D&D Court: Fine Burgers, Friendship Faction and The Tome of Puberty

The book of puberty case, give them another copy of the book but tell them they finished it and now make NPCs ask them questions...BOOM! Similar Emily, I joined the golf team super late and played with the coaches and not against my peers lol I was also terrible so I think they were doing me a kindness For the birthday case, Raven from Teen Titans was birthday cursed and she didn't bring it up as to not burden them. To me that's the play if you're going to keep it hidden.

There's something sooooo off about the first case. Assuming it's even real, it's super super weird to not tell your FRIENDS that it was your music, and imo extremely socially unfair to be upset about their reaction to it. They're allowed to not like the music you played, you're not allowed to act like they're being mean to you when you didn't give them the information they'd need to be nice in that moment

The birthday case has mad Michael Scott energy. Jan: I'm returning your call. You said it was urgent? Michael: It is urgent. I just wanted to call and wish you a happy birthday. Jan: Today's not my birthday, though. Michael: Really? 'Cause I thought we had the same birthday. Jan: [pause] Happy birthday, Michael. Funnily enough, I'm posting this two days before Michael's actual birthday on March 15.

at my table, we use one stat block for all players where we roll (i believe) 2 extra rolls and drop the lowest. that way, everyone can pick from the list of numbers and apply them to their sheets in the way that they’d like to, but we don’t have too many uneven sheets. this led to my rogue+paladin character having an 8 for WIS the entire 5.5 year campaign, and i got to make strategic choices thru gameplay and leveling up based on that low number. having a -1 to all WIS rolls ended up being an integral character trait for her and led to a lot of very interesting gameplay and RP moments!

I was listening in bed as my boyfriend was looking at shorts on Instagram. I’m pretty sure I’ve never heard Bangarang before but almost right after it was mentioned a short came up using the song 🤯

For the first case im just imagining what they didn't say is the DM has an entire DJ setup that they play during every session.

When you're pregnant and listening to this and thinking.... I could really really go for a burger...

I didn't realize anybody still rolled for their stats I thought we had all moved on to point buy systems

the way i nearly choked on my water and lost all composure at murph's little ᵇᵃⁿᵍᵃʳᵃⁿᵍ i had tears in my eyes

That dude with the birthday thing wanted to pull a Scanlan from Critical Role with the "what's my mother's name"

I think the word they meant about the song was “obnoxious” or something along those lines.

Listening to the Birthday Case, my assumption was that the DM was as nonplussed as the rest of the table and that they were not aware of the Birthday Curse - otherwise hopefully they would have planned it into the session, no?

problem with the d20 stats is rolling a 1 for Intelligence: you are as intelligent an ooze. You're not sapient, barely sentient, you basically could not actually play the game. Otherwise, a fun idea for a one shot

murph 1000% nailed bangarang

Hey man Island's burgers slaps

I love emily commenting on giving to get, right after talkong about she had a new years res where she did the exact same thing lol

As someone who is a birthday expert for no reason other than idk I’m just really good at remembering birthdays and know my ppl well, I can confirm after doing it for years they may not make a big deal out of it on their actual birthday but doing it again and again makes them definitely feel better and closer to you

That d20 stat rolling sounds fun but just for a one shot. Seems weird to have it for any longer.

the missing comma in these titles bothers me so much

Caldwell and Murph were both correct regarding “Concerning Hobbits”. There is the elongated Fellowship theme that Murph sang is at the beginning and middle. The bouncy hobbit theme Caldwell sang comes shortly after the fellowship theme at the beginning and finishes the song.

Playing flute in an adult community orchestra next week and we’re down two flutes for our John Williams concert, can Emily please sub in?

If you’re gonna do a shitty stat or not I don’t think the d20 is the way to go we use 4d6 and take away the worst what if you did that and it’s adverse (taking away your best d6)

What if the Tortle player genuinely doesn’t know what sex is and is using the guise of d&d to finally ask all his long-unanswered questions

Something about Murph being proud of Jake for his Animal Crossing knowledge was so wholesome to me <3

Look, you roll that shitty you gotta throw them some rerolls. You have a minmum stat amount and if you are below that you give a reroll.

as a career server, I really, really don’t think I would actually intervene with a customer fucking a burger, I have seen enough and just don’t need to know if that’s happening

Bangarang was my intro to Skrillex, and I still love it! As ever, Murphy flexes his excellent taste in music from back in the day.

