked out to interact with us. Out of ideas, we tried offering the local sheriff our services as bounty hunters, only to be told his town had no need of bounty hunters! As a result, my fellow players are checked out and spend most of the sessions on their phones. I privately texted the DM to share that I felt pretty lost as a player and would love more direction. The DM said he didn’t want to “railroad” us, but promised to make his “hints less subtle”. The NPCs in the following session still had little to say, but we did have a fight on a train (one of my suggestions). Is my party justified in losing interest or does our DM deserve more opportunities to develop his story? I await your judgment!

ZZ Digital

Thank you most estemed court, i bring the case of personal hells: My PCs met a villain they were trying to steal a gem of planeshift from. While I had the villain explicitly say they were evil, i did not say if they would lie or not. So when they offered the party a gem, they immediately took it and became trapped. The reason was another PC was rescuing NPCs from personalized hells, and one of them was married to a PC. So they rushed through the scene so they could be there, but ended up missing the whole thing due to my trickery and complained I didn't tell them it might have been a trick. So i ask, as a DM, am i not worthy to lick the lowly (apply as needed) bailiff's boots?

Michaela ZC

Dear Justice Axford and her little buddies, about a year ago I started a campaign as a Blade Singer Wizard. I was excited to slash my way to glory with my arcane blades. However, early on in the campaign, my whole party accidentally got cursed by various gods. Most of the party got minor inconveniences that never came up, and our Barbarian’s “curse” actually doubled their rages and had it auto-activate when they first took damage. I however, was cursed by the Goddess of Luck, which meant I could NEVER roll Nat 20’s or 1’s. If I got did, I needed to reroll, and give my crit to someone I could see. While this occasionally made an enemy miss their attack, this wizard ended up being my “luckiest” character ever, sometimes rolling four 20’s a session. My party, especially the barbarian loved this, and the GM seemed uninterested in ever breaking these curses. So I ask you; do I deserve retribution, or should I resign myself to my fate?

Insufficiently Caffeinated

May it please the estimable judges, and appeal to the cake appreciation instincts of the beneficent bailiff: I present the case of the Cake Kerfuffle. I am a relatively new DM doing my best to craft a fun campaign for my kids (10 and 17) and my husband. I try to engage their character backstories and real-life interests, so in one session, they stumbled into the Feywild, where Murph-inspired Trisses roped the party into an episode of the Feywild’s most popular crystal show: Is It Cake. My daughter’s character, an elven sorcerer who loves to bake, competed on the show, while my husband & son’s characters joined the audience. Mechanically, I had my daughter’s character rolling performance rolls — by amping up the audience, the other party members could give her advantage. (The goal was to win the contest; the surprise combat was against mimics disguised among the Is It Cake cakes on plinths, who attacked the show’s host during the big reveal). My husband and son (who are more experienced players) argued that I should have had my daughter’s character roll skill checks reflecting her proficiency in baking. I argued was that this was a show, and thus a *performance.* My daughter agreed with my reasoning, even though it gave her less of an advantage. The argument devolved into acrimony, name-calling, and cake-hurling and my son and husband have been wearing Grinch suits in protest ever since. Please make a ruling on this case, and heal the fractured layer cake of my family with the frosting of justice! (JK about the acrimony. And the Grinch suits. But my kids are big fans of yours and would be thrilled by a ruling, no matter whose side you take. My husband is 100% indifferent, which in and of itself may be a punishable offense — I leave that to your discretion.)

William Shill

To Father Tanner, Father Murphy, Mother? Axford, and alter boy Jake. I feel as tho I have sinned. Me and my fiance play dnd and I am my groups forever DM, I have dice everywhere all over the house in case I want to roll for something to make a decision. My big doggo Beta a German Shepard Rottweiler mix, bumped into a table causing a D20 to fall and roll, and he got a NAT 20! his first ever roll! Now my fiance insists on trying to make him bump into tables and the like to roll again but I forbid it as it is not natural and he isn't rolling on his own volition. Oh holy vestiges, I ask u, am I sinning in the eyes of Dice Christ for making my doggo wait for a legit roll? Or has the Dice devil taken me and prevented him from living out his dream as a dire wolf? I humbly await your wisdom

Crispy Pilsner

To the firm, yet fair, justices and honorable Bailiff Jake. May it please the court, my husband DMs a family campaign for me and our 12 year old twins. Our party was sneaking into a Dragonborn war camp to rescue captured kinsmen of our daughter’s character, a Moon Elf Wizard. While stealthing into the camp we decided to create a distraction and get a surprise round as the soldiers and warlord were sleeping in their tents. Our daughter used her pseudodragon familiar to cast lightning bolt in a line that hit the greatest number of tents, including the main tent where we knew the BBEG was. We were expecting to create chaos with the fire, do some damage to multiple bad guys, and each of us get a surprise attack, but dear justices, that is not what happened. My husband said that since we couldn’t see the people in the tents they wouldn’t take any damage from the lightning bolt, and instead the tents would just catch fire. Furthermore, he said that the fires alerted the enemies to our presence and had us immediately roll initiative, not allowing the rest of us to have a surprise attack. Needless to say we were not pleased, and after some arguing at the table the kids yelled, “Email Jake!” in order to correct this injustice. Jake and Justices, who was right here? We humbly await your decision. -Kate, Nora, and Nolan PS While the kids have heard several DnD Courts they haven’t heard the main campaigns yet because, ya know….dragon pussies.

Z

To the ever increasingly effervescent judges and my guy jarsh; I present to you the case of the Planeshift Into Magic the Gathering. During covid, my brother and my dad and I started playing dnd as a family. Cute, right? I was really getting into it playing a nasty little bard and my dad made a classic wizard who shot magic missile and did almost nothing else. We were having a great time! That is, until the last goblin standing opened a portal that sucked up all the PCs and transported us through tunnels of flashing light and booming sounds all around us until… my brother slaps a big box of Magic the Gathering cards on the table. Apparently, the bad buy had transported us to an alternate reality, where the laws of magic had changed, and to defeat him we had to play by the new rules. Turns out he just wanted us to play Magic the Gathering with him the whole time, but since neither my dad nor I had any interest or really knew how to play, we started to get up and walk away. My brother all but flipped the table he was so mad, and he never DMed for us again. My question, judges, is should we have humored him and learned how to play a whole new game on the spot? Or was my brother overreacting? I leave my fate in your capable hands. Thank you.

Alex Goveo

To the benevolent justices and that guy who lives in the trash can, I think his name is John, I present to you the case of the sleeping dwarf. I was in my very first campaign playing as a dwarven paladin. In one of our sessions, we were in a dungeon crawl and the warlock in our party had found a potion. She drank some and it had healed her. Our DM had told us there was enough for someone else to drink as well and since I needed some health, I took a drink. However, when I drank it, I ended up falling unconscious. My party tried to wake my character up using several checks, spells and potions but my DM said there was no way. The session ended with me being unconscious. At our next session, I was still out as my party continued to fight monsters, find treasure, and trek through the dungeon. I thought I might get a dream sequence or some sort of vision for the session, but no, I literally did not get to do a single thing the entire session! Not only that, this entire dungeon lasted another 2 sessions, which meant that I had 3 sessions where I did not get to do a single thing the entire time. I would argue with my DM that this mechanic doesn’t make sense and I would try and ask if there was anything I could do to come out of consciousness, but he always just said that was his ruling. I almost pulled a Murph and thought about just quitting and getting a new group, but my character was finally awake after we escaped the dungeon. Justices, was my DM wrong for putting my character to sleep for 3 sessions with nothing to do, or am I overreacting. I humbly await your judgment. PS: My DM is a good friend of mine and this seemed like an isolated incident as the rest of the campaign was really fun.

MissAdventurer

To the vivacious justices and the licentious Bailiff Jack. I present to you the case of the murder hobo doppelganger. In highschool I joined my first ever dnd game. It was DM'd by my friends dad and there were 4 of us in the group. It was a lot of fun, I adopted a pig from a farmer we helped out, I named him Sir Templeton Hamsquire and spent all my gold commissioning a custom set of pig plate armour from a blacksmith so he'd be safe in battle. After a few months of playing, a friend from school asked if he could join the game. I ran it by everyone and we agreed to let him join. This, it turned out, was our first mistake. He was a complete murder hobo, he didn't seem to care about the story or what the rest of us wanted to do at all. We ended up getting kicked out of a town because he had robbed the only inn and then set it on fire! After one night where he'd gone off on his own again, he started acting even stranger than normal. He kept asking if he could eat Sir Templeton and when we came across a man buried up to his neck in the ground, he lopped of his head with his great hammer before he could even speak! We were all getting annoyed by his behaviour but we were all too conflict averse to do anything, this was our second mistake because it turned out that he had been replaced by a doppelganger! He slowly killed off all the members of our party by luring them away from the camp and replacing them with doppelgangers, leading to a TPK and our group dissolving. Supreme crit justices, i humbly ask for your verdict; was it our fault for not noticing sooner that our companion had been turned into a doppelganger or was it the fault of our companion for being such a murder hobo that we didn't notice any significant difference in his behaviour after he was turned?

Cas Marie

Honorable justices and Mr. Crabster himself, I bring to you the case of the wizard vs the dm. I play a bladesinger wizard in my good friend’s campaign. In our recent game we fought an Aboleth that has the ability to charm creatures. Our dm was able to charm me and the Aboleth commanded me to drop my bladesong, mage armor, and my concentration on haste that I had on our monk. It took a couple rounds of combat to get all of those effects up, and it feels wild that this beast would know exactly what magic I had active. Am I being a salty wizard? Is this worth bringing up? Or is my dm just pissed I can get my AC to 21.

Quinn Nash

Hi-Diddly-Ho, Neighborinos (and John DiMaggio). I have a rather simple case of "Bedtime Manners" I was joining an already established campaign with two people and a DM, The way my character was introduced to them was they were talking about communism in the middle of the richer city district which I was around being a Noble Diplomat of the Elven cities up north, using aberrant mind I tell them "Hey probably not a good idea to be saying stuff like that, come up to my room and we'll chat more about The Cult inside the city" As we get to talking in my room the dm says "You guys talk all night until the sun rises" And then I get a knock at my door I answer it and am told The captain of the guard wants to talk to me, using passive insight I infer probably a good idea to go alone but to let the party know to stay alert and wait maybe 15 minutes before going searching for me, I come back And one of them was asleep and so I wake them up and be like "Hey what's up Why did you do that?" And then they leave yelling that "This noble is harassing me". The party then separates because I woke her up And I inevitably have to find them in town to keep the story going. Was it wrong for me to prepare for the worst and to wake up my party member frustrated that they didn't wait for me to arrive back?

RomanProphet

To the magnanimous justices of the Supreme Crit and also Bailiff Jake, damned devil’s kith and kin: the Babylonian scullion, Macedonian wheelwright, brewer of Jerusalem, swineherd of Greater and Lesser Egypt, pig of Armenia, Podolian thief, and fool of all the world and underworld. Our group has had an long-term Pathfinder 1e campiaign and my DM, who I can only think to describe as 'shockingly permissive', allowed me play a character who, unbeknownst to the rest of the party, had originally been born a black dragon, who had been slain by a party of adventurers and then reincarnated by a druid, his soul relocated into a human body. Now, as part of a larger plot arc, our party was required to attend a dinner gala at a noble's mansion. Everything went fine, until dessert, when the maître d' decided to serve everyone a 'special delicacy': Dragon Brain. You can probably put the rest together on your own, but long story short, the party ended with my character eating part of his own brain. It's now been a running gag that my character is, technically, a cannibal, to the point that other party members will introduce him as such to NPCs. Obviously it's all in good fun, but I would very much like a ruling on the matter, o' great and wise justices: Is it technically autocannibalism if your soul has transmigrated into another body? And does my poor cleric deserve a bit of a break from all the jokes? I eagerly await your judgement.

