D&D Court: Questionable Curses, Quiet Cousins and The Ravenloft Sequestering
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Sound Mixing and Editing by Trevor Lyon
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Comments (122)
This is my favorite episode if just for the inclusion of the creepy twilight zone music when they are freaking out about the question of birds in Ravenloft. And I love that they straight up stopped the podcast essentially to research it more thoroughly and confirm their ruling.
Kind of a two way street. DMs got enough work
I'm shocked no one has said RNG-ni
I know this is a super late comment 😂 but I'm catching up on D&D court and this is either the 2nd or 3rd time I've heard someone call a d20 a dodecahedron and I just have to get this out-- A dodecahedron is a d12. Dodeka means twelve in Greek. A d20 is an icosahedron.
I’m surprised the “no birds in Ravenloft” thing hasn’t been mentioned in Trinyvale x Strahd
I didn't know it was possible for a podcast that is not about birds in any way, shape or form, to include this much content about birds. And the only thing I think I've learned so far is the one raven poop disease and the nipple tweaking membrane.
Caldwell, play an aarococra in a mini campaign!
Murph would never recover
i'm cackling like a bird I've gone 6 months without naddpod cause stuff's been busy, I missed this so much
A matcha banana pancake sounds so fucking good!
🎶and we can’t go back 🎶I’m sorry I can’t be 🎶Murphect
The subtle music as Murph started spiraling over the birds in ravenloft really made me laugh over the absurdity of how maybe they were wrong about the birds
It's perfect
There were too many comments to read to see if this is redundant. And that's a good problem for you guys to have! Yay! My quiet cousin response: were I the DM I would have made the party roll charisma (the most social skill) in every new scene to notice the cousin's character is missing. Just because the players don't notice doesn't mean their characters wouldn't either. I would have set the DC to something like 22 minus the cousin's character's charisma score (not bonus).
The cousin case is insane. Isn't there such a big difference between a quiet player and a party member being gone?
I'm with the dm on the quiet cousin case; it's a neat idea to start with, but the thing is no matter when they revealed the wife would've been mad! Like, you'd obviously give them a whole session in the hopes they'd notice, sweating more and more the whole time, but even if the reveal is the start of the next session or even thr session ending cliffhanger, they've still failed to notice for like 6 hours! I think that "oh they didn't notice in the latter half of the session where he got kidnapped, well surely they'll notice next time. Shit they didn't notice this session uhhhh maybe next?" And then intervening after that is actually very reasonable response time
Agreed. It's on the players to notice that the cousin's character never spoke up, made a roll, entered initiative, etc for what's probably at least 9 hours. Even if he was speaking out of character, I think that's all on them.
This was a monumental episode! This was the first ever “bleep” of yall censoring a spoiler and yalls first ever second guess and pausing to research an answer. If I remember correctly that is
guys idk what to do my name is sam z and im originally from buffalo ny but i submitted neither of those questions
I’m really proud of Murph for learning to be “soft on cock”
i feel kind of silly asking this considering how old the series is lol but i have a few friends who listen to naddpod who also started reading animorphs for the first time - would u guys be able to put a spoiler warning in the episode description when you mention which main character dies in animorphs? 🙏
Also it's super funny seeing in the description the various movies and TV shows that get spoiled 😂
Emily!! Onigiri!! ❤️ One, a D20 onigiri is a great idea. Two - the 'gi' character in Japanese uses the hard G sound. oh-ni-"ghee"-ri Brought to you by: my year of JP duolingo lessons + the EXCITEMENT I feel about 7-11 trying some of their JP store options in the US. Convenience store onigiri... soon..... 🍙🍙🍙
oooo, maybe they'll bring melonpan over too!
I adore these offshoot episodes. I’m not always hungry for the campaign but I never tire of the crew as entertainers, and these are a great solution to still get my laughs in.
