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Calling All Cases! (Patreon)

Published:
2023-07-19 16:57:17
Imported:
2026-06

Content

Your savage Bailiff Jake here, seeking cases for Dungeon Court! Please submit your brief (I beg!) incident on this thread here and we will bring you righteous justice.

Comments

Anonymous

To the beautiful judges locked in their ivory courtchurch, and to the bailiff who debases himself in the muck of the world to bring them their cases: I recently invited four friends to join me for a game in the Ryutama system, but upon showing up, one of them told me he was tired and just wanted to watch. We compromised by having him play a dog—but the party immediately elected him to the "Leader" role, responsible for making key decisions. This is a little difficult since his character can't talk and his player spent half the session napping. Session 1 was a lowkey introduction to the world and game system, but session 2 is going to add some more serious stakes and decisions. How do I DM for a party led by a narcoleptic canine?

NursingWounds

To the immaculate, infallible judges and the grotesque and pitiful bailiff, I bring you the case of Jack AllTrade. I have DM-ed a campaign for 3 years now which has grown to a level 20 campaign with 3 very responsible players (generally). One night while we were playing, the players complained that they had not had a new ally in their party in a long time, and they felt their characters had become isolated from the world. So, I made them a DMPC to help lift their spirits - Jack AllTrade. When they first met Jack, they were thrilled he had joined them as he had saved one of their lives with a cool potion he had made. They discovered he was an artificer. Then in combat, he raged and they discovered he was also a barbarian. Long story short, after many events unfolded, they found out he had one or two levels in almost every class and was the living embodiment of the term "Jack of All Trades". My players told me I was sabotaging them because he would be virtually useless in combat and that this was spite on my part! I told them I gave him good armor and a good weapon to make up for his faults, but they keep insisting I give them a different NPC because he cannot cast a spell above second level. Should I cave to the demands of my ungrateful players or have I committed the sin of anarchy by being the only goof at a table full of hardcore players?

Doctor Ransom

To the honorable Crit justices Murphy, Axey, and Tanney, and the 5th level upcast from lowly Bailiff Jake, I offer you the case of the Metagaming DM. I'm a brand new DM that's been running the Lost Mine of Phandelver starter campaign with a few close friends and my partner as the PC's. This being most of their first times ever playing D&D, there's quite a lot of hand-holding and teaching going on, which is just as much fun as it can be frustrating. In one particular session where the party was about to battle a group of orcs and had an opportunity for a surprise round, my partner who's playing a Tabaxi Sorcerer, decided to use Misty Step to teleport from hiding to directly in front of an enemy to attack with his dagger. His attack roll failed horribly and I saw fit to teach him that as a sorcerer he had many awesome ranged spells that he could've cast instead that would've had the chance to do much more harm than a 1d4+3 dagger. He immediately felt bad and I knew then that I'd made a grave mistake trying to metagame over a new players choice of attack. I only wanted him to do some cool sorcerer shit but may have embarrassed him in front of the other players. I seek absolution from the court yet I await whatever punishment they deem most prudent to this most unholy of trespasses. P.S. We are all still playing together and my partner has since learned how to do some cool sorcerer shit. Thankfully we didn't break up either.

Brendan Rooney

Dice Christ Confessional: Please lend me your ears. I come seeking the holy trinity and their herald Jake. I was visited by Dice Christ and I need help divining their omens. I was DMing for a group of friends and was running the climatic finale of the campaign. The party were up against a black dracolich in its lair. A very spicy encounter for their level. One of my players, the warlock Sakarab (good luck with that one Jake, sorry!) wasn’t as mechanically optimised as the rest of the party and had played a more supportive role for most of the campaign. In the final round of combat in the campaign, Sakarab on 1hp, walked up to the dracolich and used a homebrewed magic staff to smite them. He left the dracolich on 2HP. I believed in the story that the dice told in the moment but I waiver. Did I rob the party of the best timeline?

Miranda Elise

Most honorable Crit Justices and Tucker, good to have you back, buddy. I present to you the case of Jonathan. I ran a campaign for my girlfriend’s family. Her cousin, who I love very dearly, wanted to play a blood hunter drow named Jonathan. We start the game and immediately Jonathan murders the first quest-giver the party encounters. At the end of the session the player tells me that he doesn’t want to play a blood hunter anymore and asks me if I can kill Jonathan. I told him he could just switch classes, but he says he doesn’t want to play Jonathan at all anymore. So I agree. The SECOND SESSION rolls around and Jonathan goes nuts trying to kill a bunch of random people in the tavern and then drinks like 10 beers. I rolled damage for alcohol poisoning and it knocked him out. He proceeded to roll a natural one on his death saves and another failure after that. That was the end of Jonathan. The player introduced his new character in the next session and it went well from there, but I just have to ask, as a new DM, how could I have handled this differently? Or if anything, I just wanted to share the story of Jonathan with you.