Matthew J

To the honorable justices and Jake who owes me $37 for his bailiff’s license, I humbly bring before you the Case of the Dhampir Mutineer. A couple years ago, our campaign was on a brief seafaring arc to rescue one of the player characters, who had been abducted. In the meantime, the player whose character had been kidnapped played an Artificer who was secretly a dhampir. One fateful session, my Paladin, who had been elected captain by the rest of the party, was keeping watch at the helm. In character, I had to step away for a moment, so I asked the party’s Bard, who was also the ship’s first mate, to take the wheel. The Artificer announced that she wanted to go for the wheel instead, prompting an Athletics check between her and the Bard. The Bard won handily, and he narrated his character casually pushing the Artificer away. The Artificer reacted by biting him with her secret vampire fangs. My Paladin grappled her and tried to get answers before things devolved into full PVP, but instead of answering any questions, she commanded her robot familiar to shoot me in the back. The party then collectively turned on her, and the Bard, who was convinced that the Artificer was a full vampire, finished her off while she was rolling death saves. After tying her up, we cast Revivify on her so we could get answers (and, out of game, to give the Artificer player a second chance with the character). For the next two hours, we begged her to give any explanation about the vampirism or why we should trust her going forward, while she refused to explain herself, apologize, or even acknowledge any wrongdoing (in and out of character). When our characters stepped off to the side to discuss how to proceed, the Artificer tried to break free of her bonds and escape. We knocked her back to 0 HP, and, seeing no other course of action that made sense in character, we ultimately decided to kill her. For additional context, this was not the only time that the Artificer player initiated PVP, but it was the only time that it resulted in a character death. Justices, were we wrong to kill our friend’s character twice, or were we justified in executing an unapologetic instigator? We humbly await your judgment.

Jessica

To your most illustriousness-es , and also Jake who is doing a fine job for his first time, I am a relatively new DM and I have been running a campaign for, actually almost a year so maybe I can't say new anymore. It is a group of women who were aquaintences at best when I brought them together. One is a forever DM who was really excited to get to play, but the rest were all just as new as me. Things have been going really well, I'm actually about to pause so we can just practice fighting with our characters because every encounter just takes too long, but I digress, one of my players routinely falls asleep during the game and has made very little progress in their overall understanding. We are all parents, so we play from 8:30 to 11:00 pm usually a couple times a month. It's late if your kids get up at six, and it doesn't hurt my feelings or anything. What it does is slow down everyone else. She is constantly confused and even though we've had specific times of explaining it to her she seems to forget as soon as we play. I had the conversation assuring her that she shouldn't feel obligated to play just because she said yes, that she should rest if she needs it or take a break and I'll figure out a way to work her character back in so that it makes sense, but she insists she really wants to play. I know if it continues I'm going to have to ask her to bow out, but any suggestions in the meantime to keep her awake and paying attention for the sake of her party members?! I guess this is less a court case and more a desperate plea for you to know a way for me not to have to do the hard thing of asking her to not play.

Beelzebear

To the most illustrious priests of dice Christ and their little dice fiend Jank, I offer my confession and cry pardon in the instance of the mutable HP pool. My party was facing their first baddie in my homebrew campaign and my path of the zealot barbarian and samurai fighter crushed 80% of my necromancer's hp in the first round of combat, and so I quickly established he had a lair action which would restore him 4d10+10 hp. They ultimately womped him anyway but I was left feeling unsure and a bit like a cheat at the end. Please place your merciful hands on my furrowed brow and pass me your judgement. P.S. hate the show

Joshua Morgan

To the eloquent and wonderful Bailiff Jake and the ever merciful judges I bring the case of the Wrongful Railroad. In my first long running campaign I was playing a Bladesinger Wizard. Everything was going great until before the final dungeon I used detect magic and realized there was a scrying curse on my character from the BBEG. I decided to leave the party even past my DMs "*wink* that's bad" for the party's good and my character died. I was initially satisfied as it felt like a noble sacrifice. However, instead of a new character for the final dungeon, I was required to play the nearly featureless rogue follower we had which made the final session a snoozefest for me. On top of that, at the end when we recovered the artifact we were trying to keep from the BBEG, she somehow knew exactly where we were anyway. The DM narrated as the characters fled and she got what she wanted with no combat or rolls. Clearly this was to set up for a future campaign as he revealed later. I ask, was my group cheated with our choices not mattering? Should I have been allowed a fun character for the finale? Or was our DM right to continue the ending he had planned all along.

Lorelei The Succubi and Kyra The succulent snack

Greetings and salutations to the kind-hearted judges and the big dick baliff Jake, today I bring to you the case of the "accidental TPK". For a little backstory I was running a campaign that took place in the Fey Wylds at the time as the party was tasked with stopping Asmodeus from putting up Rubies that would connect every realm giving him access to them indefinitely. The party, a robot barbarian/bard/barber, a human "pokemon trainer", a drow of some homebrew class, and their two NPC companions had just defeated a major boss and scored a victory against a weakened avatar of Asmodeus and destroyed the gem. Feeling giddy the party made their way to a magical bar and inn that I had crafted full of magical drinss and concoctions as well as the normal stuff. The drow started off with a magical drink that allows you to roll a d10 and gain a spell from the bards spell list matching the roll 1 being cantrips and 10 being a 9th level spell. He rolled a 5 and seemed unhappy. So he drank another and had his max HP reduced by half via the side effects of having more than one, and of course he had one more which killed him instantly. Seeing this happen one of the NPC's laughed at their expense before drinking a different magical drink, and exploded killing them instantly as well. However they had a revive mechanic being a HB phoenix soercerer. Getting more drinks the 2 NPCs ended up with drinks that made them roll to fall in love with a random person in the bar, they both rolled each other ironically. The human trained drank one and had his soul siphoned from his body on a low roll and trapped in a Liches phylactery. And the robot ran the gambit and drank EVERY drink I had made, resulting in his limbs falling off before turning into a tree that was going to explode into a series of raptors. So we ended the campaign there. Everyone had a blast and said the chaos was their favorite part but I feel that I fucked up somewhere. So I come to you pleading for punishment for maybe making to many negative effects for my drinks. Ps. They were 50-50 good and bad. Thank you

Gabriel Felix

To the cute judges and Jailiff Bake. I bring you the case of the Stolen Pc. I played in a friends 3 shot over a year ago, along with a married couple, my sister, and one of the couples father. We decended beneath the sewers of Waterdeep and was confronted after a bit with intellect devoures. As lvl 2 pc’s this combat was tough. We won the fight but the wife of the couple was downed with an unknown amount of death saves or fails. One of the Devourers vanished, and soon after our downed pc woke up. But it was no long her talking. It was the dm speaking through her and later we found she had been taken over by the creature. She quit before the next session began because she felt her losing character agency was crossing a line. When the dm heard this, he shut down the game. I talked to him a few days later and he was so upset that he had hurt her feelings that he was going to quit dnd all together. After talking with him for a few hours and talking to the couple separately, I was able to get him to feel good enough to continue playing. We’ve played together in several one shots since then. Justices and Jork, was the pc right to feel like a line was crossed? Is there a better way the dm could’ve handled it? I leave the righteous decision in your capable hands

Mich Blackie

Honourably married justices and the hilarious and handsome bailiff Hurwitz (omg I love you Micha!) A quick case while Justice Tanner isn’t here to weigh in on an issue that heavily involves him I played in a very serious one shot that turned into a short campaign with undertones of discrimination and prejudice using the more maligned D&D races (teiflings, dragonborns orcs etc) as metaphors for how society treat those that are different and how hard it can be to grow up feeling like an outsider. It was very cathartic for us as PCs. Anyway, my very dark and serious Dragonborn was name Davenaxeous Gilderfang. He went by Nax and bore absolutely no resemblance to Caldwells beloved Frisbee golf player, I just really liked the name and since it was meant to be a one shot with no other NaddPod fans I decided to make a private joke for myself. I forgot about the fact that I borrowed it for a long time until HBS:BB was released on the main feed. When I was suddenly struck by a terrible guilt. Was this disrespectful, or worse, creatively lazy? Or would the new double Papa be proud of my fancy copper boy? If I’m innocent then please punish my fellow player who had to leave the campaign, causing its early disbandment, much to our dismay.

Bruno Fant

J'accuse ! To the Justices either flip-flopping or corrupt, and to the bailiff who I dearly hope will be on my side given how I've managed to antagonize 75% of the Court already, I bring the case of the Supreme Crit Inconsistency. As I was finishing my n-th re-listen of D&D Court episodes, I could not help but notice that the court has liberally applied different lines of reasonings, and meted different rulings, even in very similar cases. In particular, animal-related case, and players arguing about DnD mechanics based on real-life zoology, has been the subject of countless judgments, each of them flipping previous precedents. To wit: - arguing that weresharks would have cloacas because sharks do is fine - but submarine eagles and their nyctitating membranes are not - stabbing monkeys are fine because apparently "opposable thumbs are a thing" - but killing froghemoths by giving them milk because "frogs can't drink milk" is not - ring-brained squids are fine if you have a degree of zoology - but jumping toads are not if you're a grandma What follows the judges' trail is, frankly, chaos. A maelstrom of precedent that any lawyer worth their salt could use to exonerate event the worst DnD huckster out there. Dear Supreme Crit, get your shit together, when institutions fail, they bring everyone down with them.

Blaire D

To the illuminous Crit Justices and Bailiff Jake who is only using a low wattage light bulb: I present a murder that I believe was most foul and I humbly seek your ruling. I am willing to accept additional punishment for my inability to be concise (ADHD is rough) but I am trying as best I can! My party and I were fighting a water elemental that was made up of other elementals (Myrmidon). Sort of like a forced water-y Voltron situation. We were able to detach one of its limbs, and our DM ruled that the water elemental that came from that limb was our ally in battle because we had freed it. Above table, I excitedly postulated what if we could befriend the water elemental and affectionately named it Ethel Merman. I had Tongues prepared that day and would've happily rolled for it and accepted Dice Christ's narrative. BUT THEN. Once we were out of initiative, our druid watched a bitch call lightning on Ethel Merman, sundering him completely. The druid said it wasn't worth even trying and elementals could not be trusted and they were trying to protect me and my character from the inevitable heartbreak especially since I'd already named the water elemental. The druid and I have been friends for over ten years and we know what the other is about as people, so there is no bad blood between us (only the most loving and affectionate teasing between two people who went to college together and really saw each other at their Worst). I am willing to acknowledge that my friend was probably right in the long term, but sometimes I mourn the rolls that could've been. Please find it in your heart to come to a fair ruling so that Ethel's loved ones can find closure. #ripethelmerman

CJ

To the jovial Justices of the High Crit and the lowly bailiff who's a bit shit. I bring before you today the case of the pointless point-buy. At the beginning of our current campaign I rolled extremely well for ability scores and planned a multiclass that would be an Axford-level menace. Unfortunately part way through session zero the DM decided that I and another player had 'rolled too high' and defaulted all of us to point buy. After a couple of dozen sessions the PC of the DM's husband died and on seeing their new character I noted that their stats were good. *Very* good. On pointing it out the player and DM simply stated that 'they'd rolled really well' and 'it wasn't a big deal since we were all high level now anyway'. Multiple players bought up the session 0 ruling but the debate ultimately went nowhere. Justices. I am wrong to feel aggrieved by these spousal shenanigans or should I suck it up and be happy that my current character is cool despite their lack of superhuman statistics? I await your point-by-point judgement.

Annika

To the lavender-scented judges and the pea-scented bailiff Jake. I bring forth the case of the illiterate dragon: My boyfriend DMs a campaign with me and my sisters. My pact of the chain warlock was in a trial that involved stealing an egg guarded by a dragon and her magical wards. For my turn, I had my lovely pseudodragon familiar (who can understand common and draconic) fly to the egg and read the draconic glyphs guarding it, then translate the details to me via our telepathic bond. My dm ruled that my familiar can’t read because “although it understands draconic, it cannot speak”. I lost the argument but have since stayed salty. Judges, am I wrong to be offended on behalf of my son who is a very smart and special boy?! I prostrate myself before your 80 foot tall bench.

Erika Flowers

This is more of a Dice Christ confession… I feel like it’s a slight one, but one I want to atone and attorn my sin. It’s quite simple… During my first my first true adventure into role playing (we were playing pathfinder,) I got really jealous during one session. I’d never really participated in a D&D session before, and everyone else got magical weapons during a session. Again, I want to atone for my jealousy, because my ranger got a +1 bow the next session. My DM did me no wrong, but I was wrong for being jealous. I wish to offer myself to Dice Christ.

