Cases, Cases!

To the gods of the court and the little nymph they keep around for entertainment, I bring you DRAMA. I am running curse of Stradh, almost going on two years, and my players full heartedly whomped my ass so hard last session that I had to toss out a whole document of notes due to the fact of my players killing not one but TWO of my very important enemy bad guys by a series of my bad planning(putting faith they wouldn’t attack after being drained of their resources) and my players urge to kill my very annoying npcs (one of them I based off of glade) Now my next session is coming up Wednesday and thre is some above table drama between the fact that one of our friends is being a total uncommunicative asshole right now, so how should I plan a session where I can return this whomping WHILE ALSO making sure these real life eggshells don’t get stepped on?? P.s my gf is in this game with me (I’m the dm) and was the one to point out that after stealthing up on my cool villian cut scene moment that they indeed had no guards with them. Love her to death but they were supposed to learn lore, not absolutely fry me. BUT THAT IS THE WAY OF DICE CHRIST

To the merciful Supreme Crit Justices and the on-borrowed-time Bailiff, I had a troubling premonition in the depths of my slumber just this very night. I dreamt that I was let go from my position at NADDPOD for my poor performance. I’m thinking I was myself Bailiff Jack in this harrowing dream. When I awoke, dripping with sweat and tears, I was comforted to find that I was myself again. Hoping my prophecy will come true sooner rather than later, love from Samuel. Ps. Hate the show.

vert lol

A brief follow-up from my Strahd story about the brides! I borrowed heavily from a DMsGuild adventure called "The Real Housewives of Ravenloft." I added it and tied the brides to my own adventure: "The Interactive Tome of Strahd." It turns the Tome into a magic book that the players can go "inside of" so they can experience Strahd's memories firsthand. Links: 1. https://www.dmsguild.com/en/product/302840/real-housewives-of-ravenloft 2. https://www.dmsguild.com/en/product/301867/the-interactive-tome-of-strahd

I present before the honourable judges a case from the before-times (Pre-Covid). I, the lawful DM, was running Curse of Strahd for my table (minor spoilers ahead). We had reached one of the town of Krezk, and my players had an important NPC in tow. There is a specific scene that happens in the book if that NPC is taken to a specific spot in town. The NPC sees a vision in the nearby fountain, remembers their past life, and is sucked into the fountain and freed from Barovia. Strahd does not like that this is happening, and tries to intervene from afar with a lightning bolt, but if the players don’t stop the NPC, he’s too late. Instead, one of my players, the wizard, attacked the water in the fountain with his staff at the same time that Strahd attacked the fountain with the lightning. The player took the hit. Unfortunately, upon rolling damage, he ended up taking a LOT more than expected, and went past his maximum health in the negative. This resulted in his instant death (rules as written). At the time it was a bummer, but we moved on and he ended up with a new character shortly after. Later on, he accused me of intentionally killing his character (I absolutely did not intend that), and insisted I was being unfair. I beg the court to provide me a ruling: was I unfair in this case?

Forgive me, dice bishops, for I have committed a treasonous act against not just DnD, but this podcast. I ordered an Amazon pack of DnD stickers for my new water bottle(Hydroflask 40oz) and with these stickers came a bootleg band of boobs sticker, with moonshine, hardwon, and the small one all there in all their temu brand glory. Rather than tossing it aside like I should have, I slapped it onto the bottle where it remains to this day. Great bishops, I apologize in the face of Dice Christ and accept whatever fate I may receive

To the gorgeous and lively judges, and the salacious balif. I was given a homebrew spellblade class by my gm with the request to beta test it, i did so to great and hilarious effect, (imagine up-leveled spell slots and they are plentiful.) This resulted in 7 different nerfings to the point i was much weaker than my party mates, after a couple more sessions i asked to change class's to another caster but was denied. Citing more testing was needed as i was repeatedly whomped. Was my dm right to do this? Thank you for your time.