Sugar Bear

to the Supreme Crit and Dan Gure…no…Pat Cas…no uhh Streeter Si…..Dave Rose…?? (*fade off)I bring the case of My Own Caricature! Im sorry this is long. I play with a group of newer friends. My DM and i learned early on that we have very contrasting ideas of religion, weve gotten into a couple debates all of which have been very calm, and incredibly friendly usually ending in a hug. It was all very copasetic or so i thought! We have just started a new campaign with the BBEG being a Thiala-type character leading an evil church (its very cool) My only beef with it is that he also created a Galad-esque character but wayyyy more pathetic, often shitting and pissing his pants, once we had a fight where he could heal himself by sucking off this weird magic slug with a “long human dick”. It would be pretty funny, Except he gave the character MY IRL NAME AND DESCRIPTION. The party has killed this character 4 separate time but he keeps coming back. Ive spoke to the DM 1on1 asking him whats up and apologized if i ever hurt his feelings. He keeps saying that hes fine and he just likes the character and although i was his inspiration its more of a parody! Ive been trying to get on board but its hard not to take things a little personal when your DM keeps eye contact with you and gives a full in depth description about how you suck off an animal. Ive talked to my party and they just seem annoyed that it doesn’t matter how many times they kill this guy he just doesn’t die. I ask yall am i weird for being uncomfortable with this? I feel like this is insane and no one else seems to think so, should I roll with the punches or do I Murph it up and find new friends?

Riley Wesson

Honorable Crit Justices and bailiff Jerk... sorry typo, I meant Jeff. I present to you the case of the pie plan gone awry. My friends and I are currently playing through The Curse of Strahd campaign and were going to face a group of Hags at a windmill to try and retrieve an important item. We knew these hags were giving parents in Barovia magically drugged pies in exchange for their children, so after some planning we decided the best course of action was to get the jump on and fight the hags, my firbolg druid friend and I (an 8 year old kobold peace cleric) being a distraction acting as a mother looking to trade her adopted child for pies while our tabaxi rogue and human paladin snuck in the window upstairs for what I deemed "A pincer maneuver." Things were going swimmingly, my druid friend and I playing our part to a tee, waiting for our friends to come down the stairs and get the jump on this hag, when all of a sudden our rogue went back out the window and decided to come through the door themselves, also posing as someone looking for pies, and our paladin sat around doing nothing upstairs, claiming "I wasn't sure what the plan was, we should've been more clear." to which I replied, "What part of 'pincer maneuver' don't you understand??" What resulted was a slip-shod fight that we could've TPK'd from, but our DM twisted it in a fun way for us to make deals with the hags in exchange for getting the item, but I must ask: Was I unclear in my explanation? Does the term "pincer maneuver" mean anything other than attacking from two sides? Who is in the wrong in this case? I humbly await your judgement.

Samuel Jasek

So back when this podcast started up I personally got super into dnd and wanted to run a campaign for my friends. For various reasons I have been unsuccessful in starting up a campaign and on the one off chance I did manage to Rangel people together no one really showed any interest in learning the game mechanics or wanting to develop a character despite my attempts that I’ve learned from Murph, Emily and Brennan. But that is a story for a another day. Unfortunately this would stir my best friends dad into wanting to relive his glory days of dnd to “DM a campaign” For us. So naturally this led to him railroading everyone into a DND 1e campaign. And this gets me into my actual predicament… no matter how many times I address my concerns about how clunky 1e is, how I want everyone to experience the wider scope of 5e, and you know how I generally feel about being pushed aside despite being the one who spearheaded the friends group interest in dnd and how I feel about losing my chance to DM for my friends. my friends dad just totally belittles me and calls me names pussy and the f slur. I’m wondering if I should just go along with playing that 1e campaign or if it’s time for me to put my DM guide book on the shelf and retire that desire of DMing?