On the quiet cousin case, I think the complexity is that the fronts on which the DM and the players respectively failed in and held primary responsibility in were different. I think it’s fair to conclude that the DM ultimately holds the most responsibility for the situatuin, in so far as the ppl involved exist within the context of their roles at the table. However, where the DMs failure eas primarily in his role as a DM, the players biggest fuckup was as people in a collaborative social situation with the cousin. Their failure as players at the table was imo really only an extension of their actual much worse crime of not noticing for two consecutive session that one of the few people they were engaging in a collaborative social activity with hadn’t said or done anything. All that is to say that yeah while yeah I think if you’re solely looking at the people involved through the lense of their roles at the table, the dm held more reaponsibility than the players, i am of the opinion that ultimately on a larger interpersonal level, the players absolutely committed a far worse crime than the dm. Imo, despite the fact that the dm should’ve stepped in, not just as a dm but also as someone in an interpersonal relationship w/ everyone at the table, the players, particularly those who actually knew the cousin, nonetheless still bare full responsibility for their interpersonal crime and owe apologies to the cousin as more than just fellow players. HOWEVER, the more that I think on it the more that I get why the dms wife was so mad: her husband watched her unwittingly damage/impact her interpersonal relation to the cousin, and didn’t stop it or alert her to it. That to me is a huge failure on the dms part in regards to his role as his wife’s partner/spouse. So while yeah I think the wife’s more responsible for the crime discussed by the court than the dm is, she’s nonetheless in the right in her reaction to the situation and anger w/ him bc what I imagine she’s actually mad about it, isn’t so much the cousin situation itself as the fact that her husband was aware that was accidentally socially fucking up and didn’t step in or tell her
Um actually but I get the sixpence confusion Sing a song of sixpence a pocket full of rye, Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.
Jesus fucking Christ. Ok 1) you fully scared the b'jesus out of me with that sound edit when Murph starts spiralling out about there being no birds in raven loft. Literally driving home through dark British country roads and I was like GOD DAMN I HOW THIS IS NOT GHOSTS COMING TO GET ME! 😭 2) I would fully love Emily to run a Curse of Strahd with you guys. TWIST - you do like 3 black halflings and play versions of yourselves - including Murph being like "I read this book" (and Emily inevitably knowing exactly how to wind him up because of that". I believe 3bh ran a poll to see what class they'd be. I feel like if Murph knew all this stuff was real he'd instantly sign a worlok contract (or do a Cody and paladin), I could see Jake being a bard, and Caldwell 100% chaos magic 😂 (or maybe even that new chaos barbarian)... Anyway... Food for thought. Thanks for scaring me/entertaining me!
Caldwell absolutely needs to be an avian character!!!
If Caldwell isn’t Daffy Duck in campaign 4, I’m unsubing
Re: The Stiff Arm Case I think that the person was completely in the right mechanically to be able to stop the NPCs dialogue with a power word kill. The only question I would ask is if it’s a nice thing to do. The DM literally said afterwards that the speech was planned and was going to lead into the next story. Now the DM should’ve been able to pivot that’s just true. But I feel like it’s easy to tell when someone is saying something they’ve prepared ahead of time and care about, and though I understand you are mechanically correct to stop your friend from having fun and giving a lore speech; I think it’s kind of a shame. The judges (blessed may they be) mostly talked about the fact that the DM didn’t set up mechanical ways to prevent the player from murdering someone mid-speech, but I think it’s a standard rule of niceness that shouldn’t need mechanics to back it up. The heroes get to say cool stuff all the time. And sometimes the bad guys get to say stuff too.
The initial tsundere cousin secretly being in DnD is so good.
The dramatic music interludes were perfect
My kingdom for Justice Oyama’s take on the Quiet Cousin situation because I feel like of all the justices, he has the most chaotic quiet cousin energy (complimentary)
Re: Birdless Ravenloft. Ravenloft is a collection of disconnected, mist-strouded realms of which Barovia is only one. It's still a bit ridiculous but van Richten's Guide is probably what they were using rather than Curse of Strahd.
I’m still hung up on if in the first case, they still got a special weapon like the rest of their party?
Eating stew and listening to Dungeon Court, what could be a better combo?💞
They did my thing! Guys, look, they did my thing! I have informed the DM of his obligation to run a birdless Ravenloft. He said he would make birdlessness a core part of the adventure, but he had an "I'm going to spite you so hard" look in his eye. I will report on the results!
absolutely wild! I hope yall have fun in a raven-less Ravenloft lol
Wait who dies in Frozen 2??????
Olaf dies in Frozen 2 and the writers are cowards
Re: quiet cousin Having a hard time believing this one! Unless they went two full game sessions without a combat (seems unlikely), wouldn’t it be immediately noticed that a player wasn’t there as soon as the first initiative roll happened?
Good point, how devastating would it be if they were in combat didnt speak and no one noticed?! I hope that wasnt the case. DM should have mentioned something end of game 1 about him missing
We honor the cock, we expel the squawk
I just went through one of the toughest 24 hour periods of my life, and knowing that I had Dungeon Court to look forward to really helped me through it. Thank you, Murph, Emily, Caldwell, and Jake.
Soft on cock, hard on squawk ☠️
Re: quiet cousin The *characters* would have noticed that Quentin was gone very quickly, because he would physically be gone! That visual cue is much easier to notice than the *players* just going off audio cues. The GM should have narrated "You meet back up but you don't see Quentin."