I don’t have a case I just want you to know linkin park are playin in Sydney the night before your show that is all

To the drafting-expert justices and the Bourne-pilled bailiff, I bring you the case of the hindered creative. I DM for a couple of friends of mine. It's both my first campaign as a DM and their first ever, so I try to lean on their side more often than not. One of my players is a College of Creation Bard (from Tasha's), who was really combat-averse at the start but even now doesn't enjoy it as much as the other player (Soulknife Rogue). One of the Bard's go to moves in combat is dropping something heavy on the most threatening enemy to restrain/incapacitate them. Last session they fought against a Ghast Gravecaller and her Ghoul minions, and the Bard conjured a metal box above the Ghast so it dropped on her, blocking her sight and sound (she failed the impromptu DEX save to dodge). The Bard also rolled Intimidation to make the Ghouls switch sides (she crit on an identical check at the start of the dungeon so a precedent was set), and 2/4 did. On the Ghouls' turn, I rolled Strength for the 2 loyal ones and of them rolled a dirty 20, so I said they successfully freed their mistress. The Bard was distraught, saying "What was the point of that? I just wasted this ability and I don't have anything to do in combat." She has a +1 bow and a +1 sword, and also True Strike, but apart from that every time the party leveled up (they're level 5 now) she opted for non-harmful spells (not even Shatter or Bestow Curse), and overall doesn't like spells with saving throws. Also, I've since then learned that the item created has to appear on a surface or in a liquid that can support it, so this tactic should've been moot from the start. The Bard does like the flavor of her character and subclass, and this was an especially combat-heavy dungeon so she was really drained (our campaign is mostly intrigue and infiltration), but in a party of 2 (and an adopted Ranger NPC they both crushed on) I don't know how to accommodate this, especially since Rogue and I really love combat and it feels like I'm forcing Bard into it a lot of the times. Judges, am I preventing my player from unleashing her creativity? Or is she suffering a combat writer's block? I humbly await your judgement. P.S. If you're interested, the dungeon is from last year's "Dragon Delves" book, I've had fun with it.

To the jelly judges and the beautiful bailiff georff...I present to you the traveling spiritual weapon!! While our party rode a chest full of weapons, of which we were to protect, we were attacked by rust beetles. Our cleric wanted to cast spiritual weapon but our DM warned that it would basically immediately be left behind from the moving vehicle and remain in the location it was cast. Stating only that you could attempt to use it's movement speed to catch up. I argue what would happen if you cast it on a moving airship? Like a balloon inside a car I imagine that it stays in position with the vehicle unless pushed out. I await your ever true judgment!

To the beautiful judges and bailiff Jort. I bring the case of the weeblock. For my forever DM's birthday, I decided to run a one-shot. This was my first time DMing. My players wrote up new characters: an old lady stripper rogue, a dead girl warlock, and the forever DM made a hexblade. He named the Hexblade sir Guy Jean, he had a katana that "thirsted" and kept talking about his goal to be with his true love Annie May. The one-shot was fun and chaotic, but he was kinda cringe. I know he was messing around, but do you think he went too far? I humbly ask your opinion.

Forgive me oh Deacons of the Dice as I have committed the most grave of sins… underestimating my players word game skills! I was DMing a mini campaign where my players are fire fighters protecting a magical forest. An NPC had alluded to a secret chamber hidden inside the fire station. One successful investigation check later and my players discovered a hidden wall with a 5 by 6 grid of squares on it with a keyboard beneath. My intention was for the players to figure out a hidden code word through playing a game of Wordle. (This was a few years ago during the height of the Wordle craze and all of them were avid Wordle players.) To match the fire fighting theme, the hidden word was “Flame.” To my dismay, the first word they tried was… “Flame”. I panicked and quickly changed the hidden word to “Ember.” The players solved the Wordle after a few attempts and all was well… but deacons, I can’t help but think solving the puzzle on the first blind try would have been a fun authentic moment for my players and I stole that by pivoting to a different word. Deacons, I humbly seek your forgiveness and the forgiveness of our dice overlords.