The book of puberty is just the binder Gorgug's parents gave him.

almost every time i listen to dndcourt i’m so surprised that these MANIACS listen to the same podcast i do and are not self aware of their insanity- surely they know how the crew are gonna react

What tier do I have to be to watch a Magic the Gathering livestream?

Tell me how I’ve listened to every episode of this podcast and just now learned that tortle is a dnd race…. I assumed they were all saying turtle funny as a little inside joke this whole time…

Sounds like the last person doesn’t understand the game. If you’re thinking that the DM made your character wrong, then learn how to build a character yourself or do it together with your DM

That’s while it’s called “smash” burger

Emily don't fall off magic love hearing you talk about it

Islands fine burgers is where I had my first date… we were in high school and his parents came with…

Concerning Hobbits does turn into the "do doloo doo do dee do" song later in the track tho

hashtag bring back tortle tank

All I’m saying is they loved the submission that lead to basically tortle tank, so BRING BACK TORTLE TANK

To the confessional submitter: My first campaign, I thought DND was supposed to be this high difficulty game where you never hit anything and all the bad guys dodge your attacks until you leveled up and got better. Turns out- I just forgot to add my proficiency bonus to my attack rolls 🙃 Double check your rules knowledge and turn away from this path of sin!

Timestamp 0:28 in Concerning Hobbits for the bit Caldwell was thinking of

Happy Anniversary Emily and Murph!

Listening to the d20 stat case and Emily said something about people who always roll high on character creation being suspicious and I totally get that but I also have to say... I'm one of those people lol. and my friends do tend to be suspicious about extreme good luck so I've started recording my character rolls because I'm paranoid they think I'm cheating, but the harder I try to prove it the more suspicious I seem lol. I didn't have good luck rolling d20s in game, my d6s just treat me right. Next time I'm going to literally live stream them 😂

Woah! Thank you guys for the shoutout! If anyone is interested in getting Boletus or Yes Chef! they're 50% off on my itch.io page RIGHT NOW!! Check it out at this link: https://prey-species.itch.io/ (please let me know if I should delete this promo)

As players me and my friends tend to do a lot of estimating. “What did you get?” (Player in question cackling) “really high!” And that’s enough or maybe a “something above a 20 I rolled a 17 and I have a really high bonus”. Where we don’t do that is when the roll is really important or contested or as the dm none of us do that you’ve gotta have your ducks in a row if your going to womp one of your players.

I like rolling stats, but I understand why the decision to move away from rolling them. It can, and in some cases absolutely does, lead to some insanely powered characters from the jump while others are left at a disadvantage. This is why I personally like the idea of rolling 4d6 and adding the three highest, but with an additional rule. Re-roll ones. That way there's an opportunity for powerful characters and a more even distribution of stats for the party.

My previous DMs didn’t know how to roll stats and just had us roll a D20 and not keep anything under an 8. I unfortunately followed in their footsteps BEFORE reading the PHB and DMG and now have characters with a LOT of 18s, 19s, and 20s. They were all really excited about their stats, so I’m not forcing them to change them. But I did rule that they can’t have an ASI at levels 4, 8, etc and have to pick a feat instead. I don’t wanna punish them for my mistake, but I also still want the game to be challenging. Hopefully that’s a decent trade off.

For estimating numbers, player's absolutely a sinner. For what the justices were referencing, I'm all about that kind of estimation. There's plenty of times when I'll roll a natural 18 and just say "total of a billion" to imply that it definitely hits without needing to do math about it.

politely demanding emily's 40 year old version of kefka's theme on the flute

YOOOOO IM ANDREW K’S BROTHER AND YOU SHOUTED HIM OUT ON HIS BIRTHDAY!!!! WTF DUNGEON COURT BIRTHDAY EDITION!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANDREW!!

bangarang

emily hosting a magic the gathering mixed bag WHEN???

I have to pause the episode rn. If they continued listening to concerning Hobbits they would hear they were all correct!!!! The flute starts lutey but then it picks up into the quipy notes

The Emily lore thickens

Hot burger? Time to tuck in!