Anonymous

Not really telling on anyone or myself just need to know all your honest opinions but May it please the court, and honorable bailiff Jack. Would you let a player use a dash action and Misty step, I was dming a game for my brothers and friend and my brother wanted to dash and Misty step to a shadowy figure. I told him that he could use the dash action or use Misty step but not both but he told me that Misty step is a bonus action and that should count I was still hesitant on letting it happen but I let him do it. Did I do the right thing or should I have stopped him and made him choose his actions. I await your judgment and the opinion of Bailiff Jack

Kristina The Sorceress
>>113384151

Honestly, I know I’m not a judge or even a lowly bailiff, but I — a stranger — can tell you that you deserve better. Just how your friends may have not been interested in dnd, you are allowed to not be interested in your friend’s dad 1e session. ESPECIALLY if he is calling you slurs. You do not deserve that, no one does. You are a person who should be treated with respect. DND is about having fun with people who make you happy. I know you want to play with your friends, and I’m sorry it didn’t work out :/ BUT! Don’t give up. There may be other people in your area and there are even plenty of online sessions! Don’t retire that desire to DM! From one DM to another — the world needs more goodhearted DMs! :)

Dominic Stacey
>>113386841

You did the right thing, he onlycast 1 spell that turn and used his other 2 actions to move which is allowed a monk can use all 3 actions to move if they use a ki point. A spell slot isn't that different

Mich Blackie

Honourable justices and the handsome and tall bailiff Hurwitz (love you Micha!!) I bring the case of the D&D ghosting. A few months ago a friend set me up with friend. We hit it off and he seemed nice and smart. After talking for a few weeks the subject of D&D came up. He said he was an experienced player, and since the friend that introduced us had been wanting to try D&D we organised a simple one shot that I would DM. Well, he played a lawful evil tiefling warlock, who first act was to terrorise an innocent NPC who was selling souvenir crystals into leaving town, then got pissed that her crystals weren’t worth much after all his “effort”. He refused to enter any room by the front door, opting instead to “find a back way” and told the NPC that hired them that if he didn’t get his money he would burn his house down. Our mutual friend didn’t have fun and asked me afterwards “is that normal?” Justices, was I right to ghost this dude after that night? My friends who don’t play D&D think I’m overreacting but I think how someone plays TTRPGs says a lot about them. Was Dice Christ was warning me to get out, or did I blow a potential relationship over something trivial? I humbly await your verdict.

emjemme

To the honorable justices Axeford, Murphy, and Tanner and bailiff boy Jake. May it please the court, I bring the case of the spell-less wizard. I recently finished a three year campaign and I am feeling disappointed. At character creation all three players, including myself, pitched bard characters. The DM decided the newest of us players should have their choice. I was the last player to do character creation and having the bard role filled, I asked the DM what we needed in party composition. I asked if we needed another healer to support our bard as a new player but he said it should be fine and I could play whatever I wanted. I chose to build an enchantment wizard. As a wizard whenever we arrived in a new location I immediately asked about libraries and magic shops. Everywhere we went would have neither of these, or the shops were described as “out of my price range.” After about 10 sessions we arrived in the capital city and I thought this was my chance. Again, I was told I did not have access to any locations with spells. A few sessions later, we were in an old house which was maintained by a ghostly illusion. I had 30 minutes to copy a spell (enchantment cantrip) before the illusion disappeared. Finally, about 20 session into the campaign, we met a wizard with a full library. I was so excited that I could finally learn some more spells. That was until I asked the DM about the books. The DM told me that the entire library was transcribed into a code written by the wizard himself. After a multi session side quest, the wizard gifted my character a page of encoded text. I could attempt to decode the text with successful arcana checks which would decrease in DC based on my success. He did not tell me the DC but said I could make one check per day. Dutifully I made the check every evening in game. After several 17+ arcana checks, I was told I brought the DC down “a little.” For the next two years I made checks. Even with my impressive arcana checks, I made very little progress on the code. This remained my only option for learning new spells. Around 5 sessions before the end of the campaign, we returned to the biggest city. This time I had access to the government library. The asked the DM if I could study spells and he told me I could learn six spells. This was the last opportunity I had to learn spells. In the epilogue, the DM told me I partially decoded the page I received from the wizard two years prior. Am I wrong to feel like I got nerfed by the DM? PS. After I gained Instinctive Charm at 6th level, the DM never hit me with another attack. We reached level 10 by the end of the campaign.

Stale bread on salad, aka Crouton!