To the Judicious Judges and the Ambitious bailiff, I bring to you the case of the disruptive dinner. Thirteen kids at my high school played D&D, and we all played at Greg's house. Greg's dad (also named Greg) was our kind and benevolent DM, running two separate campaigns so that all of us could play. About a year in, he suggested both groups meet up for a night of non-canonical PvP. He planned a Roman Colosseum style battle and said he'd provide a quote "mountain" of pizza. I joked that he should plan for me to eat my bodyweight. This would prove to be a mistake. When the night arrived, we showed up to find seven extra-large pizzas waiting for us. The first two were combination, I don't like mushrooms, so I moved on. Pizza three was vegetarian, again, mushrooms. Pizzas four and five were Hawaiian, acceptable. The last two were something called a "taco pizza", an unholy abomination topped with ground beef, thick slices of uncooked tomato, and full leaves if lettuce. I grabbed two slices of Hawaiian and sat down ready to play. But it was not to be. Greg Sr. looked at my plate and asked where the rest of my pizza was. I just smiled and laughed. He persisted, saying he figured I'd have a full box worth on my plate. I said the remaining pizza just wasn't really my thing. He went silent, then told me if I had a topping preference, I should have said something earlier. I said it was fine; I didn't really care. He said obviously I did care if I wouldn't eat the remaining pizza, and I should have put in a request if I had particular toppings I wanted. I said I didn't think having "a cheese" or "a pepperoni" in an order of seven pizzas needed to be a special request. At this point we were basically yelling at each other, and the rest of the room was silent. The vibe was dead on the floor. We eventually played the game, but it was rough. I ask you judges, should I have just shut up and eaten the gross pizza, or is the fault for this food fiasco on my DM. P.S. - At the end of the night the taco pizzas had barely been touched.

Forgive me oh Dice Deacons (& Our Beloved, Almighty Yakob), for I have sinned against Dice Christ. My friends and I hath played in our current campaign for the past 4 years. We are now level 10. For the most part we play online using Discord, dndbeyond, and roll20. 2 years ago, our Sorcerer was corrupted by an eldritch goddess of dark magic and then killed in combat. The rest of the party attempted a purification/resurrection combo ritual to bring her back, inspired by NADDPOD shenaniganery & Murph-chanics. However, when those involved were rolling their checks as part of the ritual (each person involved had to make around 5 rolls) the other two ritual casters were not rolling lower than a 16 on their dice, and the ritual was running completely smoothly despite our dm assuring us it would be very challenging and with a high chance of failure. In the moment I was bored, and didn't think people were being fully honest, so I fudged my second to last roll and said it was a 1, and this failed. The DM narrated the room getting darker, light sucked from candles, and said the DC had increased—but the other two players were still rolling 16+ on the die despite the resulting disadvantage. But, lo and behold, my final roll was an ACTUAL nat 1, and because of this my half kobold/gnome wizard died and the ritual was bungled. Please punish my sins accordingly, as I am become the sinniest sinner of sinning. PS we did resurrect and purify the sorcerer eventually and adopted using the dndbeyond Dice roller the session after this ritual, and have not looked back.

To the Silly Caldwell, the Salty Murph, the Sultry Emily, and the suckbutt bailiff. I present a case of nominal malpractice. I have been DMing on and off for 15 years with rotating groups of friends, many of whom I have known for that time or longer. We exclusively play in homebrew worlds, spanning a boilerplate fantasy world, a magical New York, a Greek mythology inspired world, and even a salute to anime tropes. All of these settings have been notably different with one commonality: my players bastardize every named person, place, and thing I introduce. When exploring the Drow underground, they encountered Garrote, an assassin looking to overthrow the matriarch of the Drow empire. Almost immediately his name became Scrote, a reference to scrotum. In the capital city of our Greek campaign, they met the Senator Denastes (deh-na-steez) who was referred interchangeably as “De Nasty”, “Denise”, and worst of all “Deez Nutz”. The awakened elk guardian of a young wereraven warlock, named through the Elven words for “wise stag”, quickly went from Hattelarse to “Hot Ass”. Our campaigns are not meant to be self-serious dramas and I revel in the fantasy improv I get to play with friends. But I feel the game needs stakes to make the funny bits work and it’s hard to get a destined quest from the sultan Rimjob of Buttstuff. Even when giving my players the sillier NPCs to try to satisfy their urges, all of my important characters inevitably have their names turned into a joke. Superlative Honors of the Crit, should I accept the renaming of all of my characters or I am correct to be tilted by titles? How do I carry on a campaign knowing that all of my constructed characters will inevitably become silly simulacra of their original concepts? I humbly await your judgment.