Emma

Hail and well met mighty justices (especially justice Axford) and the green text bubble sending bailiff Jorts. May it please the court, today I bring to you the case of the Forced Character Rebuild. My partner and I have a long running Dungeon of the Mad Mage campaign with a DM and other players we met online. 99% of the time they’re normal but I’m truly baffled by what happened last session. The DM told my partner (a multiclass hexblade warlock and oath of vengeance paladin) that their previously unknown patron appeared to them in a dream and told them to break an item of my characters. Off mic, I told my partner it was okay as I assumed the DM felt like the item must be over powered but my partner strongly felt like this wasn’t something their character would do and resisted. The DM gave them a level of exhaustion and the next in game day, my character suggested that my partner’s character reach out to their paladin god Torm. They did, even spending an inspiration point to reach him. When they connected, Torm told them that since their patron is actually evil they can no longer be a paladin and that my partner has to either get rid of their warlock levels to retain their alignment or change their paladin levels to cleric or fighter and become evil. My partner is really not into this idea and the DM didn’t run it by my partner before the session but the rest of the party and the DM seem very invested in this change. Oh wise and mighty justices should my partner be forced to rebuild their character? And should I be punished for suggesting that they reach out to their god and inadvertently causing this mess? I throw myself at the mercy of the court.

Charlie Hudson

To the honorable justices and the beautiful bailiff, I wanna say Jack, I bring the case of the Campaign That Never Was. Justices, I was beginning a campaign that I was gonna record and release. It was supposed to be a campaign for four players, my brother, one of our friends, one of my coworkers and one of their friends. Well session one went alright, session 2 however is where the case begins. It's a spell jammer setting and they had come across hadozee pirates assaulting a merchant vessel. The party quickly engaged the pirates all except the sorcerer played by my coworker. They decided to use their turns lighting the merchant vessel on fire as their first turn, and then attempting to use sleep on the rest of the party to get in the good graces of the pirates. I let them roll a check to see if the pirates believed the act and would take specifically them and not the rest of the party to the circus, they failed noticeably and miserably resulting in the pirates being even more aggressive. Was i wrong for getting rid of this campaign and player after they attempted to cast sleep on the injured party and attempting to burn the whole flying spell jammer, or am I the bad DM who didn't give the player enough freedom. PS this co-worker was an experienced dm and had played multiple times and this was never how they said they acted before.

Bryant

Humble greetings to the erudite justices and the surprisingly literate bailiff Jake. I come before today with a rug-related robbery. I played a one-shot in which my Tabaxi rogue was helping to heist a nonspecific artifact from a wizard’s magically sealed tower. (It’s worth noting this was a reused character that the DM turns out to have always hated.) It was chock full of traps and hidden mimics, which leads us to the crime in question. After a failed perception check, I stepped on a living rug and was quickly enveloped. My party members tried attacking the rug only to learn that all damage done to the rug was transferred to my character. That makes sense. My Tabaxi tried desperately to escape by clawing at the inside of the rug, only to learn that this damage was also transferred to me. That last bit of damage happened to be just enough to knock out my character, allowing the rug to kill him next turn. I spent the remaining two hours of the one-shot silently trying to decipher whether I was robbed. I beg you to settle this question for me once and for all.

Dragoneye

Deacons of the Dice, I come in need. For years, the player who heroically slew my Big Bad in a past campaign has had the ire of my dice, who crit upon him at a rate most alarming. Across different characters, campaigns, and timelines, these characters succumb to grievous blows. I have sheltered these fledgling heroes from the worst through lies and deceit, but the weight of my sins grow heavy. I ask, does Dice Christ Demand Blood - a life for a life? Does a polterdice require exorcism? Thank you for your guiding words, and may Dice Christ have mercy on my rolls.

DisClever

Oh Lords of the polyhedrals Absolve me of my sin, for I was a bad DM. And kind of a meanie. When I first got into DND around 14 from getting the 3.5 books as a gift, I decided to run the beginner box AP for my little brother. After making a sorcerer I made a fighter dmpc to go along with it. We fought some goblins in a cave, and were rewarded with a locked chest! Neither character can lockpick it, so he just asks to bash it open with his staff. I let him. He finds some money and a broken potion. He asks to lick the lotion out of the bottom of the chest. I ask him why, and exclaimed "what if it lets me fly?" I ended the session just saying "I don't think this is how to play" Now, years later, I wish I had continued that game as that is just good shenanigans. He dms for me nowadays and has let me get away with much worse. Like having my character constantly eat cinnamon, as an upgrade from previously eating incense, and throwing up as a goof. I double prostrate myself and ask forgiveness in the language of tongues.

Kassidy Kaszonyi

To the beloved judges and the okay Jake, I have a Dice Christ confession I must unburden myself of. Several years ago, my long-time friend and first-time DM was running her very first session. I played a flirty cleric, the party’s only healer. As our party wandered the desert to our first quest, a hoard of Abyssal Chickens flanked our level one party. To keep a long story short, in only a couple of rounds one chicken was dead, and our entire party, save for our barbarian, had fallen. My first-time DM’s face was pale as she realized a TPK was imminent, and she made a half-hearted joke about how she shouldn’t have downed the party’s only healer. My turn came around, and this is where my fatal sin haunts me to this day. I rolled my death save and triumphantly exclaimed that my flirty cleric rolled a natural 20! I was up! Judges, I cannot remember to this day what number I truly rolled, only that it was NOT a natural 20. With the healer up, I was able to heal our party and avoid the TPK. After, my first-time DM confided in me that if she had TPKed us, she would have quit DMing forever! The rest of our campaign was phenomenal, but this sin keeps me up at night. Judges, is my sin, so dastardly indeed, forgivable? I fall upon your sword.

Noah Blohowiak

Bless me Dice Christ for I have sinned! Auspicious Crit Cardinals and suspicious Deacon Dork, I come to you seeking advice on a sin so long past I had thought myself safe from retribution. Long long ago I DMed my first ever campaign with a group of friends from highschool. While I was preparing sessions, I was watching the anime HunterXHunter. Judges I admit this willingly, I plagiarized the beginning sequence of the hunter exam, plot point for plot point. While I did change character names; the descriptions and personalities were identical to their on screen counterparts. My players loved the campaign and they still bring up moments from the adventure we had. That is until recently, when one of my players casually texted me saying they had started WATCHING the show! I ask supreme Crit Cardinals should I confess my sin in advance? Or sit in fear with the knowledge that the past shall soon return to bite me?

Kristina The Sorceress

To the esteemed justices Axford, Tanner, and Murphy, and also the disbarred bailiff Jax Hamstink. May it please the court, I present the Case of Metagaming Versus Party Knowledge. I joined my friends’ campaign group mid campaign, and within the confines of character dialogue, they caught me up to speed of their quest and the BBEG. Not soon after, we encountered a bard accomplice of the BBEG. The rest of the party had encountered this enemy previously and, at the start of the battle, used actions to place magical miniature sandbags in their ears to help resist any charms or spells that utilized sound. I, as the player, had heard of this villain and their previous encounters, but it never came up in character! My DM chided me for “metagaming,” and so my character took no precautions, failed saving throws, and was left to hear “the saddest song you’ve ever heard.” This homebrewed magical effect and song altered stats and my character’s disposition for the rest of the entire campaign. The only way the effect could be undone was through a Greater Restoration or Remove Curse. Judges, I ask you, was it right to say that I was metagaming simply because I thought that the accomplice would have come up in previous conversations, but technically didn’t? I’m at your mercy. (P.S. We never got high enough level to get greater restoration/remove curse, and we never encountered an npc who had and could use those spells on my character.)

Doctor Ransom

Good day sagacious justices, may it please the Supreme Crit and also that unpaid intern dude that hangs around you guys, Jorsh or something dumb like that. I offer you the case of Drow John Wick: I was DMing a oneshot online with some close buds that I normally play in a weekly campaign with. They were a party of four high-level heroes being tailed by a crew of drow bounty hunters. Their dice were rolling high and each of them were absolutely whomping all of my baddies, that is until a much higher-powered Drow Mage stepped into battle. He sent his Grandpa-faced yeth-hound after them and one of the players mercilessly butchered it without further hesitation. While one half of the party stayed to fight, the rest of them decided to flee 100’s of feet away from battle. The remaining fighting players got taught a brutal lesson in not killing someone’s dog John Wick style. After the Drow Mage downed the yeth-slaying player with a legendary action, one of the fleeing players inadvertently drops from our voice chat saying the fight was unfair and there’s no hope of winning even though they were four overpowered 14th-level characters, and he chose to leave his allies to die. Who was in the wrong justices? Was I being a big meanie retaliating too hard with legendary actions against my players or was this player just crying yeth-hound tears? I await your forthright judgement.

Lorenzo

DRUNK SANTA To the honorable supreme crit justices and the sweet, sweet widdle baby baywiff Jake, I present to you the case of drunk Santa. I was hosting a Critmas DND sesh for my brothers and sisters in law (all first time players) with a simple little dungeon crawl module. As I prepared my notes, my obviously tipsy brother in law sidled up to me and asked, "So, what's the vehicle situation like?" I asked him what he had in mind and he replied, "you know, like a sleigh or something." I said we'd be in a tomb more or less so that probably wouldn't benefit him but he could arrive to the scene on a sleigh if he likes. A few minutes later, one more craft IPA deep, he again sidled up to me and asked, "So, like, what's the familiar situation?" Again, I asked him what he had in mind and he replied, "You know, like a elf..." I explained to him that in the world of DND an "elf familiar" would basically be a servant at best or an enslaved person at worst. I let him roll on a random animal table and he got a rat, which he promptly named Krampus. Everyone had a great time, including my drunk brother in law and his edgy "bad Santa" character, but I ask - should I have just let him run with his character idea, was I too strict on that, the holiest of holidays, Critmas? Thank you all for your wise and just ruling and please tell widdle baby baywiff Jake that he is the cutest baby boi.

Devin Awe

May it please the most magnanimous, magnificent, murph-ect man of all time, Jake Hurwitz and whoever happens to be around Him when He reads it, This was my third session ever and a new player joined our table. His new character was covered completely in bandages to avoid the prejudice the surface world holds for his race. The problem is that all of us were new players who had no idea that there was a prejudice towards Drow. So when this character introduced himself with the session plot hook to go investigate an attack in the desert, I argued we shouldn’t go anywhere with him. A strange bandaged man asking you to go to a secluded location just seems like a really bad idea in a fantasy world. The rest of the party agreed with me on this and we refused to leave with him until he took off the bandages since none of us knew or cared about the Drow stigma. The new player relented, took off the bandages and led us into the desert for the plot hook. Lord Hurwitz, should we have gone along with the DM’s plot hook more easily, or were we right to exercise caution against a sus weirdo?

Jacob Hall

Dear most honorable justices and third most honorable bailiff Achey Breakey Jakey; I do not know if this should presented in the high court or the high church, so please evaluate it as such. I accept whatever judgement, divine or mundane you see fit. I was playing as the only experienced person in a group of brand new, but very enthusiastic players. We were playing in Curse of Strahd and they were excited by the world and possibilities, but there were multiple occasions where I saw they were afraid to try something because they felt like they couldn't or they would get in trouble. The DM was also fairly new and was having trouble encouraging them. Enter me, an assassin rogue based on Agent 47 from Hitman. We were watching a corrupt governor give a dystopian speech, and I saw an opportunity to both show the group that big swings are something you can take in DnD and take out a cruel noble with one well-thrown screwdriver. I sneak behind the stage, and roll in the mid teens to make the assassination attempt. I was almost certain this would hit, but was afraid that if it didn't, it would discourage the new players even further from taking risks. So, I instead reported a roll in the low twenties that I knew would hit the AC of a petty noble. The screwdriver STRUCK TRUE, flew clean through the governor's head, and we all had a high stakes escape from the town. Years later we still talk about the scene, and one of the players have even said it helped show them what was possible in DnD. Justices... am I good?