To the beloved bailiff and honorable judges (especially Murph). I'm a forever dm for three groups and in one I have a problem player. His PC is a tiefling rogue named Rigby in reference to regular show (and yes he does the voice for him). Rogues get a bunch of steel metal balls that he used as a difficult terrain Tom and Jerry style so the enemies would slip on them. I allowed it one time delighted thinking it was clever but this quickly backfired. He tried doing this to every enemy from then on and when they encountered some dwarven ironfoot in steel mechs (who he pissed off). He wanted to throw the balls underneath them, but I ruled that they crushed the balls hence their name or at least ignored the difficult terrain and he greatly protested saying I was mad he found a clever way to mess up my baddies and was "drunk with power". Judges, was I wrong to deny this cartoony work around or should this tiefling been a smear underneath ironfoot boots?

Lin Michele

Dearest Kevin, Lynn, Caldwell, and Penn Cooper Dice Christ Confessional here: I just co-ran a one-shot for friends I've never DM'd for (a food-based game-show challenge called Palate Pardon - initially inspired by Mawmaw's Maw - where three criminals fight for reduced sentences/freedom from a three-headed pig/goose/goat chimera judge). One of the PCs packed his Warforged with drugs, spent each round not engaging in the roleplay/setting, and presented the judges with drug-laced slop/grass meals based on the eating preferences of real-world pigs/geese/goats. After winning two of the three rounds - due to some suspiciously high rolls, they insisted on fighting the chimera, aiming for one specific judge (each judge is played by a different "DM"). It was a tonal shift. The decision to attack was so random/awkward, one PC just hid in a Rope Trick the entire time. The DM judges all agreed to fudge our roles to be lower/not partake in combat just to end things quicker since that player had sabotaged the game in a variety of ways (min-maxed PC, apathetic RP, unprovoked NPC attack, possibly fudged rolls). The PC ended up killing the chimera but ultimately died during a "Trial of Faith" the party encountered while escaping the judging kitchen. I ask for absolution from the wise magistrates/vicars for myself and my co-DMs as well as the unknowing PCs for changing our rolls to quicken the awkward combat.

Nathan Van Ness

To the esteemed Justices of the Crit, whose wisdom and advice are sought and valued across the globe, and the Bailiff, Jake, who I'm sure is a really great listener, This isn't a court case, per se. Tonight, I am DMing my first full-fledged campaign. It's in a homebrew world that has existed in one form or another in my mind for almost 20 years, and this is the first time I will be sharing it with others. My players range from fairly experienced to brand new. What advice could you offer to prevent myself from being shackled and roughly dragged before your esteemed selves in future sessions of this court and to help my table not stare at me in silent judgement as I panic my way through each session?

zediekiel

To the Supreme Crit Justices and the recently en-Dad-end Bailiff, Jake, I present the case of the "Too many Tongues." I am a DM running a long running sword-and-sandles game set in ancient Greece, with the party consisting of a Cleric, Ranger, Artificer and Paladin. Instead of using the normal language selections such as Common, Draconic and Celestial, we instead use real world languages and dialects such as Greek, Latin, etc. Recently my party has begun exploring the larger world and has finally arrived in the kingdom of Upper Egypt. As we are doing more of a simulationist style campaign, some but not all of the NPC's that my party wants to talk to know Greek, with many of them speaking Coptic and Demotic dialects. While I intended to give the party the opportunity to try and learn the language while there, due to a time crunch involving the potential execution of a friendly NPC in about a months time, the party wanted to get started talking to NPC's right away. As the Cleric was the only player character who was able to cast "Tongues" and all of the players wanted to have their own individual conversations, they said it was not fair. Being 7th level, they would be burning through all of their 3rd and 4th level spell slots so the other players could go off and converse with NPC's by themselves. The other players insisted and this resulted in the Cleric stepping away from the table for a while. Upon returning I asked if maybe we should "do away with languages" if it was causing undue stress, but the players insisted that we keep the multiple languages regardless. GM's, should I have all my NPC's speaking Greek? Or is there some way to resolve this narrative discrepancy? I humbly submit myself for your judgement.