To the Mythic-Rare Judges, and the precious-saproling-creature-token-at-the-end-of-the-booster-pack bailiff, I present the case of the first-time DM. I was a PC. The first-time DM was a work friend we’ll call Shawn. He had only played a one shot I ran, but went ham on DnD. He bought a 3D printer, painted our minis, and homebrewed a Greek-myth world. As a forever DM, I was excited for Shawn’s enthusiasm! This game almost made me quit DnD. I don’t backseat DM; It was difficult holding my tongue for frequent un-fun scenarios. One PC won enchanted armor in a tournament late-campaign. It was secretly cursed, forcing DEX saves every 10 feet or he’d fall prone. He couldn’t take it off. Another PC had to track her arrow count. When we found a raided village riddled with an enemy’s arrows, she tried stocking up. Touching the arrow shafts poisoned her with no save, and she couldn’t retrieve any. In a boss fight, our bard was restrained in “magical vines.” For 5 rounds, she could not make the save, needing a natural 20, and Shawn denied our requests to help or dispel the vines. We don’t play with Shawn anymore, and he moved away. Judges, the party still laughs about the awful times, years later. First-time DMing is hard. Were these just growing pains, or were these Shawnanigans too much?

To the esteemed and fabulous judges, and the dripless bailif Jord: I bring to you the case of the unjust grieving. In a campaign that my best friend dm'ed for me, his (now) ex and her childhood friend, I played a mischievous yet caring bard called Mav, alongside a Fighter and Monk we'll call Chip & Dale. One fateful session (and also the last.) me and the rest of the level 4 party had an encounter with a banshee, who had been manipulated by a foreign spy to terrorise one of their enemies' towns. At the final showdown, we faced the banshee, as well the spy who had a large metal contraption, meant to absorb the banshee and her power. It was an all-out brawl, and me and the party quickly found out this contraption was virtually unhittable. Yet, when my squishy bard went down, and he laid in range for the spy's burning hands, Chip & Dale did not come to my rescue. *Both* of them instead tried to hit the machine again! Eventually my bard died due to the attacks and failed death saves. Only *then* did Chip & Dale try to come to my aid. But, we were level 4 and had no resources on hand at all for this scenario. Chip & Dale were also both close to full health! And promptly started 'grieving' ingame about how this could have happened, and how they wish they could have helped me. Judges, am I overreacting or did Chip & Dale have no right to grieve for a character they did not even try to help?? Ps. We have since stopped playing together, although me and the DM still play together with a different, more considerate group. But I still miss my poet.

To the enigmatic justices and the single cell organism baliff. I started a new campaign last month with my players of 5+ years. The party of six were sent on a heist into a high priest mansion during an event he was hosting. The players released a devil during the party to distract the high priest. For some reason the cleric and warlock decided they needed to battle the devil they released while the rest of the party did the mission. The two players at level 4 had less than 40 hp each and the monster on its first attack did a cold of cone doing about 30 damage to them. The players continued to battle the creature for the next 5 rounds each going down 2-3 times no attempt to leave was made when they were up. The cleric player had talked to me ooc about wanting to play a cleric who loses and challenges his faith. Throughout the combat the player was getting hints and feelings urging him to make a deal to save himself and the other player, by a devil he met in the first session. The cleric rejected any attempt at it and was once again downed. As the cleric had two failed death saves and was laying in a pool of devil blood I once again offered him the deal and instead of choosing it he loudly claim "it's cool I'll get a nat 20". He rolled and failed not only did he fail it was a natural 1 in front of the entire table. I then described the monster ripping out and eating his heart. The cleric was then a bit sad that he lost this chatacter in the second session and when asked said he still wanted to play this character. I ended up describing the devil blood repaired his armor around his body but didn't heal his heart and his body twitches once again moving. I felt the party had mix feelings about it because the campaign was stated before playing to be higher stakes than usual. Justices was i right to let them get into such a dangerous fight in session two ? Should I have let the cleric stay dead after such a spectacular defeat or was it right to pull punches and let him live changed?