Blueberbaby

To the Deacons of light, I am a YAunt with a confession. I ran a one shot for my husband and 15yo niece and nephew. This session can only be described as one frustrating cluster. These children of thunder tested me and I failed. My niece was drawing, taking selfies, and would get up to dance around randomly, while my nephew was more engaged, he was caught changing dice rolls and towards the end watched a music video. They were also texting each other and sharing earbuds. My husband and I tried to contain this but to no avail. Here lies my sin. Towards the end of the game, I lost it. I yelled at them, angry Yaunt yells. I went to the bathroom to collect myself then we finished the one shot. Is there grace for me or am I bound to end up in the 5th level of hell with the other rotten DMs?

Garrett Myers

To the illustrious judges and their foppish dweeb Jort Turdblitz: I present the case of the cheeky death saves. After an encounter in my game which saw aberrant zombies sacking a town, the PCs ran down an NPC secret agent who was trying to invisibly escape after helping incite the chaos. The team took the npc down to 1 hp and he surrendered. The greenscale shadow agent was ready to spill the tea when the cleric rolled to punch him in the face. It succeeded and the agent was reduced to zero. At that point I began rolling death saves behind the screen as the team scrambled in real time to solve the problem. I ended up rolling a nat 1 after one failure as the cleric shouted, “I heal him!” I had the cleric roll a religion check with a low DC, but he failed and my lore dumper died cold on the gore covered streets. My PCs protested and said the death saves should’ve started initiative. I retorted that initiative isn’t always required especially when aggression is taken “out of combat.” Do all death saves need to be rolled in initiative or was I right to roll (albeit slowly and obviously) cheeky after an out of combat assault? Ps - hate the show, never listened

Natalie S.

Oh hail merciful justices and their intern Jork, I present to you The Case of the 30 NPC Fight! In our Curse of Strahd game, our party had befriended a major family of NPCs that had at least a dozen members, and were on the cusp of a huge fight against the Baba Yaga and her cronies. I had assumed that the enemy cronies and other NPCs would be in the background while the combat focused on our battle against Baba Yaga - a 4v1 situation. What actually ended up happening was every single NPC and crony got their own turn, resulting in 30 turn rounds that lasted nearly 1.5hrs each. The DM roleplayed every single one of the individual enemies and NPCs she controlled, so each round was basically an hour of the DM shuffling character sheets and talking to herself, followed by us finally taking our turns. After about two rounds of this (3 hours), it was obvious the players were exhausted and NOT having fun - I’m not even sure the DM was having fun either! So, I mentioned how tiring and difficult to track this combat was, and asked if there was maybe another way we could handle all these NPCs. The DM grumbled and just said we’ll pause the session there, then personally angrily texted me that my question shat on her DM style and that I had basically called her a bad DM in front of everyone. I ask you justices: did I handle this the wrong way? Was I shitting on her DMing?? I humbly await your judgement!

pooki

To my good friends, the justices and bailiff…Jay Kerwitz… i think? I bring to you the case of MY loot that I made for ME!! A few years ago i was playing in a campaign, DM’d by my housemate at the time. One day while he was prepping, he asked me if there were any magical items i was interested in. I asked if we could homebrew something that would allow my aarakocra shadow monk to use his flurry of blows at range. Together we agreed upon a set of gauntlets that could rapid fire shuriken in place of punches. Cut to the end of the our next session and the party stumbles upon some loot. There was one item for each party member, each intended for their respective class. Eg a spell book for the wizard, a bow for the ranger etc. The DM described my cool gauntlets and another player excitedly called dibs. In character, I suggested maybe my I could make pretty good use of those. She responded somewhat dejectedly with “but i got them first”. Now out of character I explained that i literally designed them for me. They’re intended for my character and one of these other things is meant for you. I got my thing and she got hers, but she seemed disappointed, additionally this is almost certainly meta-gaming. Judges, was a i wrong to meta-game and insist on getting my tailor made loot? Or should i have stayed in character and let my gauntlets go? Love, pooki

Jacob Eardley-Dutton

The case of the Wrongful Wish Spell Deific Justices and the low-down, no-good, slime-boy Bailiff. I present the case of a wasted Wish. Our party succeeded in a heist to secure a mcguffin that granted us draws from the deck of many things. My sorcerer was instrumental in this heist (using haste and vortex warp to sling shot my party out of harms way). Our Paladin, the defendant, was not present for this heist but we secured them a draw from the deck nonetheless. Justices, when we drew from the deck the next session, i pulled the Moon card and rolled a 1, granting me 1 use of the legendary wish spell! (I already began to form a plan to use it to release the curse on a dragon we had met). Our Paladin shortly after pulled the Donjon card, meaning they would disappear and become entombed in a state of suspended animation. Justices, RAW (Jake that means rules as written) a wish spell cannot free a player from the Donjon However! Our DM stated that since I had just received a Wish spell, he would allow it to stop this card from taking effect. They asked me if I would. Justices, I did not want to. I asked the Paladin if they would be upset to lose their character like this and if they wanted me to use it. Justices, they said yes. I used my wish spell and the Paladin stayed and we moved on. Justices, the Paladin has since attended one session out of the following five sessions (this is online, we have been playing for 2 years). Have I been wronged? I wanted to save my wish spell for an epic moment to hopefully free an ally (a dragon no less), or should i just suck lemons and hold croissants out for the birds? I await your verdict

Magos Biologus Platy2932

To the judges and masters of the court, and that weird dwarf Jivylyn? I present to you the case of the stolen Charisma score. Years ago when I was just learning the ropes as a player and Yuncle, I had made a Changling Dragon Soul Sorcerer. My character was a drunkard who could only truly be motivated by booze, or the promise of cash for more booze. Statline wise wisdom and int were low, dex and strength were mid, I'd focused everything on constitution and charisma, health and spells being the name of the game. Changelings as a racial bonus get a plus 2 to charisma. So when we did our points by roll 4 dice drop the lowest, I managed an 18, and obviously put it in charisma, get that sweet sweet plus 2 bonus and bam, level 1 sorcerer with a +5 to spellcasting. All seems well until we start to play, and when the DM learned of my 20 charisma, and forced me to change it. Apparently level 1s are never allowed a 20 in any stat according to this DM, despite that not being anywhere in the book that I could find. They took my sheet from me and altered it right at the table, even going so far as to remove items I'd purchased as part of character creation, because they weren't the preset items sorcerer's can have! Judges I humbly ask you, was I robbed of my sorcerous shenanigans?

Sean Palmer

May it please the honorable Justices of the Crit and bailiff Jake. I come before the court with the case of the nearly stolen glue. Nearing the end of our two year campaign, my players found themselves in Orcus’ palace of Everlost. After avoiding a battle with the demon prince and instead winning his favor by providing him with a throne room makeover: abyssal edition, the PCs were offered a prize - a choice between several magical items. One of which was a bottle of sovereign glue I threw in there mostly as a joke. Of course they were immediately fixated on the glue - debating choosing it for an exceedingly long time for its potential to prank the “big bad” of the campaign before finally settling on a more practical item. Returning to Sigil, the rogue of the party immediately had buyers remorse and wanted to find some of this legendary glue for herself. The party bee-lined to a shop to hunt it down. They found a shop run by a kindly old lady and, of course, the glue they were seeking. Instead of trying to haggle or barter for it, knowing the items rarity, they came up with a plan to steal it. I left it up to a dice roll against the old shopkeeper’s perception - who I had made an ancient gold dragon in human form, assuming they might try something like this. The sleight of hand failed - and a chase ensued through Sigil as they fled an angry dragon. Now I’m being bullied (affectionately) by my players for not letting them have the glue. Were my actions appropriate given the legendary status of the sticky substance? Or should I have given them a fairer shot to pilfer their plunder? I leave myself at the court’s mercy.

Doctor Ransom
>>156852945

I have a bladesinging wizard in a Strahd game I DM, and when he’s got bladesong up and casts shield his AC is 24. I have to resign myself to never hitting him.

Ivan Kay

To the most lovely justices and the beautiful bailiff: I bring to you the case of the boycotted session. My group has an unorthodox schedule, where me and another DM alternate games each week. A few months ago I was finishing up the last session or two of my long campaign when we decided to invite another one of our friends to a new game of Traveler that the other DM was running. None of us had ever played it, but we all showed excitement for a campaign focused on investigating a mystery in space. Flash forward a week to the morning of the session, where we realized that we had fucked up. We had forgotten to convey to our new player that Traveler would only be run every other week, instead of every week. Most of the group, including myself, thought it would be best if we just ran Traveler again that week rather than pulling the rug out from under him or inviting him to my 3-year-long campaign with only 2 sessions left. One member of our group disagreed, and said an hour before the session that she wouldn't be playing and that it felt disrespectful to me. We ended up playing without her that night and it was a great time. To this day, there is no tension or hard feelings but I wonder if we made the right decision. Were we right to change plans like that, or should we have done something else?

Lili McGee

To the most most high justices and the pretty low but still could fall lower bailiff- I bring the case of “If I Only Had a Brain?” While in a Spelljamming battle, my Druid cast Conjure Animals, summoning two Lisa Frank style Tigers to aid in our fight. My DM attacked one of these majestic beasts with a Mind Flayer using his Extract Brain ability. Here’s where the confusion happened. It states that these Tigers are Fey Spirits and they use the stats of a Tiger which has an intelligence of 3. It was decided that these creatures weren’t smart enough for psychic attacks to work but I am still unsure. Do fey spirit have brains? Should my DM have been allowed to suck my 90s throwback tigers brains away? I await your most intelligent interpretation of the rules! PS this podcast got me to DM my own homebrew campaign for the first time and I’m loving it. Thanks for the inspo!

Cas Marie
>>156852945

I can get up to 24 with shield as well! Bladesinger is so fun to play for that reason, but my saving throws are the weak point of the build for sure.

Kevin P.

Campaign crushed by cannonballs from crazy chaotic coworker To the shining beacons of Justice Axford Murphy and Caldwell, and the rusty loyal bailiff Jank. My first time DMing was with a co-worker, who I'll refer to as Bark, and his 3 friends. Second session they're in a goblin warren, and Bark's Barbarian found a side cavern filled with goblin children. Bark said the party should slit the children's throats. Bark's lawful good best friend said in AND out of character that if Bark did he would walk away from the party. Bark happily slit one of their tiny throats. Bark's best friend said he was done, while the other two PCs sat in stunned silence. Hyperventilating and trying to salvage my first campaign, I said everyone gets one chance to roll a new character with no consequences. Bark's friend agreed and made a warlock pact with Oberon. Cut to next session, Bark got bored of his Barbarian anyway and threw him off a cliff. Then he requested an overpowered homebrew psionic gnome who used telekinesis to throw cannonballs. At that point I'm treading water in a pool filled with DM sweat, and I relented, treating the cannonballs as shortbow arrows. I even wrote Bark's new character as being the Puck in disguise, working off of his friend's warlock. Both Bark and I thought that was awesome. Two sessions later, after a chimera fight on board a hand crafted airship I made complete with metal soundtrack, Bark complained about his damage output. I said that increasing it would definitely unbalance combat. He said fine, I quit, collapsing the campaign. I don't ask for judgement for him because I know he's going to Crit Hell, but for myself. At what point should I have grown a spine and told him he didn't deserve the hard work and special treatment? At what point would Murph have leapt over the table and beaten him with the airship? I await your judgement.

Avelyn

To the most honourable and exalted judges, and that rakish cur they call a bailiff, I bring to you the case of the impenetrable undead kingdom. Several years ago, a friend of my sibling's wanted to run a game. I knew this person in passing, so I was happy to play along with a few of our other friends. The campaign was set to be a somewhat sandbox game, where an evil lich king was amassing an army, and a neighboring nation was sending out adventures to try to solve their problem. The overarching goal was to kill or otherwise stop the Lich, but the way we wanted to go about it was all up to us. We were all excited, and I ended up rolling a Cleric to a Good God of Death. However, our excitement quickly drowned away as every attempt to get anything done was stonewalled outright! We wanted to purify a village near the border? The mayor was a powerful necromancer who had already killed adventurers that the DM said we would all know were far more powerful than us. We suggested ambushing a place where they were manufacturing siege equipment, and the DM said the forces were too overwhelming and there was no way to sneak in. We even tried to destroy some roads to disrupt their supply chain and perhaps set up an ambush, and the GM narrated that a massive squadron of undead showed up 30 minutes later and repaired it nearly instantly. Our last straw was when we suggested starting a forest fire to cause some trouble for the aforementioned village, and the GM declared that it was the wet season, and we couldn't start a fire. Before the next session, the group agreed to gently tell the GM that we appreciate the game, and are having fun with the roleplay, but it would be really nice if he could throw us a bone. He nodded along, agreed, and ran the session... and after the session we never heard from him again. No group message, nothing, just fully ghosted! Justices - we tried to be as gentle as possible, and not appear ungrateful, but in doing so, I worry we may have caused undue grief. I ask you this- were we in the wrong for asking to be met in the middle? Should we have persevered and tried to find a strategy that the GM liked? Or do you think we were just boned all along?