Anonymous

To the distinctly impressive Justices and the Baliff who is somewhat solid most of the time! I am in need of a professional pronouncement of assholeary. I was a playtester for a TTRPG similar to Cyberpunk. I played a hacker in the first official campaign on Discord with the developer of the game as the GM. While the story and game were interesting, I liked my fellow players, the GM was very experienced and had clearly put a lot of love into this but... He narrated scenes for what felt like a really long time. It felt like the other players and I had done barely anything in a 4 hr session. After a few sessions of this, I decided to time one of his narrations to see if maybe I was just being impatient. 40 MINUTES of the GM describing ONE scene, no RP with me or the other players, just him. I noticed that the other players stayed muted the vast majority of the session unless directly called upon by the GM. It felt almost rude to interrupt him to actually play the game. I eventually had to leave the campaign for unrelated reasons but I ask the court, was I the asshole for not saying anything to the GM or should the GM maybe invest in a watch? I humbly leave us both to your mercy ⚔️

Splidao

To the esteemed Justices and John M. F. Bailiff, long may he reign. I’m currently in a ‘Tomb of Annihilation’ campaign. I stopped attending sessions recently because it’s hard for me to actually enjoy the campaign. The DM is trying their hardest to help us enjoy the campaign, but I believe that my fellow players aren’t… The players have either sat at the table playing video games on their laptop, spent the whole night hardly engrossed in the game and just texting their other friends and telling us about their conversations, or just literally naming their character in our campaign “Tom A. To, the warlock who can conjure spaghetti at a whim” Am I in the wrong for personally abandoning the party and not wanting to continue being in the campaign? I humbly ask for the judgement of the really rad justices, and the ever reliable bailiff.

Anonymous

To the honorable Supreme Crit Justices, and Micah’s brother, I present the case of The Eight Year Old’s Evil Armor. I run dnd games for kids ages 8-12 at a comic shop. I help them create characters and then run them through a short campaign. Recently, I had a kid who had never played before, but came in with his heart set on being a Helmed Horror straight out of the monster manual. I offered that he could be an animated suit of armor (reskinned war forged), which he agreed to go along with. He chose to be a sorcerer named Gremlock, and said that he was created by an evil guy in a laboratory in hell, but he rebelled against his creator and escaped. He insisted that his character be evil, but I thought this would be relatively manageable, as I figured I could use mystery and material rewards to get him to work with the party and engage with the plot hooks for his own self-interest. We began the homebrew campaign, which was about a small village being terrorized and divided by a night hag “granting” the wishes of the greedy guildmaster of the commerce guild. The first session began with the party members arriving in the village for its summer solstice festival. At first everything was going well. They were having fun at the festival and I was teasing the problems in town by having the party spot the hag’s shadow mastiff watching the town’s mayor, and having some of them briefly notice the hag’s quickling servant causing trouble. Then this kid tells me Gremlock is going to eat someone. I ask him what he means, and he says he’d like to pick up a villager and absorb them into his armor body by swallowing them. I tell him that he’s not gonna be able to do that to any living people, so Gremlock pulls out a knife and goes to stab a random townsman walking by. I warn him that he’s definitely gonna get in trouble for this, but he wants to go for it anyway, so I let him roll to hit. He does, but he doesn’t kill the guy, and people begin calling for the town militia, who come over to fight Gremlock. One party member tries to help Gremlock while the rest try to stop him. Eventually, Gremlock and his ally are knocked unconscious and taken to be locked up in the barracks, while the rest of the party is brought along for questioning. When the captain of the militia talks to the reawakened Gremlock, Gremlcok tells him that he is fundamentally designed to “corrupt the world.” He would not elaborate. At this point, I’m scrambling a little bit. I want to make sure the party can engage with the adventure I have planned, and I don’t want these kids going home and telling their parents how much fun they had “corrupting the world,” but I also don’t want to totally shut down this very enthusiastic kid. The solution I came to was sending for the town abbot, who arrived and, finding she was unable to break the curse on Gremlock (he insisted it was unbreakable), cast a geas spell on him, forcing him to protect the people of this village. Gremlock was mad at the abbot, and wants desperately to break the spell, but played along, working with the party to break out of jail when they heard that something terrible had happened at the festival (the mayor was killed by shadows who then possessed scarecrows and attacked the crowd). We ended the session there, with the party about to jump in and fight the scarecrows. Justices, I am conflicted about my decision. On the one hand, I saw it as the only way to keep this character from going full murder hobo and interfering with the rest of the players’ ability to do the adventure I had planned. On the other hand, I feel like I am railroading Gremlock, especially because I didn’t initially plan on the abbot being powerful enough to cast geas at all, he was very enthusiastic about his idea, and most of the other players were amused by Gremlock’s actions. Was I right to curse this armor, or should I have just let evil kids be evil kids? I humbly await your wise decision.