To the honorable and esteemed clergy, and also Jake (I think that’s his name?) I come not with a confession, but to seek a blessing. My partner had always wanted to play dnd (they have been a fan of naddpod since campaign 1) and thus, wanting to do good by them, I invited their friends (who had also never played dnd however, most of which had also listened to naddpod since campaign 1), to make them more comfortable. The setting is one they know well, since it is the world of a graphic novel I am writing, and one that all of which the pc’s are all excited to be a part of (since there’s a high likelyhood that I’ll put their characters in my story in some way or another). Despite being new to dnd, they’re all very excited and serious about it. Which is infectious and, honestly, beautiful to see. Here’s where the issue lies; I have only ever dm’ed for small one shots and campaigns that had always sort of fizzled out due to either, scheduling conflicts, or my own self-doubt eating away at me until I eventually just let those campaigns crumble to dust. I seek dice Christ’s blessing, for I want to do right by these beautiful babes of the game. So I seek this blessing to be bestowed upon me for all the rolls I have to roll, from the natural 1’s to the natural 20’s and all of those beautiful, story-telling numbers in between. Thank you, and may dice Christ look upon you when you reach those dicey pearly gates.

To the most awe-inspiring and heroic justices, and the strangely disheveled looking bailiff, ummm, Jam Jam Bings?: I present to you the case of the weed bomb. Back in middle school, I wanted to try DnD for the first time and gathered a group of first-time players to DM for them. One of these players (one of my best friends now) created an old Kenku druid man that ran a weed farm like the navy without OSHA or HR. I was on board, as the party and I found the jokes funny. The issue arose when they were trying to sneak by some guards. My players desperately wanted to throw a weed bomb, as in a ball of marijuana lit on fire, to somehow get the guards just high enough for them to bypass with fewer issues. As middle schoolers, none of us knew how weed worked, but I was firm that people could not get high from a few marijuana fumes from a couple feet away. They argued that it's fantasy and that the guards should at least roll a constitution save, to which I replied that until they tell me how exactly a weed bomb could legitimately work without succumbing to Bugs Bunny logic they could not go through with this plan. They eventually moved on and the session was still fun, but my players and I still cannot see eye to eye on this years later. Even in the present, none of us have smoked weed, and thus have no basis for how marijuana does or doesn't work. They still say at the very least the guards would have been distracted, to which I say that a singular ball of flaming marijuana flung in their direction would only spur them to investigate the direction from which it was thrown and blow their cover. Justices, am I wrong for not allowing this line of logic by at least rolling a couple of saves despite allowing a player to build their PC around the gag of being a weed farmer? Or did middle school me rule correctly, and were my players flying too close to the flaming weed-ball sun? I patiently await your judgement. PS If you guys know anybody that might have a summer internship open for a current SoCal community college student, let them know that I am on my hands and knees begging for the opportunity.

To the justices of the highest Crit in the land and Gake. I come to thee with the case of the shopping cart snoop. My players are facing off against a jungle tribe of devotees to an evil god on a volcanic island. When they arrived at one of the villages they were looking at a tough fight when all of a sudden the cult released a tamed T-Rex. The plan was for the party to flee into the jungle were the T-Rex would be too large to follow but instead the Druid cast dominate beast on the T-Rex and used it to fight the cult. The combat was still very fun and my plans were not derailed and we remarked on how lucky it was he prepared that spell. Later the Druid admitted that he had seen T-Rex mini in my recent Amazon orders because I allow him to use my account because I am a good friend and took that friendship and mind controlled my T-Rex. Judges we all know he is guilty but I want to know what punishment he deserves, I’m think death penalty but you guys let me know.