Comrade Capy

Hello Supreme Crit JOBBERS: Scryin Bryan, Demolition Axford, and Tanny Omega, I have NOT come here today seeking your heelish advice! In fact, I am here for the wisdom of the Big Boss Bailiff: Jake the Break Hurtwitz. I DM a pro-wrestling themed campaign for a few of my cousins. We are part of the extended Anoa'i family (please pause to acknowledge the Original Tribal Chief ☝🏽) and it has been a blast to combine the wonderful worlds of rasslin and RPGs. My cousin created a character inspired by Hardwon: a hardcore, Indy wrestler straight outta the dwarfanage by the name of Rawberto Rockbottom. He is a Path of the Ancestral Guardian Barbarian who can summon his 4 Dwarf Daddies when he rages. The issue we have run into is this: who should voice and RP the Ancestral daddies of DeDwarfination X when they are summoned by Rawberto? My cousin has had me do them thus far in our campaign, but as DM... I'm pretty worried about running out of different voices 😂 I don't want to force my cousin to RP them and I enjoy doing it, but I also think he'd be great at it! He's worried that he might go too over the top with the shenanigans if I give him this much power, but I'm willing to take that risk in exchange for how hard I know he'll make me laugh. So, we seek the guidance of the white meat babyface bailiff: who shall speak for our dwarf daddies!?!?!? Fa'fetai lava from your friends in the Bloodline 🤙🏽

chlo!

meow! hello Supreme Crit and esteemed Baliff. I bring you a tale from my college DND group, which is one of confusion and sorrow, as well as tetanus. Picture this. I’m playing a level five monk named Alazei, among friends who I have played with for two years. We are exploring a newly discovered ruin in a deep magical forest, and my monk does a perception check on the lock keeping the gates closed. He succeeds and sees that it’s pretty rusted out. So, I roll to kick the gate open, and roll a nat 1. I expect something silly to happen like busting my ass and taking a little damage, but the my DM looks at me, and deadpan goes “Ok, Alazei contracts tetanus.” I paused for a second and chuckled, thinking it was a joke. But he was dead serious. We had never introduced a mechanic like this before, nobody was even cursed. Luckily everyone at the table supported and shared my confusion. My character is a bit stupid, and I did roll a nat 1, but I ask: How do you rule? (small epilogue: i now DMed for those friends instead of that guy less than a year following this interaction! happy ending)

Sean Littell

Greetings okayish judges and my favorite Bailiff, Jake! I bring forth the case of a Haunted house and an even more haunted argument between our group and a new player. Our group had recently added a new player who had expressed interest in trying out dnd for the first time! We were all pretty happy to help him create his bugbear rogue. The first few sessions went off without a hitch. He was eagerly engaging in roleplay and the combats! We return to our hub town where our local mayor tells us about a haunted house that’s been giving the townsfolk trouble. We decide to go investigate. While exploring this place, we come across a bag of valuables and our rogue decides he wants to take the coin himself…without us knowing. He rolls sleight of hand and a few of us catch him with a perception check. There is an in-character argument where the fighter insists that we split the treasure and the rogue begins suddenly saying how we’re all bad people who steal from the dead all the time! Out of character he is saying that he won’t split the treasure and begins implying that our DM should stop any disagreements between the party (which would inevitably lead to him keeping the gold without a resolution.) It eventually reaches a point where our fighter and rogue get into an initiative roll and the fighter takes down the rogue leaving everyone feeling sour or awkward. Understandably, it’s no fun to get downed to resolve an in character argument. Our DM said that if the rogue refused to give up the gold he couldn’t really make either party back down. Eventually the rogue left after one more session due to an argument with the DM saying he had no player agency. Judges! I beseech you! Could we have found a different ending to this harrowing tale or were we always doomed because of stubbornness? I leave such matters in your esteemed hands.

Mason N.

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

Jakob Hoffmann

Good afternoon esteemed judges and also Jake. I bring to you the case of the horny players. Ive been DM for a group of friends for about 5 years, and recently I accidentally introduced a mechanic my players became obsessed with: roll for hotness. During one session my players met an inconsequential NPC and asked how hot he was, so I said let’s roll the D100 and find out - this was my fatal flaw. Ever since my players have rolled for hotness for every character they meet, often unprompted. They will roll for hotness the second I bring up a new character, giving me no time to react. Now this may all seem in good fun, and for a large part it is… unless they roll really low. If an NPC is ugly they will often get ignored, discarded, and overlooked entirely. This has happened multiple times for very important NPCs, that my players just don’t want to be associated with. They will also refuse to reroll or ignore the low hotness rolls citing that “the dice tell their story.” Judges, please punish my horny players or at least tell me how I may better deal with these antics.

feoran97

To the Ultimate Supreme Crit Justices and the lowely Bailiff Tina, I bring the case of the one shot catapult. I am a long term player and DM (over 5 years) and I'm playing with a new DM and two new players (I'm a player in this campaign). The DM asks me regularly for advice, as he is new to the game and I have more experience. One of the new players (Banjo the tree frog wizard) was attempting to make ammo for the catapult spell by having the artificer make essentially shrapnel rounds that would burst into 6 projectiles upon impact. The problem was, he was trying to calculate the damage as 3D8 for each piece. This would make the damage 18D8 for a first level spell, and up to 66D8 damage for a 9th level spell. I argued that it would not splinter and split that damage, to which he brought up ballistic rounds for a firearm. I argued that the catapult spell propels something 90 ft in 6 seconds, or about 10 miles per hour, which wouldn't be fast enough to do the same kind of damage. His argument was that I was crushing his creativity and couldn't compete with my damage so was feeling left out in combat (I am a lvl 3 rogue and level 7 gunslinger inspired by deadeye). Am I wrong to get involved and save my new DM from setting a precedent that this was OK, or should I have just stayed out of it and let Banjo have his nuke? I humbly await your almighty wisdom and judgment.

James Scott

Hail and we'll met irreproachable judges......... .......... I come to you with the case of the edge lord warlock. I play in light hearted campaign as a chris angel like warlock who's power stems from the demon of angst and rebellion who is adventuring with doting parents whom he resents and is embarrassed by. Over time as my character grew older his relationship grew and developed fondness and love for his parents leading to our DM taking away my spell casting ability for loving my parents. Was our DM right to mind-defrock me for getting along with my fellow players to well. Ps, in the end I found my faith again by blaming my parents for the loss of my powers.

OrangeCat

Oh most venerable, gracious, and beloved justices, and their lesser but also beloved lackey, I present to you the case of The Gag Gone Wrong. Our group was trying to sneak past a guard into a building to bring a captured enemy to an ally inside. We had established earlier that we had bound and gagged the enemy. Our Druid then cast pass without trace on our party members and we all got very high stealth checks. Our DM asked if we cast pass without trace on the bound and gagged enemy too, and I said we shouldn’t need to because the enemy was BOUND AND GAGGED so he couldn’t have any agency. While we were still discussing the plan of how to enter, one of the pc’s said something that riled up the enemy and he made a noise through the gag. We laughed it off and continued with the plan. While we were sneaking in, the enemy screamed through the gag, making a noise that alerted the guard to our presence and foiling our plan for a discreet entry. When we argued that that wasn’t fair, the DM insisted that we hadn’t specified putting him in a strong enough gag and that we should have cast pass without trace on the enemy too. The DM also said that it had to be okay because we had earlier accepted the enemy’s muffled noise as a bit, so we then HAD to accept it when they put it in as real consequences. I feel like that sets a precedent that we have to then completely shut down any bits that could however possibly interrupt our future plans. Ultimately, I said that I still thought it was unfair, but that we should just move on, since the other party members didn’t seem to care that much. Am I wrong in this or was I right to gripe about the gag? I leave my fate in your most regal, legal, and sometimes lethal hands.

Jamie

To the honorable justices and the unreliable Bailiff Flake. I bring before you the case of the Hasidic Half-Orc. I recently started running a campaign for some friends, some of which are new to dnd. One of my Jewish friends decided they wanted to play a half-orc barbarian of Jewish faith. I told them that they should play a cleric or paladin and choose one of the in-universe gods to worship, but they insisted on being a Jewish barbarian. Not wanting to discourage a new player, I allowed it. At first everything was fine, the character fit in well with the party and added some lightly Semitic banter. But in recent sessions the bit has become more persistent and affected gameplay. Last session the party’s wizard almost died because our Jewish barbarian was “observing the Sabbath” and refused to fight during an encounter. After that fight, the party is starting to have some ugly hostility towards the barbarian, and I fear I am losing control. Am I a bad guy for not wanting my friend to play a Jewish character in our Dnd game? I am at the mercy of the court.

Biancatarxien

This is not a case but please tell Emily I named one of my foster kittens Fia in her honor. It's a spooky black one who talks/cries in the middle of the night to the ghosts 😂.

Kendal

To the exalted and honorable judges, and the bailiff of indeterminate present-status: I have been a member of a dnd group for over four years, spanning multiple campaigns with rotating DM's and various players cycling in and out of the table, outside of a core group of 4. Our most recent DM has been running a campaign for over two years, building on extensive lore and the world we created, with the games being hosted at his apartment. However, our DM began dating a player at our table several months ago, which was a bit of a shock to the rest of us as we would have not suspected they would be a good couple. Over time, the DM worked with their girlfriend on their character's backstory, making them the central focus of story. Their character was reveled to be a changeling with a wiped memory, with the party having to protect them from their demon parents trying to bring them back to their original plane of existence. As time went on, we noticed tension growing between them, with the girlfriend intentionally pushing the DM's buttons, and the DM getting visibly aggravated with their girlfriends in-game shenanigans, which included asking if their stinky farts delt poison damage to enemies. A few days after a particularly tense session which ended on a cliffhanger, with us at the precipice of finishing a long quest and about to face off against an ancient dragon, we received word that the DM and the player had broken up, in a particularly painful way. That marked the end of this dnd group, as other players moved away over time and it fell apart. Judges, am I wrong to feel that the DM should have waited to break up with his girlfriend until after finishing the campaign, or at least until after resolving the cliffhanger they left us on? I humbly await your judgement.

J-TownUS-Nay

I bring to you the Supremely stuffed Crit justices and the scruffy scrap eater bailiff yake The case or maybe a dice christ confession of a wrongful use of the word. I was the dm of a nearly a year and a half long Ebberon campaign that brought my party across the continent in an epic quest to prevent a demon horde from conquering the plains. After a few sessions of getting absolutely comped by a clever party of four lv6 casters and two lv6 martial classes I decided it was time to strike a bit of fear into the party and push them to the limit. They were just coming out of a big battle and, decided to lay low in a mining town. After a few poor con saves, and being a bit too trusting of an overly welcoming towns people that to their admitance "acted a little wierd." the party found them selves awaking strapped to tables and chained to walls with an Ilithid about to shave the fighter's head. After a few clever cantrip, some impressive strength rolls and the party cautiously making their way down into the tunnels of the underdark I was starting to feel pretty good about the session and the players were engrossed in getting out of this place with their brains unflayed.... Then they enter the final scene, a massive cavern with about a 100 mind controlled towns people mining Dragonshards, with 4 ilithid, a Beholder and an Ilithilictch. Combat started with a nat 20 initiative roll from the wizzard, and his first turn being banishing the Beholder and beginning to use a hombrewed circle of teleportation item that would take 3 rounds of combat to activate- The players were rolling like dice christ himself had fondled their sacks, and they were starting to get cheeky. So I, fully engrossed in the moment had the Ilithilictch use his last turn of combat before the party teleported away to cast Power word kill on the figter who had been in his face the entire combat. The party escaped, but with one member down. Me the dm not realizing that there was no cleric in the party, and thus no one that could revivify the brave samurai. The session ended with the party a bit forlorn over the loss of a day 1. They did make it a quest to revive the fallen character and were able to resurrect him many sessions later but I still feel I robbed my party of an epic escape. I welcome what ever word punishment my fall on my ears

Lawbind

I must confess before the church my sin. A few years ago, as a still new DM, I ran my own version of Mines of Phandelver for a group of 5 new brand new players I met online. Everything went incredibly well, so much so that I ran a second campaign with the same group, playing the same characters, this time a homebrew campaign. I allowed the players to keep their characters at level 5 but totally remake them to keep this fresh and interesting, as long as they remained the same class. My sin was committed when one of the characters, a tabaxi ranger, ended up being way too powerful in comparison to the others. I found out this new player had lied and actually had been playing for nearly ten years, and Min/Maxed his ranger. The character was so broken that the only way I could balance the encounters to be a challenge for him was to make them borderline unwinable to the others. My sin: I purposely targeted the ranger with the intent to kill, hoping that he would roll a new character that was not as stacked. Instead, when the ranger died, everybody at the table including the ranger was outraged. Unknown to me, they all enjoyed the ranger easily powering through the encounters. The ranger’s player left the game, and two sessions later everybody else left to play in a new game with the ranger, who he remade for another DM’s campaign. Oh mighty dice Christ and his priest, please forgive me for wrongfully assuming the experience of my players was being diminished. Except Jake, I don’t care if you forgive me or not.