Fandom Encounters

Confessional here! I’m ending a 4-year-long Percy Jackson themed campaign this week! At the beginning everyone was told to make a teenage hero who was a child of the gods and they would each discovered who their godly parent was during the campaign. Except Matt. He started in session 2 with a 21 year old in the party of teens. We made old man jokes and creeper jokes bc the party was having fun having “crushes” on each other. Eventually…I made a plan when the Demigods met the Fates. They offered him a deal to help his sick mother: give up years of his life to gift his mom. I had him roll 3d4 fully planning to change the rules to make sure he landed between 12-18. He rolled 2 4s and a 1, so I had him choose 2 dice to offer based on how many years his mother was worth to him. It led to more fun jokes as he was now the “baby” but it was a bit shady…

CrowsNestCraft

May it please the Crit Justices and the courageous Bailiff Hurwits, I bring you the case of the helicopter parent player. I run a campaign at a beautiful castle like local library that one of my best friends wives is the librarian of. She asked me if I’d like to run a campaign there after and I decided to try to get as many local “noob” players as I could to introduce the hobby to people that may not have had the opportunity. However I felt I needed to invite my friend since his wife is the librarian and he got me into the hobby years ago. The trouble is that he brings his son to some sessions, but it’s not the problem you’d think it is. His son, 7 years old, keeps to himself and plays nicely in the kids area or is in his moms office playing his switch. However my friend is a helicopter parent to the point that he’ll hover near the door during sessions and even leave to check on his son frequently. The rest of the table is incredibly involved but during big RP moments and battles I’ll look up and he’ll be gone. He’s also cancelled a few time because his son doesn’t want to go to the library. His character is rather important to the overall plot but I feel like I’m giving him a lot of slack since we’ve been friends for a long time. A few players have commented on his behavior, if it was anyone else I would have reached out to see if they would give up there seat seeing that a few locals have reached out about joining, but the tables at capacity. I love my friend but with all of the circumstances I don’t know how to move forward if his heads not in it, I feel like if I ask him to give up his seat it will make playing at the library awkward with his wife. It’s to late to write his character out and I really like the direction everything is moving towards, the sessions he’s there alone are great but out of ten sessions he’s missed 3 and be “occupied” for 4. Should I continue to play around his absences and distractions or is there a way to approach this that won’t lose a friend and a dope playing venue? I leave it to your honors to decide. -John (@crowsnestcraft) P.S. i have successful TikTok and Insta TTRPG Miniature channels (@crowsnestcraft) if you’d like to check them out. Long time listener, your table has a chemistry I aspire towards.

Anonymous

may it please the crit justices and maybe the bailiff Jake I’m still on the fence about it, I, a DM had made a character sheet for a character I’ll never use, a blind fighter named Pez, I showed it to one of my players and she instantly got obsessed, and demanded I use it as an NPC in our campaign I vowed he would never appear, but she has remained hopeful and now whenever I introduce an NPC she gets visibly upset it’s not Pez, should I yield and put him in or should I stay true to my oath, I leave this in your capable hands.

Anonymous

May it please all but one member of the Crit, I come before you a humble man, and I ask for your keen legal insights on the age-old question which has gone unanswered for far too long: is it okay to "Suicide Squad" your players in a one-shot? I DM-ed for the same group of players for years. We all typically get along and seem to have the same expectations for engagement and roleplaying. However, multiple times when I've run a one-shot, my players will come into the session with characters who adamantly refuse to accept the story hook. I've tried telling them the hook in advance so that they could make characters who would want to go on the adventure, but that didn't help at all. Eventually, I started "suicide squadding" all of my one-shots, offering a reward for any player who took the hook willingly, but placing a curse that would kill the characters if they refused to go on the quest. My players say that this ruins the session by taking away their agency. But I say that, if they want to play the session but won't go along with the hook willingly, then I'm allowed to use necessary fictional lethal force. I ask this Crit: were my actions justified for the greater good, or should I have found a different way to get the players engaged? -Ever Truly Yours, Nicholas Esq. P.S. My friend and I are honest-to-goodness lawyers. We will be attending your Chicago live-show this September in suits in the front rows, where we will eagerly be awaiting your verdict, should you deem our case worthy.