To the supremely honorable crit justice and the supreme pizza bailiff The case of the absent players plan Our group was running the curse of strahd and our tabaxi monk had been bitten by a werewolf and was going to turn during the next sessions full moon. We all proposed plans, Mine being the wizard use mold earth to bury her in a casket with a breathing tube to avoid the full moon or at least use a few rounds up as she tunnels out. Our wizard dismissed this plan and said he had his own plan. The next week, he was absent from the session. According to the dm he had told his plan to the dm and the dm was going to roleplay as the wizard to enact it. The plan then proceeded to be, chain her up and sit with her in leomunds tiny hut and try to keep her calm. Plan failed, chains broke and we nearly lost the rogue. The weretiger monk (now controlled by the dm) ran off into the forest, leaving the player with no character to play for the rest of the session about 90 minutes. Am I wrong to blame the wizard, does the blame lay with the dm, or am I wrong for wanting to bury a party member during a full moon. I await your justice

To the most honorable justices of the Supreme Crit, and Jake. My group has been playing together weekly for years, with rotating DMs. We’re near the end of the Dragon Heist campaign, and just arrived at the eponymous hoard when our DM laid out a large map he had drawn in advance, and placed a new mini right in the center to confront us. My character, a small Tabaxi sorcerer named Ren, was near the front of the group so I confronted the figure. A short conversation ensued, with the new NPC insulting me and threatening the party. I figured well, I know where this is heading and launched a fireball at him. This may have been precipitous. The DM grinned and replaced the mini with a humongous adult golden dragon “mini” that took up most of the map area. I should mention we were a level 5 party. We rolled initiative, but also quickly realized we should flee. I happened to roll highest but the DM deemed I had used my turn with the fireball, which was fair enough. The dragon was up next, and used a single bite attack to take out half my health, and then stopped. It was pretty obvious we were supposed to try to negotiate or flee at that point. The next up was our wizard, who used his turn to cast Hold Person on me. He also burned his final portent roll to force me to fail. He then told the dragon he had nothing to do with the attack, that I wasn’t his friend, and tried to ingratiate himself. We eventually got out of combat and promised to return with proof that we had some right to the hoard. I decided to harness my annoyance at the unexpected PvP and lost turn to role play a scene with the wizard. I asked him if he really meant it when he said we weren’t friends. He said yes. Earlier in the dungeon crawl I had gone out of my way to save him when he almost fell to his death after failing an athletics check jumping a chasm. So I told him “next time you’re in danger, I won’t save you.” He responded instantly by picking up his dice, pointing at me, and yelling “ray of sickness!” Honorable justices, I admit I lost my cool. I said, maybe louder than necessary, “are you fucking kidding me?” The DM intervened and said “are you sure you want to do that in front of the dragon?” Things escalated from there, above the table. I’m sad to report that what I was trying to make a role play moment turned into very personal strife between me and the other player. After a few days passed, I messaged him to try to talk about it so we could resolve things and move forward, but he refused to talk and ultimately left the table. Should I have been more chill about multiple instances of surprise PvP? For what it’s worth, the rest of the table is also confused about why he wasn’t willing to talk it out. In case it helps with your decision, this player always comes to sessions baked, and he was fully committed to his character’s Shaggy voice.