Hey gang does anyone want to be in my vampire: the masquerade game? i have a whole new take on it this game won't have any draculas, vampires just don't exist
Even IF there are no birds in Ravenloft, the DM is still in the wrong. It’s the DM’s responsibility to check in with players BEFORE the campaign starts to make sure that their character would work in their world. Big L for that DM
There absolutely are birds in curse of strahd, there’s even a roc (big giant fuckin bird) at one point, and it’s said the regular ravens are used as spies for strahd
Also the inn in Vallaki
Murph once again claiming he's perfect and better than Frank Herbert!
If we can make requests for music uploads could we pretty please get the magic song from Twilight Sanctorum? Or if that's already up somewhere then someone pls link me to it :0
Not sure what song you're referring to but Emily does have a Spotify and it looks like she releases an album with all the music from a campaign once it ends https://open.spotify.com/artist/2MCgYKm2tYMHueBy3dhLdY?si=lYWCyVgJRf-tcVqk2PAFxA
Always a great time. I just wish they didn’t just blame the DM every time now. It’s always about how the DM isn’t managing the table correctly and the player behavior is excused most of the time. Murph is too soft now, he’s been changed by the rest of the Judges lol
I had a DM that would tell us it was a "cut scene" when he wanted something to be communicated or for our PCs to witness something important. I don't believe he ever used it mid-combat. I thought it was a nice way to let us know we had to wait to attack without taking away our agency.
I think there’s nothing wrong with taking your players agency away briefly when you’re trying to tell a story. They know what you’re trying to do and interrupting something you’ve most likely written and prepped to get an extra turn in combat is super disrespectful in my opinion. Just hold your horses and we’ll get to your cool shit eventually, it’s always about respecting the player agency and never about respecting the DM telling a story from time to time. Just like you wouldn’t want an NPC to interrupt your RP TLDR I don’t think your fictional character is owed agency when the DM is clearly in the middle of progressing the story that you are playing in.
Man, Murph invites his own doom. I wasn’t thinking about it earlier but now I can’t rest until we get Caldwell as Foghorn Leghorn
Murph, we only troll because we know that razzing is your love language 💕
The Reynolds spoiler bleep was so funny 😂
What movie could it be? I’m dying to know now!
"There are no birds in Ravenloft" is now the passphrase you use to make contact with the wereravens in my game.
Of course Murph is soft on cock now. What better way to honor the cock?
The strongest audio edits to a D&D court yet. Great Ep.
Two things we know for sure: A. "Cock" is a term that refers to a rooster, or male version of certain bird types. B. Murph always honors the cock. Using the transitive property (A+B=C): Murph always honors (specifically male) birds. The Ravenloft DM had no chance.
Okay all the little audio gags this episode have been my favorite. The beep (will the comment section ever forgive Caldwell? That’s a big IF 😉) , the dramatic music swell for the potential humble pie, the Caldwell Turkey line. 10/10 I LOVED IT
lol, my boyfriend played a gunslinger Aarakocra based on Foghorn Leghorn in our last campaign 😂
I feel like there was a missed "oops all cocks" joke when they were talking about an all birds campaign.
Wasn't there a case a while ago almost identical to the Quiet Cousin case?
'Cause we lost it all Nothin' lasts forever I'm sorry I can't be.......muuuuuurphect
There are birds in ravenloft, there's a random encounter with ravens
Played a pretty heavily modified Strahd campaign where I seem to recall my DM describing, at least in one location, just tons of murdered birds--the implication indeed being either that they were all wereravens or else normal birds killed in an attempt to genocide the wereravens. I don't know if that was in the official module, but it was definitely in the campaign I played.
I've been in a similar position to the Quiet Cousin before, and it's weird. I was basically in a portable hole with an air hole for a while for travel purposes, and my party was supposed to let me out once we got to our destination. I was intentionally being quieter than usual at the table, as well as not saying anything in character. Once we got to our destination, they fully forgot about me for several scenes until I had to ask above game "is anyone going to let me out of the bag?" I would have let it ride for longer, but I'm the party's face with a 19 charisma, and we were going into a diplomatic situation. I didn't want to be let out by an NPC only after our loose-lipped gnome artificer got the rest of our party killed 🙄
Hot take but I really don’t like it when DMs do secret rolls for their players characters. It’s on that same level as players who roll a check without asking the DM first. All it does is create confusion at the table and really isn’t that fun for either side.
I think there shouldn’t be DM rolling for a player, especially when it strips them of agency/the roll changes the trajectory of their story. You can make the person roll at the end of session and not tell them why, you know their modifier stats so they don’t need to know what it’s involved and you’ll know if they pass.