Anonymous

Honourable Sweeties, and The Bodacious Bailiff, I bring to you the case of the disconnected druid. My fiance and I started a campaign with some friends several months back with a DM who lives in Canada, so we play over Discord. We have a barbarian(myself), a bard, a sorcerer(my fiance), and a druid. However, the 4 PCs all live locally so we have regularly invited the group over to our place to play in person and connect with the DM virtually. The Druid has never shown up for any of the in person sessions and will regularly be doing other things while we play over discord. For instance, on our second session ever, he was in Home Depot running errands. On another session, he was having dinner with his parents and his phone died at the table so we lost him. On top of all this, he did not attend the session 0 we had to give everyone background into the world we would playing which was crucial since the world and the species are home brewed, so attending the session 0 was vital to knowing anything about the game we were about to play. IBecause of this, he based his character backstory all on the concept that he didn’t know where his species was from, etc. Whereas everyone else he interacts with is fully aware of his species origins. The moment in question happened at the end of our most recent session: In the interaction just prior, we had been interacting with the evil prince and the druid messaged in the chat as the tensions escalated that he was going to leave, wild shaped into a bird, and was promptly caught by an enchanted vine and remain trapped for the remainder of the scene. As we left, we attacked a group of spies that were trailing us and killed all but one to interrogate them. It ended up being a moment for me to do some role-play as the NPC had ties to my backstory. Admittedly, it took me off guard and I was stumbling through the interaction. But the druid interrupted the moment and cast flame whip to kill the NPC before we learned more about the plot at hand from the nearby evil prince. I was completely shocked as the NPC just died instantly and I felt like my moment was killed. Justices, I ask of you, was I robbed of my role play moment or was the druid in the right to kill the NPC and steal the spotlight? PS. Our bard decided before we started and without telling anyone that he wants to make it through the whole campaign without using a weapon as a weapon and initially tried to switch classes to rogue with Bard stats....

Anonymous

To the Most Honorable Justices and whatever adjectives we’re using for Jake today: I present to you the case of vampires v piss. My friends and I have been playing a modified Curse of Strahd which also heavily borrows from the 90’s adventure game Quest for Glory IV: Shadows of Darkness. This means that while the setting is still grim, things frequently get silly and occasionally stupid. (Not that y’all know anything about that.) When we began playing 10 months ago my players were newbies to D&D and I had to hold their hand through some puzzles and encounters until they found their footing. Since then, though, they’ve been totally bitten by the bug and have spent lots of time plotting out strategies and roleplay ideas. They also love to opt for the wildest choices imaginable just to see how I will react. Which has, finally, forced me to seek outside counsel. My level 7 players recently found themselves in an abandoned shop that has six vampire spawn sleeping in it. They knew this from having conducted recon, snuck in with a great stealth roll so they could get a surprise round, and the barbarian who hoards weapons has recently recovered a sun sword from the module that literally hungers to kill vampires (and creates sunlight and does radiant damage). They also already picked up a relic that creates sunlight and can hold vampires. One of them has a flask of holy water and some stakes because she’s grown up paranoid about vampires. So, even if there are only 3 of them, I figured they are well equipped and they stand a decent chance. So imagine my surprise when one of them asked for clarification about the damage to vampires by running water. (FYI so you don’t have to look it up: vampire spawn can’t autoregenerate HP if they start their turn in running water, and take 20 acid damage if they end their turn in running water.) The barbarian explained she wanted to be able to piss on a sleeping vampire spawn which, my player argues, should count as running water. I pointed out that piss is not water, and she pointed out there’s enough water to create the effect of a stream assuming her character was well hydrated. So I ask you, o high justices of this most respected court: which of us is right? Should I allow vampire piss-play, even though they have 73947 other and better ways to kill these bloodsuckers available? Or should I just have the vampires bite their dicks off? I look forward to your ruling on this matter. (As do they, because they all listen to the podcast now.) PS: I should note that I already had to make my own ruling (fairly high constitution + performance checks, for bladder control and ability to piss in front of people, and the spawn have advantage on bite attacks to your dick bc you whipped it out), bc I do believe in letting people fuck around and find out. BUT I really want to know what additional arguments you would make for and against this as well as your thoughts about, as was asked later, whether drinking the holy water first would have made a difference.