To the Supreme Crit Justices and the Bailiff who should be seen and not heard. As a forever DM from back in the 2e days, I jumped at the chance when my youngest sister invited me to join her when she ran Descent into Avernus. A few sessions in, she had to stop DMing and the group didn't want to stop so I agreed to step in. I immediately detoured and started a homebrew campaign revolving around my paladin PC (who left the party when I became the DM) turning into a Lawful Evil tyrant ala Thialla. All was going well until the bugbear PC, who dreamed of re-opening his vegan bakery and getting revenge on the people who burned down his first bakery and killed his wife, discovered a stand in Waterdeep selling individually packaged vegan muffins. The taste was identical to his proprietary recipe, and the stylized picture on the wrapper bore a striking resemblance to his dead wife. The player was thrilled to find out that his wife had apparently faked her own death to run off and make a mass-produced baked goods empire that spit in the face of the artisinal lifestyle. But several other players were upset, saying that single-serve plastic wrapped muffins took them out of the immersion. The campaign fell apart soon after so they were never able to confront the wife in a Great British Bake-off style fight, but did I go wrong? When a player's back story creates the idea of a vegan bakery, do I not have the right to run with it, immersion be damned? I await your judgement, confidently assured that I am in the right.

To the most Exalted Justices and Jill's nominal husband (I think his name is Baliff), I bring to you a case of possible future crime. I'm a first time DM running a Humblewood (woodland creatures) campaign for my weekly group to give our forever DM a break. At our session 0, one of my players pitched an Oath of Vengeance Paladin named Stuart, a mouse who lost his family in Squirrel 9/11 (an inside joke from a Christmas one shot from a previous campaign) and was out for revenge against the bandits he believed perpetrated it. I wanted the setting to be a little more grounded so I nixed squirrel 9/11 but as an alternate, I pulled him aside and gave him a bit of a spoiler for session 1 that there was a village that was going to be destroyed as the inciting incident for the campaign and he could be from there instead. To help honor the original character concept as much as possible, I also created a squirrel husband (Francis) who had stayed behind to keep an eye on their shop while he went to sell his wares at the festival in the next town over. Since his village burned, he has been cutting a swath through bandits trying to find Francis and in his zeal he attacked a bandit who had struck a deal with our party's cleric to be spared in exchange for information. Unbeknownst to Stuart, our cleric is a reformed bandit and when our cleric tried to press him Stuart's player said above the table "I've had a long day." This is something he's done in another campaign as well. To be fair to Stuart, we play on Monday nights and his job is legitimately making him miserable so I get it. But this is where the possible future crime comes in: The bandits aren't the ones who burned down his village. And more importantly, it's been written in the module and my plans that the bandits are helping the refugees and raiding supply lines to the capital to do it. In two or three sessions, Stuart's going to find Francis in the bandit camp. But Francis isn't there as a prisoner, he's there tending to their wounded because they took him in. If Stuart storms the castle, there's no world in which Francis is okay with that. There's other options on the table for them to get in, but I also know my party well enough that I'd lay odds on them storming the castle. I throw myself on the wisdom of the court: do I honor my player's big choices with big consequences and potentially upset a friend? Do I quietly move his prince to another castle? Or do I spoil my big act 2 twist to talk it out with him ahead of time? If it makes a difference, when we've talked in the past about future campaigns, he's also wanted more role play. PS: Big thanks to Justices Murphy and Axford, our druid in this campaign having never listened to an episode of NADDPOD pitched a redneck possum Circle of Spores Druid and I've been shamelessly cribbing from Murph and Paw Paw for her youngins. She's now a fan.

i devote my confession to Dice Christ, as i know not what i do i am about to start my very first dnd campaign with a group of people i do not know. early on, this group made it obvious that they do not enjoy watching or listening to actual plays, and that they think the popularization has ruined the game. in a total panic, i pretended like i had played before. totally making up a past campaign, and helping the dm teach the “new players” how to make characters. i fear that i will be cursed for the ruse i must keep up, and that my very first player (a human paladin that really doesn’t even know his lefts from his rights iykwim) will be subject to torment for my real life misdeeds. i seek penance of any kind