Release the eldermourne freestyle!

Golf clap for Bourne-centennial man.

Um, hello, is nobody gonna talk about the obvious crisis of faith spreading in our community? We need to renew our faith in Dice Christ 😔 ... and now I'm thinking about what an Old Testament-type vengeful Dice God would do to the DnD community to punish us 🤔 bad rolls? Tpks? Oooh, what are the Plagues of the Material Plane (Plagues of Egypt)?

"should I go to hell" made me laugh so hard

y'all NEED to bring back tortle tank sometime soon it's been waaaayyyy too long

I can’t believe I knew Jake played Animal Crossing and Murph didn’t. I might’ve been listening to too much If I Were You lately…

Now that’s a happy meal ending

Funny how all of them were right about concerning Hobbits. It's a long song

For people that don't like to do dice math, I promise you it's easier if you do it "from left to right". 17 + 16 is so much easier as (10 + 10) = 20 + (7 + 6) 13 = 33.

New Emily lore dropped

I rarely ever comment on these episodes, but I listen to every one of them. I am commenting today to let you guys know that, although I am having a bad day at work today, knowing that I get to listen to you on the way home to help me unwind is such a relief and I look forward to it.

The arrogant comment makes sense if they actually knew it was the DMs song. I think they knew but the DM wasn't aware they knew.

honestly tho, islands slaps Everytime I'm back in LA it is a MUST

I wanna hear a sample of the music SO bad. I have a guess of what makes it feel so off, but I gotta hear it to know! Aggressive thing to say… I feel like it’s aggressive feeling music… IS IT A HOUSE TRACK Hardstyle? Dub? One descriptor would solve the mystery 🙏🏻

Thank you Early Jomph late night me appreciates it

Murphs Stat rolling idea, but you can assign the rolls to any stat. Still get optimized, but swingy characters.

For the warforged with the nat 20; your *character* would have wanted that to happen. I know it bums you out to think your personal moments of the plot to have been uncovered already, but just trust your dm for what comes next.

I have to add 6 using 3+3. Also, “arrogant?” What the fuck? 😂

Omg the American Girl “the care and keeping of YOU”

I love the Magic the Gathering talk!!!

I will say about Kristen’s 4 dex- I think it’s very funny because it’s dex and you use that all the time, i’m not sure that 4 strength would be as funny?; also it’s just really funny to imagine her rolling three 1s and a 2 on 4d6 because how is that possible, and with a d20 it’s less of an anomaly i think. That being said, it is the funniest and every character should have 4 dex.

"This DM is very funny and the players are not funny" is the most I've ever agreed with Murph on anything he's ever said.

Emily!! You should make a Rocco deck he's really fun to play with!

"It comes out, it's weird lookin'" Caldwell Tanner -2024

Also re: the music -- best solution I found is to appoint one player as the DJ, it helps everyone stay engaged and get hyped and players have a lot more free time/mental bandwidth during fights than the DM

I used to just put on an anime battle playlist from YouTube while dming and there was one slow sad instrumental piano song that would always play at like 40 minutes in, which happened to be the tense moment for many of our fights. It was always so fun when a player went down and as if on cue, this sad emotional death music started playing

For the birthday case, *how were they keeping track of time?* Did they have an in-game calendar?! Did they check it every session? Did everyone submit their birthday in advance?!? I agree with the court’s ruling, but I have so many questions

Refreshing to have a case where they don’t all immediately agree on the ruling

Tortle Tank should make a return! I loved that show and clearly, the Court instinctively wants to do more of it!

Caldwell knows his halfling / hobbit music! That's just further in the song!

First

Synth isn't necessarily out of place in D&D, She-Ra is all synth, and I'd say if a world was Technomagic like theirs it would be pretty normal, Final Fantasy 14 has a LOT of rock and orchestral music

My favorite Skrill X song is Face My Fears

The gasp I let out when they revealed it was the DMs own music…the drama.

As a sometimes DM but also a player who wears headphones connected to a different output than the session, please look into dungeon synth albums on YouTube.

The title of this episode does not observe the Oxford Comma and for that I simply will not listen

Oh boy, here I go listening again.

Come to Medford!