Anonymous

To the most honorable justices and also Jake (the bailiff): I present to you the case of the DM who wanted to kill the player. We were fighting a homebrew monster, and one player was at one HP. The DM had the monster cast cone of cold, then said that the player would be dead because the text for cone of cold reads "A creature killed by this spell becomes a frozen statue until it thaws." I pointed this out, to which the party and DM agreed, then proceeded to razz my DM about getting owned by the rules. He then changed his mind about what the monster would do, because the spell wouldn't kill the player (mind you, it would have knocked him unconscious, and we had all been knocked unconscious at one point or another during this fight). I protested and told the DM that he should take the razzing and keep the action. He argued that because we sometimes change our minds about spells after a more close reading of the rules, he should be able to also, and if he had to keep his action, that should be the policy moving forward. The other players agreed with him. I let it go, and we proceeded to play the game with the monster doing something else, and ultimately won the fight. I ask of you, should the DM be treated differently than the players when getting owned by the rules? Or was I wrong to razz my DM and say that he shouldn't change his mind because he couldn't outright kill a player? Note: we are level 17, and resurrection is common in this campaign, so death isn't that big of a deal, but is still very annoying.

SoupLightning

Incensed party vs the DM's "crit cap" rule! May it please the honorable judges Axford, Tanner, the noble Bailiff Jake ... and Pebblepot Marty. My party is at level 11 we've been playing for about a year now and we just set a world record for crits and absolutely womped our DM's BBEG we crit 8 times in a the session even swapping out dice at times just to prove we werent using loaded dice. Last week we met to play again and our DM said from now on players cant crit more than 3 times in a session. We all thought he was joking and laughed it off and he didnt correct us when we obviously didnt take him seriously. Our half elf gloomstalker ranger in the party crit twice on perception and on their initiative when we got jumped by bandits and then a third time on their attack. But when Dice Christ blessed them with a fourth crit on another attack our dm said they'd reached their "crit cap" and the 4th crit would be counted as a dirty twenty instead. The ranger was infuriated and we all vehemently argued it was bullshit that we actually have a crit cap,but our DM said the games wouldnt be fun if we kept getting lucky with 20s. So i ask the court, is crit capping a just solution to our unexpected womping or is our DM being unreasonable?

Anonymous

To the esteemed justices (and Jake is here too), may I please present the case of the "metagaming" player. This didn't happen to me, but a friend who was live messaging me about anything important/fun that happened in the campaign so we could talk about it later. In a Baldur's Gate campaign, my friend and her party were in combat with a devil. One of the players, a rogue, was new and was wondering what they could do on their turn as they were next to an enemy and didn't want to get hit by an opportunity attack. My friend suggested that they could use their Cunning Action bonus action to disengage from the devil, The DM then replied, "No, he can't do that this turn anymore, since it's metagaming." My friend asked how it was metagaming and that she was trying to remind a new player about his abilities, to which the DM told her that it's because she told him about his abilities and now that he knows about them, he'll change what he was going to do as opposed to when he didn't know about them. I ask of you, the court: was my friend being helpful or did she accidentally cause herself and that rogue to metagame?

Anonymous

To the reputable justices and somewhat respected Bailiff, I present the case of the burning dwarf. My party and I we're playing a 3.5 edition game where our first mission was to delve into the town's graveyard to deal with a necromancer that had made his lair there. I was playing a dwarf fighter with heavy armor. a tower shield, an axe, and a bag of goodies. Upon entering the graveyard skeletons started to rise from their graves. The party decided to run from the skeletons to head into the crypt to save resources despite my character pointing out that the skeletons would most likely follow us and we would be pincered. So, after a few minutes we encountered another group of skeletons with the previous group on our heels. I decided to use my tower shield as cover and hold a 5ft. entrance way to hold off the group behind us while my party dealt with the group ahead of us. After multiple rounds of succeeding strength checks to hold the skeletons at bay and most of the skeletons ahead of us being defeated I failed a strength check and was pulled into the center of the group of skeletons behind us and put to around a 1/3rd of my health by the attacks of the skeletons. The wizard then decided to cast burning hands while I was in the midst of the skeletons setting me and my bag of alchemist fire and thunderstones on fire. In a panic I threw the bag at the wizard, not realizing I could have put it out with my action. I then proceeded to die with the skeletons due to the explosion and the rest of my party was heavily wounded and rendered deaf for hours from the thunderstones. And so I ask the court this, was it my fault for not putting out the fire and throwing it at the wizard or was it the wizards' fault for hitting me with burning hands after I had kept the party safe for multiple turns?