Nathaniel F.

To the honorable judges “Executioner’s Axe-ford”, “Honor the Cock” Murphy, “Called-that-well” Tanner (whether he’s there or not), and the perfect Bailiff, Jake, even if her wits are better than your wits. I beg you to hear the case of the thieving DM. Some years ago in our first campaign together, we were tasked with fixing an Illusions-made-real machine. Successfully rolls form the Wizard and Artificer saw us test it, successfully, on a crafted illusion of a pile of platinum bars (full bars, not coins) before turning the task giver, some illusion of the Wizard who created the machine. So we were extremely rich and successful. Then on the way to town, our DM has a red stereotypical, French devil, randomly for the first time, pop out of a watch our wizard has had for ages, to make fun of us and tell us the platinum bars have a half life and are quickly fading - but the wizard was fine. So we rush to the bank, and we strike a money laundering deal with the teller, only for the devil to pop back up, push the teller with all our money into the vault portal, and disappear forever. Over years with campaigns in the same world, often same characters, this money continues to be inaccessible. Please, validate us in that our DM is a sneaky little thief, I beg you.

J-TownUS-Nay
>>156868649

Side note! The player that had their character power word killed is still a dear friend and has had the chance to equally womp my characters in his campaigns

Cody Henderson

To the honorable judges and whomever else wandered in from the street. I must confess to dice Christ. I am a long term fan and DM of several groups with my husband who was a first time player in my first campaign I DM’d. He went from a never player to a huge fan of the show in particular of dungeon court. The dilemma- when it takes time to “roll for seduction” he has taken to insisting on a roll off to put his favorite episode of dungeon court on to “set the mood”. Judges across the 7 times I have allowed this to go to a roll I have lost 7/7 of the roll offs and had to listen to your lovely voices while doing the deed. Judges- are we taking the courts holy name in vain?!?

lucy pickle

To the sublime judges of the court and their little bitch baby Bailiff, I bring the case of the slow ass wizard. I’ve been playing in a campaign with some childhood friends for a few months now. We’ve all played in at least one campaign before and the game has been flowing very smoothly. We have but one issue: every time it's our wizard’s turn in combat he takes an absurdly long amount of time to choose a spell to cast. Recently, I mentioned to the player before a session that maybe they could plan what they were going to do on their turn before their initiative came up in the order because, sometimes, waiting for them to choose a spell brought the energy down at the table. They got very quiet and gave a curt response, saying that they could do that. Then, when it was their turn during the first battle of the session, they cast a spell that was entirely unhelpful and unrelated to the situation. When asked why they did that, they said “Oh, I was told I need to think faster so I went with the first one I saw…my bad.” The energy at the table was tense for the rest of the session. Judges, was I wrong to ask our wizard to plan ahead for their turn or should I have let them continue to pick good spells, although very slowly, during initiative? I prostrate myself before your tremendous wisdom and await your judgement.

Chazz

To the honorable justices and dutiful bailiff Cake Hogdick. I present the case of a Christmas Wish gone wrong I was running a mall themed Christmas one shot for my sister and her friends who wanted to try out Dungeons & Dragons. Solving the murder of a mall santa and preventing the second coming of Krampus the one shot ended with the real Saint Nick arriving and offering the players a single Christmas wish. It was the end of the one shot and it didn’t really matter at this point. Things immediately went sideways when one of the players asked if they could wish for anything. When I said that there was no limit to the power of a Christmas wish, they wished that her boyfriend (who was playing with us) was locked in a closet and brutally assaulted by Hyenas. They didn’t wish for the player’s character to be assaulted by hyenas they wished for the player to be. The game was wrapping up and I didn’t have the time or energy to unpack why hyenas or why she would say that. So I narrated that their character is filled with the knowledge that in a different reality Greg was being viciously mauled by Hyenas. Greg asked if I was allowed to do that and I shrugged, not entirely sure. Justices, I ask you, was I wrong to “yes and” and grant this wild wish? Or should I have forced my player to ask for a different wish for this one shot.

Greatest Alive

To the ethereal justices and the all-too-mortal bailiff John, I present the case of the Uninteresting Newspaper. In our campaign, I had a newspaper in the city of Waterdeep write about the aftermath of a recent bit of trouble the party had been involved in. They read the headlining article and then, because I had one small tidbit about something one of the players had done, I had them roll to see if they found anything else. Two of the players rolled a Nat 20. The relevant player's nat 20 resulted in them finding the tidbit, but I didn't have anything else planned for the newspaper, so the second nat 20 resulted in them seeing the same small article. Then we moved on. After the session, the player the small article was about told me I should have come up with something cool for the other player to find to honor the Nat 20, but I argued that it was just a newspaper and I wanted to keep the game moving. Justices, should I have tried to generate something on the spot to honor an almost meaningless nat 20, or is calling a Nat 20 "meaningless" an affront to Dice Christ? I await your verdict with bated breath.

ketchup packet

To the honorable, non-tortle judges and the lowly non-tortle bailiff, I present to you, the case of the faulty identify. In a campaign that has been going for 5 years, I have been playing a divination wizard. The DM homebrews statblocks and magic items, on of these items being “The Bag of Wands,” which creates a random, one use wand which announces itself, the joke being that the wand names are homonyms (ex. light/lite). When I asked if I could see the table with an identify, the DM said I could not, resulting in me using a “Wand of Mole” to turn an ally into a mole for our enemy instead of creating a mole to help us sniff out some undead. When he rolled on the ally table he landed on the god Bahamut, turning an entire god against us. Later in the same campaign, he asked me to make a wisdom save DC 26 when I identified an item, which led to a curse on my character involving being watched and open to possession for no save at any time for a full in game month. This resulted in my character counterspelling a friendly NPC and letting a villain get away. I’ve argued with the DM on each of these rulings, since the whole point of identify is avoiding the potential downsides of magic items, but he’s held his ground, in the later case saying that the name of the effect on the identified item was also a curse, and knowing it cursed me. Should I accept that identify should still be a gamble, or should my DM stop creating magic items with unknowable effects? I humbly await your verdict.

Ziel R.

Benevolent Barristers and Ballyragged Bailiff, I present the case of the Cabbage Conundrum I recently joined a long running campaign. Upon completion of our first mission, the party's redemption paladin asked me to use my guy's Telepath abilities to help with a long-standing issue that the party had and thus was I introduced to a half-orc Cabbage. Cabbage was an early game antagonist that was defeated and taken into custody and the party had been split on what to do with every since. The pally was convinced he could be rehabilitated but the rest of the gang wasn't sure and so Cabbage had been under house arrest at the party base ever since. The pally had me sit back and use my telepath powers while he interrogated Cabbage. During the interrogation, I noticed several weird things; the dude had no surface thoughts, his memories showed up disjointed and fragmented and oddly third-person when using detect thought deep dives. A series of high insight, arcana, and investigation rolls revealed that he had a glyph inscribed on him that prevented him from forming a personality or even being able to form opinions making him very easy to be remote controlled by the BBEG so I went and dispelled the glyph and removed the magic controlling him. The DM and the rest of the party were excited to have a long-standing issue solved, but the pally was L I V I D. After the session he pulled me aside and really laid into me, shouting things like "Your job was to observe and report! No one told you to interfere! This was *My* NPC. This was *My* questline!" Did I fuck up? I admit, I was maybe a little overeager to try and establish myself in this group since they have been going for years and thus took a bit of a big swing.

Cha boi

To the all knowing justices who sit on high and . I bring to you the case of rightful retribution. I recently ran my first ever session for my friends since high school, which I was greatly relieved and proud of myself for completing. I created a whole pantheon based on the Greek gods and Japanese zodiacs vying for survival, with the end goal being a Princess Mononoke -esque tale of conflict between civilization and nature with no side being truly evil. As you can imagine, I put way too much effort into session 1. My gripe comes with one of my friends, let’s call him “Quinn” because that’s his real name and I’m putting him on blast. During our intermission pee break, I told everyone to get ready by getting waters, refill on snacks, and check their phones so we would be locked into the second half. Almost immediately after it started, Quinn became visibly checked out, texting with a grin on his face and getting up to grab snacks (a whole pineapple that he cut at the table). When it came time to face the BBEG for the session, there were three instances of “wait when did we learn that?” to which the rest of my friends responded “when you were peeing”. During that confrontation, I had the BBEG use the Command spell to make him shit himself and do nothing, while fully knowing that it’s a concentration spell and ignoring that while the BBEG took damage. My question is this: was I right to make my friend shit himself? We will gladly take any outcome you see fit - and I pray you include the Philly Fanatic Gritty for this fucking foul-playing fool.

Ziel R.
>>156872811

P.S. Upon breaking the glyph, "Cabbage" was able to develope his first opinion in probably his entire life. That opinion was that the name "cabbage" fucking sucks.

Michael Hall

Hello most esteemed justices and bailiff cooper. I present to you the case of the robbed action. Me and my party were flying through a frozen wasteland on hippogriffs and were attacked by various ice monsters. The first round I was incapacitated by one of the creatures and couldn’t act. That’s ok it happens. At the end of my next turn I failed the save again. I continued to fail 3 more rounds…again that’s fine sometimes the fight doesn’t go your way. After 5 rounds of not being able to act my wizard finally broke free and was able to fly across the battle field to help our monk who was hanging on to one of these ice creatures. I told my dm I would like to jump from my hippogriff, touch our monk and use thunderstep to get us back to our hippogriff. My dm called for an athletics check. I failed…that’s fine I made a new plan and used misty step as a bonus action to get back my hippogriff and then said I was going to fire bolt a different ice monster. My dm said no my action was the failed jump because I had the intention of thunder stepping. My question is this. Was I absolutely robbed!? I spent the first hour of combat doing nothing and the first time I could act I didn’t get to use an action. The fight ended before my next turn. I await your judgement

Waddle Bawddle

Dear benevolent justices and that other guy that hangs around sometimes. I bring to you the case of the Bag of Tricks - Carnival Edition! I DM for a group of 5 and there is one player who has been begging for a Bag of Tricks since before we even started the campaign. Since we started at level 1 I told him he would have to be patient, but every session (and often times almost anytime we hung out aside from DnD) he would ask when he was getting his Bag of Tricks. So, justices, I decided to throw him a bone while the party was visiting a Feywild Carnival. Through a multitude of games, the player in question finally won the Bag of Tricks. He was elated, arms up in the air in victory for a split second. Then I said, “Carnival Edition”. This player, and two others said “What the fuck”. I explained the bag can pull out carnival themed animals such as rabbits, doves, and even mini jesters. To which, I was given “You’re an asshole”. (In an only sorta joking way). Justices! I ask, am I really an asshole for getting my players hopes up only to dash them a second later? Or should some players relax and be patient for powerful magic items? Note: they were at level 5 at the time. I will accept whatever judgement you deem necessary, oh mighty ones.