M lC
It's funny that Jake got called lugubrious, i think that's a callback to Hercules the animated movie, Pain and Panic (one of em) call Hades "Your Lugubriousness"
Quiet cousin is fucking WILD. Imagine being a dm and not mentioning to the characters that their party member just straight up isn't there. Like, the characters would notice that they were missing with their eyes, not just their ears
Truly💀 like in what world would you expect to have no description of the missing character. The narrator is the one who decides what jumps to our attention, otherwise we'd be describing every single detail in every single scene
hey caldwell. what the hell man, LOL
What were the Ryan Reynolds spoilers?
My assumption was it was something about "IF"? Which they already spoiled in a previous ep, so the bleep here might be more of a meme?
An all aarakocra campaign called "Cock & Roll!". THINK ABOUT IT!!
Maybe if there are no birds it's because eggman captured them all and its secretly a sonic adventure in ravenloft
The "are there birds in Ravenloft" controversy has been maybe my favorite thing to happen all week. The whiplash! The whiplash back! I still don't feel 100% secure in the conclusion. When the creepy music came in I almost lost it. Truly felt like I was with them on that existential crisis lmao
I had to run out of the room to tell my husband about the ravenloft sequestering
I adore Emily immediately coming up with "Murphect"
Glad to see Murph still honoring the cock
If the Owlin wasn't modeled on Blathers from Animal Crossing my whole life is a lie.
The ravenloft owl one sounds like they were doing Blathers from ac!! So cute :D
I wonder if Murph getting in touch with his animorph finch and city pigeon roots helped him accept the koc.
The ominous music as they realize they might be wrong is fucking hysterical
Caldwell doing just such a perfect movie voice over impression and then immediately squawking absolutely killed me. What whiplash 😂
I gotta wonder what was even happening during that Cousin Case. They clearly didn't have combat, but not a single group-check in *2 Sessions*?!
Right?? Murphy said it might be 9 hours but I feel like their sessions have to be way shorter than that for it to make sense. Honestly I was on the DM and cousin's side on this one because I feel like if I were both of them I would just think it was hilarious and would want to see how far it could go
Lmao it’s honestly insane what we’ve accomplished in strahd so far by constantly talking to ravens, they’re definitely there. Can’t imagine the campaign without them.
Emily, I can teach you how to mic up a full drum kit! It requires a lot of mics and a full drum kit.
Perhaps the Ravenless Ravenloft Dm had the avian Races and Birds were decimated in the vampire bird war that were the Native inhabitants of Ravenloft and Strad is committing genocide denial
The were ravens cant hide in plan site if strade captures/ kills all birds
I'm surprised with all these D&D courts where they, as a joke, pretend to be the players at the table: they haven't tried a fun One-Shot where they roleplay as some of the weird people showcased across the D&D court episodes.
Also **SPOILERS FOR CURSE OF STRAHD** doesn't strahd have the ability to spy on you through birds? Birds are cooked into the campaign.
Yup, that's right. Ravens are Strahd's spies, but Wereravens are good guys.
The bleep killed me tbh
Just noticed that the d20 in the logo isn’t biblically accurate The 1 and 20 would never actually be on neighboring faces
Luckily in the justicrit system, there’s a separation of church and state so their d20’s don’t need to be accurate biblically
TWO SESSIONS?? I'm getting my high horse out of the stable, going back for my second high horse, stacking them on top of each other, and finally climbing atop them both as I ask: HOW did this happen?
Inattentive players, they got the ruling wrong imo
Is this the first bleep ever?
there’s a bleep in a short rest where emily names a former bully of hers and they redact the name, i believe
You know, I've played Strahd and it is lousy with ravens, BUT... I feel like there's room in the story for a reason why the birds might have all been hunted down. Curious how far into the campaign the Owlin is. The DM MIGHT - big might - be cooking.
On the first case, for narrative purposes, folks should check out Hitchcock's bomb under the table example for building suspense.
Anyone else notice how Murph ended the episode as soon as they brought up bucket hats? We're onto you Brian
Every time Murph shuts down bucket hats I only come back harder
Murph honors the cock
Concerning the quiet cousin I feel like they missed a super important question: did they have any combat in those two whole sessions? I can definitely see not noticing during role play, but once dice are rolling for initiative, how do you not notice?!
I was wondering that as well.
Great timing now I can listen at work while I'm alone in this haunted building
Great timing
Couldn't have appeared at a better time
Dungeon Court day is the best day! 🙏🏻
I will now be adding Murphrfect to my vocabulary.
Best part about working 3rd shift is catching these when they post! ❤️