Tykora

Dice christ forgive me for i have sinned. In a game i dm i had a player that was playing a half elf wild magic sorcer that got the wild magic when they lost their name to a fae, i as a the dm saw a opportunity decided that when the party got to their ark in the campain that i decided that it would be really cool if they were actually the child of that fae and had been crib swapped as a baby and that something tramatic happened which caused their wild magic to cast a powerful modify memory on themselves. I feel bad because i kinda rewrote their character's backstory. The player actually greatly enjoyed my plot twist, but as the dm i feel i over stepped and need to atone.

Aiyana

Dear wonderful, radiant Justice Axford and everyone else, I bring to you what is less of a court case and more of a court tea time about a social faux-pas that ended two decade-long friendships. The incident in question occurred about two years ago when my close friends and I finally met for our first game of D&D after numerous scheduling conflicts (we had managed to have a session zero but struggled to actually meet up until then). We ended up meeting on the last possible day that we could do so, as one of the other players (who two of us had been friends with for over a decade) had to return to college early for marching band. We decided to make this event not only a D&D session, but also a gift exchange; however, when my friend and I arrived at our DM's house, the other two players were nowhere to be found. One of the players, who has a tendency to be late, contacted us and gave us an ETA that was a couple hours later than our agreed-upon arrival time. However, Justices, this is not the offense--for when this player eventually arrived, the other player (who tried to make a 420 pound dragonborn named Big Chungus during our session zero) was still nowhere to be found and absolutely unreachable despite having been in consistent contact about this for weeks. We ended up having to contact their sister to ask where they were, and she informed us that they said they were "not coming." We all fumed, especially myself and our DM, who felt our DM's time preparing the session had been disrespected. We decided to play the session without them and had lots of fun in a world that was modeled after Fantasy High. This act, however, launched what I termed "hater hours," where we began to realize that this person had been vindictive and manipulative in all of our relationships with them, often engaging in strange, unspoken competitions with us about childish things and pointing out our flaws to make themselves feel better. In the end, (which occurred over a period of several months) we enacted the classic Justice Murphy ruling and got new friends.

Karl Alex Kloeb

I come seeking the wisdom of Dice Christ's chosen, for my faith is as a candle flickering in the wind. I ran a Halloween one-shot this year where the characters were all Eastern European survivors of World War II, investigating the only house not destroyed by Axis firebombs. The locals knew the house to be cursed by foul magic, but in their desperation for safety some of them sheltered there overnight and were never seen again. The players were their concerned loved ones; a hopeful rescue team in search of their friends, siblings, lovers, and even an adult child in one case. The session was meant to last 4 hours, but after a string of truly terrible rolls from EVERYONE, we had a total party kill after less than an hour. I was the only entertainment scheduled for the night, so I decided to improvise. Instead of simply killing the party, the sadistic spirits of the house threw them a feast: they awoke to the sight of their bewitched loved ones, living but laid out on the house's immaculate dinner table like a four-course meal. I had the players all make Will saves to resist the compulsion to eat, thinking I could get a scary combat scene where only some of the party fail and turn on the rest. But when not a single person managed to roll above a 10, I felt that I had little choice but to narrate the worst possible end to the encounter, where everyone succumbed to cannibalistic glee and the bomb-blasted hills echoed with the polite laughter of a fine party interspersed with the terrified screams of their unwilling dinner guests. If Dice Christ is truly good, then why would he guide my flock to such a truly terrible end?

Juicebox

Dear ultimate Crit Arbiters of morality and the guy that's basically just two kobolds in a trenchcoat... I come before you, humbled and remorseful, to confess my crime—highly inspired “homage” to Eldermourne; Shadeloch. My world of Shadeloch? Oh, it’s got the sibling gods, the looming Harvest, and an empire that’s probably a cousin to the sprawling Eldermourne one—but, hey, it’s not half a continent wide, so that’s different, right? And let’s not forget my “borrowing” from Dragon Age (because, really, what’s an "original" world without a dash of Templar-style conflict to alleviate my guilt of just plagerizing NADDPOD). So now, I’ve got a sort of medieval fantasy remix that’s more a blend of inspiration than something completely new… but it feels like mine? Somehow? Please, Crit Council, cast Detect Plausible Deniability. I swear it’s got its own vibe! P.S. Murph, if you’re curious… would you want to check it out?

Baron Trousers

To the Celestial Crit Court who rule on high, and the impish bailiff Ache who wallows below, I bring to you the case of the tramp-stamp disintegration. Some time ago, my gnomish paladin was marked with a transmutation sigil and given the power to cast Disintegrate using Intelligence. Which is rarely successful for my hot, dumb gnome. In our last battle our DM unveiled a cool new mini of a recurring villians's true form - a twin headed, extraplanar, crow-folk. We wamped the baddies and the villain prepared to escape. On my turn I politely asked my DM to make a dex save. I did not declare what spell I was casting. Despite rolling with advantage and only needing a 12, the DM failed the save. The damage exceeded the crow-folk’s current HP by 2 points. The DM asked how I would like to finish the villain. I described my hot gnome pulling up his shirt, revealing that the transmutation sigil looked like a tramp-stamp. The disintegration ray shot out of the tattoo and obliterated the crow-creature. My DM seems despondent that his recurring villain had been killed so cartoonishly. He explained that he had designed and printed the mini specially and planned to use it more than once. He also mentioned the villain had counterspell, but didn’t feel right using it after I’d rolled the damage. I can’t help but feel if I had announced which spell I was using up-front the cool crow-beast would have countered and flown the coop. Was my delayed Disintegrate declaration ok? Or was this tramp-stamped tirade totally trashy?

LVP

To the Angelic justices Axford, Murphy, and spirit of Tanner, and the cherubic bailiff Jaique (pronounced Jake, just spelled wrong). I come to you with a case of cowardice in conflict and Aarakocra insanity. Some years ago I played 5e with a group of friends from work in two fizzled out campaigns. In the first campaign, a homebrew world, the player on trial was a goblin bard, ‘Shrubface Incontinance’. In one instance while the party went about the town advancing the story, he hid in a barrel on the ship calling out how lonely he was in his trademark shrill voice. In the following session, he attempted to pay for our accommodations by playing an uninterrupted 10 actual minute rendition of the opening drumline with his fingers on the desk to “Feel it in the Air Tonight” by Phil Collins, in which he never got to tell us what he could feel in aforementioned air. That campaign fizzled due to unrelated reasons, but the second campaign brought the real insanity. His next character, in the setting of Ravenloft, was an Aarakocra bard, ‘Lactimus Prime’. A dairy enthusiast with a songbook full of cheese based puns. Things were mostly fine, until it was revealed that some pastries our party was enjoying were made with ground up children. The witches responsible for this offense of nature offered us gold in exchange for more kids, which we all refused. All but one of us. Lactimus insisted that it was no big deal. We disagreed. He grew impatient. We put our foot down, exclaiming the morality of it all. Lactimus, frustrated, threw his hands up and yelled “It’s just a game, none of this matters.” And the room soured. Your honors, and cute little baby boy bailiff. The crime is how I responded. Being conflict averse, some might say a coward, I got quiet, and dipped out of the party after that session without stating why. The party did not meet again and I feel I am responsible for leaving a world in peril to a child eating Aarakocra and the arguably less evil Strahd von Zarovich. I lay myself at the feet of your judgment, covered in shame and a comfort blanket.

Kai and Lauren S.

To the magnanimous judges Murphy, Axeford, and Tanner and also that Jackie guy. My wife plays in a virtual D&D game with some long time friends. She's playing an eladrin druid. During a recent battle, she used Wrath of Nature to magically animate grass, undergrowth, trees, roots, vines, and rocks in a 60 foot cube to attack her enimies. A few rounds later, she tried to use Wither and Bloom to deal damage to the same group fo enimes. Here in lies the problem, Wither and Bloom causes non-magical vegitation in the area to wither. My wife didn't want to use the spell if it meant withering her newly animate tree buddies. She argued that, because she had previously use Wrath of Nature to animate the vegitation, said vegitation should not be affected by Wither and Bloom. The DM decided that, while the vegitation had been magically animated, it was not itself magical, so casting Wither and Bloom in the area would wither the now animate vegitation. What say you judges? Should the vegi allies have lived through their master's wither spell, or did the DM make the right call? I humbly await your judgement.

adrieenna

dearest judges and acceptable bailiff, i submit before you the case of the forgotten wife. our dm has revealed to us that a false hydra has eaten some of our dearest companions. among this reveal was the fact that my character caleb had a wife who was eaten and subsequently forgotten by everyone. in order to preserve the secrecy of the hydra, the dm did not ask my opinion about caleb having a wife. as he was in the middle of escaping a crisis concerning a promised first-born and a hag, i do not think caleb would’ve even considered marriage. also, he’s only 27 years old. he’s too young to be a widow ): he should be in the club. so i ask of you, wise dms, is the big reveal of the false hydra worth more than my vague ick that i have a dead wife?

FrogKnight

To the Honored Justices and [add demeaning name here], I present to you a case on the lifting capacity of a magical owl. My husband, the DM, has bravely led us through 30 sessions of a campaign. In it, I play a barred owl whose soul was intertwined with a sorcerer. On paper, he's a wild magic sorcerer and a small Owlin (about 33% larger than a normal barred owl). In an early session, I tried lifting a party member off of the ground and flying him away from an athletics check he failed to climb a bank, a la “watch this”. The DM said this was kind of ridiculous. I gave up on lifting and we moved on but my strength abilities have since come up multiple times. I recently learned that owls can fly up to 40mph (44ft per second). I semi-jokingly suggested that my owl should have a flying speed of 40ft instead of 30, "since we're sticking to what normal owls can do." The conversation devolved into more calculations of what a 33% larger Owl would be able to do. His carrying capacity would be 6.5lbs-- equating to a strength score of 0.43. We both agreed that this is ridiculous. However, the DM (my husband) maintains that I shouldn't be able to carry an ally even though it's within the limits of Owl’s on-paper strength score of 12. He argues that lifting something and using one’s wings to fly something away/up is different.  Justices, I beseech you to settle the debate of a magical owl's carry/lift capacity once and for all. Signed, A troubled worm wife and husbanDM

QuackerZzZ

Hello Justices I wish to bribe, and Jill’s husband, I have a crunchy case which has been passed from the lower courts. I am playing a French immigrant cowboy in a Gothic Americana Wild West game my friend runs, on a particular session we were helping the Dakota tribe ransack an oil field which had been developed on their land. Upon sneaking through the fences my character wanted to gain access to the roof for a better vantage point and upon the fight starting, all was well. Until a few goons decided to shoot from the base of the building where they could barely see my character and rolled flat, I had thought that at the angle the enemies were firing at the only part of my character would be visible possibly resulting in quarter to half cover. My DM staunchly disagreed and my character nearly died because of this disadvantage. Justices I ask you was I WRONGED should a character who is half obscured get half cover I await your judgement. Ps the Dm later agreed that I was right but only after a short argument after the session. Pps the DM is a dear friend and this campaign is still going strong almost a year later!

Konnor Wall

To the benevolent, and superb supreme Crit justices, and the bailiff jack Johnson? I lay before you the case of the wannabe bouncer. So I’ve been plying dnd with a group of friends for over a year and when our last campaign ended I offered to run a smaller one to try out DMing, I ran a Greek god themed campaign, and to bring all the players together I narrated how they each got a letter inviting them to a private party house, I had a guard Check everyone’s invitation. when one of my players walked up to the guards and said “ okay I’m here to take over for ya, you are good to head out” He then asked me if he could roll a persuasion check. Obviously he rolls extremely high. I have the guards explain to him that if he’s here to take over for them he needs to go get in uniform and check the schedule His response was “ I got a 21 I should be able to do this!” This being my first session I wasn’t exactly sure what to do so I moved on to the next players arrival When they came up to the entrance the problem player then tried to make this player pay HIM 10 gp to enter the manor. I had the guards start to make moves to arrest him unless he stops and goes inside, the player reluctantly agreed and ended up going inside. Justice’s was I wrong for having my guards not fall for a very bad and obvious ploy that would have curved my first session, or should I have let this bit continue and give my player a part time job within the first 15 minutes of our game. I humbly prostrate myself before the court in wait for your just and virtuous ruling.

just a little bawn
>>156845779

Could your friend play some kind of science experiment gone wrong memory wiped/time warp clone version of the character? Either way I'd say your friend is acting like a kid who gave away her toy and wants it back years later, that's not on you

Tykora

Dear benevolant justices and Mr. Herwits, today i bring you the case of Mr. Herwits promotion in the "near" future. As you know there are plans for Mr. Herwits to officially dm on the channel therefore i argue as of his premier as a dm he should be promoted to a new justice.

Monk3yTouch3r
>>156918022

Sir, this is not a crit case in the slightest. Please redirect your query to the Planning SubComcrittee before a case is filed against you for a frivolous, and frankly absolutely absurd and unjust recommendation for a new justice.

Jane Paintrain

To the Honorable Justices and the worm bailiff, Lowly - I present the case of the Marvel Menace. In the early days of our core D&D group one of the players, we’ll call him ‘Sonic’, wanted to try his hand at DMing and asked if I’d be willing to play in a practice session using two PCs. I agreed and rolled up a grumpy old Shadow Monk and a wanna-be ladies’ man Hunter Ranger. As this was the late 20-teens, I thought it’d be funny to name them Danny Rand and Jeremy Renner respectively. We had a fun session with just the two of us, and Sonic asked if I’d be up for another practice session. Again I agreed. What I didn’t know was that Sonic invited another player from our core group to join, we’ll call him ‘Grinch’. Sonic had told the Grinch that I was playing two characters: Danny Rand and Jeremy Renner. So of course the Grinch comes to the table with Thor and Black Widow - not PCs inspired by these heroes mind you, but full carbon copies of the supes. When the Grinch realized I had simply used comical monikers on original characters, he still kept up the Marvel Movie personas for his PCs. In fact, he loved it so much, he played exclusively Marvel characters in all future campaigns and one shots with our group despite the variety of DMs and settings. Over the last six or so years he's played as Professor X, Iron Man, Loki, Wolverine, and even Rocket Racoon complete with a Groot familiar. These PCs have not been well received at the table and we tend to try to treat them as typical medieval high-fantasy adventurers. Judges, I ask you - who must bear the blame for this superhero epidemic? Is it the Grinch for forcing his superhero fantasy into our various realms, is it Sonic the new but overly permissive DM, or must I make my way to a Dice Christ confessional and beg forgiveness for this superhero inception? Perhaps everyone is to blame and this case has no heroes after all. I leave the ruling in your capable hands.

Focal Saleos

To the Judges and Worm, I present a question on polymorph. I've run a campaign for a while now and recently one of my players, a druid, summoned fairies into combat. Awesome. He then had one of the fairies polymorph him into a dinosaur and absolutely womped the monster they were fighting. I pointed out that not hurting your party as a 1 INT dinosaur would be difficult, but they countered by quoting polymorph and it saying "the target maintains their personality and alignment" and so wouldn't harm their fellow "good" party members. Judges, is this spell broken as hell? Can a dinosaur be an absolute idiot but also a pillar of morals? I await your judgement

Cristian Vera

Here ye, here ye o mighty judges of the court. The bailiff I do so humbly greet as well. I come forth with an issue with the druid class. A player at my table is using the druid subclass “blighted druid” It is a very fun class! It essentially gives the wild shape creatures an additional +2 AC. The class also gets a subclass feature called defile ground. It creates a hazardous 10ft radius, within 60ft of the PC. The area lasts a minute, is considered difficult terrain, and causes an extra 1d4 damage to any creature harmed in the area. The rub in the situation is deciding whether or not defile ground is just a class feature, or is it considered a type of spell? This would decide whether the druid can cast defile ground while in wild shape. 5e clarifies that class features can remain while in wild shape “if the form is physically capable of doing so” however, it is also explicit in saying spells can’t be casted in wild shape. No clear wording is said whether defile ground is simply a bonus action, or some type of spell. Can the court make a final ruling for this indecisive DM?

Alec Salazar

The case of the beast-less beast master Hello Justices and the stenographer. I am in a campaign with some close friends playing a ranger Beast Master named Stanky Franky. Stanky is a sewer exterminator who befriended a giant rat named trash to be his Beast Master companion. I often expressed my deep love for my rat and the length I went to take care of him. Recently we were dispatched on a quest to retrieve a magic item from a tomb across a swamp, as we crossed the swamp, we rolled encounter checks from a table our DM made. One of these encounters had a family of giant swamp rats fighting off a group of vultures. We jumped into battle helping the rats, and after the vultures were slain my DM had me roll a perception check. I got an 18 and he told me that Trash looked longingly at the swamp rats and my character could tell he wanted to stay. Not wanting to force my friend to stay with me, we said goodbye and continued on to the temple without him, I mentioned maybe he would have changed his mind later since he was a city rat. On the way back we all kept our eyes peeled but alas there was no rat to be seen. I thought maybe my DM had something bigger planned for trash but when I asked him he said the encounter was called “goodbye trash” and he would not be returning. When I expressed frustration that I lost my beast, my DM said that I could have forced him to stay with me. I feel this goes against what being a beastmaster actually is. Later a merchant showed up selling a variety of new animals but I just wanted trash back. Justices, am I wrong to feel like I was forced to give up my beast without feeling like a total jerk, or should I roll over and buy a bloodhawk? I humbly await your decision.

JonesyBoy

To the most and highest of Judges and the worst and lowliest baliff, Jan. I bring you the case of "The Author" My partner is DMing a Humblewood campaign and all of us are playing in-world appropriate characters except for one - an author who decided to insert the main character from his novel into the story. My partner is having the hardest time trying to accommodate this curveball but even still the Author insists on priming their PC with fodder for their novel. they don't check or prepare spells for their Druid, because the character in their novel is actually a wizard and wouldn't know they were now a druid and also a fox. I find the author annoying but my partner is really trying - may your verdict be swift and without compassion.

Sophie Hough

To the most noble and benevolent Judges, and also that guy Jeff, I bring you the Case of the Ohio Debacle in my Prohibition-era Campaign. I am a first time DM who home-brewed a political intrigue and mobster game set in 1920s magical Montreal. Everyone built really intriguing characters: Barry, a human warlock boiler inspector, Vance, an aasimar zealot barbarian, and Hutch, a warforged monk created by one of the mobster families. It has been a lot of fun to play, except during the last session. The party had been working towards a prison break that I, the DM, spent months building, including hand drawing maps, homebrewing magical items for every character, and trying to find roles for everyone to feel included. I even went out of my way to make sure other characters had important roles or easter eggs for story points they could find, since the prison break focused more heavily on Vance’s backstory. Not 25 minutes into the prison break session, because Vance’s player had jokingly said he had put the minor villain’s head on the table as a paper weight, Barry, in character, started yelling — like actually full-chest yelling — at all NPCs and all PCs except for one. He called Vance an “angry 275 lb toddler” and “illiterate”, the player demanded access to my DM world building notes because of a nat 20 investigation check, yelled at every NPC and PC except one at the table who tried to calm him down, told the NPC whose father the party was trying to break out of prison that if he was her dad, he would rather rot in jail than have her work with the other PCs, and then stormed out of the hideout, burning the prison paperwork and said, quote: “Barry moves to Ohio with his wife and child.” When asked if he had another character prepared, he said, smiling at me, “No.” I asked if he wanted to roll a new character, and he initially said: “No, I’m fine with watching how *this* goes without me.” Vance’s player is a forever DM and intervened at this point to tell him that Barry's player needed to roll another character and participate, because he wasn’t comfortable with Barry just watching from the sidelines. We took a break 25 minutes in so I could brainstorm other solutions and Barry's player could re-roll. Eventually, we got the session back together, and the prison break happened with the new character Eric, who I made a prisoner on the inside. It was an okay session, despite the chaos, and everyone had fun in combat, at least, and there was some nice resolution for Vance's backstory. The next day, Barry’s player asked to check in with me, and I told him I was a little upset about what happened, that it felt like he wasn’t really collaborative with the other players. He replied by telling me that he was upset I had told him he had done something wrong, that tension like that at the table is totally normal, that I hadn’t provided a safe enough space for him to be vulnerable in his roleplay in a moment where he felt really connected to Barry, that he was hurt no one wanted to chase after Barry, and that he was sorry he had set “unrealistic expectations for flexibility in the game” for a first-time DM like me. Judges, I humbly ask you: did I not provide enough flexibility in the game for Barry's player's "passionate roleplay"? Should I have abandoned the prison break and sent everyone packing to Ohio with Barry?

Reverend Chatterbones

Dear specious judges and the Bailiff with the bad genitals (unless we're being nice to Jake - in which case, I'm so sorry), I bring to you the case of the Twin powers. My twinsie was the DM for a campaign based off of Celtic mythology. It was dope as sh*t. This guy really knew my style and everyone had a great time. Unfortunately, I repeatedly blew up his spot by accurately predicting the next turn in the campaign in our group text thread. This included ending the campaign in outer space, the appearance of gundams, and betrayal by an Ewok rogue. We have one brain and one heart. My question is this - am I guilty? I am willing to accept whatever punishment the church/state requires.

Tyler Kraft

To the most well respected agents of justice in all the lands, and their pet dog, Blake. I bring you the case of the “oops I didn’t hear you.” I feel it’s important to add the context in which this was a new hobby for me and thru circumstances not in my control, I found myself in the hot seat of DMing for my friends who also had no DnD experience. A real blind leading the blind situation… It was about a year into my first campaign and my PCs were chasing breadcrumbs of a serial arsonist around the city. They put together that the arsonist was only targeting gem and mineral shops, but none of the gems were ever missing. Eventually they figured out the same guy was seen putting out all the fires and that each shop was also missing gunpowder post-fire. Following the trail of this mysterious person they found a hideout with a manifesto of a disgruntled artificer who made props for the theatre but wanted to be an actor and was always told no. He had hid several bombs in unknown locations at the theatre at the night of the free showing for the orphans across the city. The bombs were set to trigger from the word “fantastic”, shortly after intermission. Late to the start of the show the players had to wait for intermission to get into the theatre and got a few rounds to try and find the bombs before people came back in. Afraid to alert the arsonist turned terrorist, they kept a low profile. As people piled back in and only finding one bomb they were working quickly to try and find the rest. One of my PCs said “what if I started the drapes on fire so everyone left?” I didn’t hate the idea but as soon as the arsonist saw that he would just trigger the bombs. The players dismissed the idea but the player said “I pick up a candle and start the curtains on fire.” I heard it, but it was in the middle of other people strategizing so I just ignored it and continued playing. After the session ended my player said he was upset cause he didn’t get to do the thing. I admitted I heard him just thought it was a terrible idea and no one else wanted to do that in fear of killing a bunch of orphans. He was PISSED once he knew I did hear him and just glazed over it. Who is in the wrong here? I get what he’s saying and don’t necessarily disagree with his point, but also no one wanted him to do that and I explicitly said if you do that, XYZ will most likely happen. It’s a case of a player doing soemthing no one wants him to do and the dm just ignoring it. I don’t think anyone’s right, but who’s MORE wrong. For closure only one bomb went off, killing some people but they were able to get the other 7 bombs into a bag of holding, with the last one by means of a nat 20 perfect Tom Brady spiral from across the theater seconds before the arsonist said the trigger word.

Josh Regan

To the Honorable Supreme Justices and the Pokemon Bayleef, I present the Case of the Disconnected Crew. I am DMing for a group of friends, some are long-time players and some are relatively new to the game. When they were creating characters, I encouraged them to take liberties with their backgrounds and to give me connections they might have, etc. When we all sat down for our session zero, they had all created character sheets, but no backgrounds whatsoever. After this session, during which I asked them questions about where they thought their characters may have come from in the world and what connections they might have, I wrote backstories for each of them and sent them to the players, as to connect them to the world. We are now about six months into the campaign, and whenever I hint towards connections they PCs might have to the world, they give the impression they have not even read the brief backstories I wrote for them. Justices, I ask you this: At the beginning of the campaign, I told my players I was creating a deep and complex world that I would be connecting their players to, but I am feeling silly for working to write their character stories into the plot and to give them moments to shine individually. Should I scrap the parts of the plot the story that involve their characters, or continue reminding them that they existed before escaping from prison in session 1, and they have connections in the world?