Deacons of Dice Christ: I have made offence with what I thought was a compliment. I DM a campaign for some friends, and at the last session I witnessed something I have never seen nor heard of. I watched the dice as they not only turned on a player for an encounter or a session, but against the entire table all at once. For the first half of the night, my players were rolling well, to include two random encounters I was hoping they would get. They absolutely WOMPED two combats, even. They couldn't roll below a 12 on anything. But then I uttered what I fear caused the offense; I said, "Dice really do love to tell a story." And the next encounter it all changed. While trying to cross a broken and crumbling bridge with a group of NPC commoners, they just had to beat a DC 8 check not to fall to certain death. In situations like this, I like to have the players roll for NPCs, and they had so much at their disposal: Heroic Inspiration, DM Inspiration, a table reroll rule, Help Actions, Guidance, and 3 of 5 players have some type of teleportation. They all of a sudden could barely roll above a 5. Players with simple modifiers and Guidance were mostly fine, but two had to use their teleportation. However, their rolls for the NPCs are a different story. Despite everything they had going for them, 4 out of 13 NPCs fell to their death: peaking with a player rolling two Nat 1s with Advantage and a 3 on the reroll. All different dice. One player said, "This isn't fun..." Oh wise Council of Dice Christ Cardinals, please help me atone

To the Supreme pontiffs of dice christ. Recently i introduced two friends from the gym to D&D and we had a great session playing deathhouse. I bought them each their own set of dice for their characters as a gift for if they want to play agian. Unfortunetly after one of the new players got their 5th nat 1 in a row, it became clear her dice set is cursed. I swaped it out for one of my own and her luck was great for the rest of the night. My question is what do i do with this now clearly cursed dice.

I have a confession tgat weighs on my soul heavy, I made a mistake that costs my poor simple innocent low level players too much, I asked for a roll when I shouldn't have. My players while impersonating guards went to an iceberg lounge style den of scum amd villany. They talking to the guard were confused when they didn't allow them to bring there weapons in, after a back and forth my will failed me, I wanted to reward the high charisma charecter and allowed him to roll a check, he rolled high, they were let through with their weapons and almost instantly started something and were tpked. I shouldn't have asked for a roll, I knew of they went in armed they'd start something, I knew that there is no logical reason for the guard letting them through armed. It was a moment of weakness and my players paid the price for my mistake.

To the Hallux Jake and the Judges, I bring the case of the humbled cleric. I was DMing LMoP and the party was almost to the BBEG. The cleric asked for a Talisman of Pure Good, that would basically insta-kill any evil aligned character if it failed a save. I said I was fine with them having it as long as it wasn’t used on the BBEG. They agreed. The party busts into the BBEG’s room and the cleric uses the amulet and insta-kills the BBEG. I could tell the rest of the party was upset, so behind the screen I changed the character that died to a doppleganger that was supposed to be part of the fight. Once the party says the BBEG again, the cleric was pissed and the party was ecstatic. Should I have allowed the cleric to have their kill or did I save the fight?

To the venerable Justices and the icky little bailiff — After three and a half years I have finally brought my campaigns to a close. I ran two concurrent games for two different groups in the same shared world. It was exhausting, it was exhilarating, and finally it is over. As a farewell and thank you to my players, I prepared some gifts. For one party (the A Team) — who had decided they were also a touring band during their adventures — I designed some custom band tees featuring their characters and all the stops on their ‘tour’. For the other party (Team 1) — who had two players about to become parents — I wrote and illustrated a children’s book about their adventures. I was really proud of all these gifts and everyone was happy to receive them…until one player in the A Team learned about Team 1’s gift. They were quick to state that this was unfair, that the book clearly took more time and energy than the shirt, and that I was showing favoritism. Judges, this player isn’t wrong — the book was really really hard to make — and also, this player happens to be my fiancé. Now she wants me to create another book about her party’s campaign. I don’t want any of my players walking away from the game with a sour note, and I really didn’t mean to favor one party over the other. So what do you say? Is it time for me to rest, or do I have some writing to do?

To the Fancy Judges and the Unfancy Bailiff, I bring you the case of the super spider. It was our last session. Our goal was to get material from a mine so we could take it to a wizard who would then help us repair our families town. After my friend’s character had their legs permanently broken by fall damage that the dm wouldn’t let us heal over a long rest because it “wasn’t realistic”, a dragon helped us steal a hot air balloon to fly back to the wizard’s tower. With no checks from us, the balloon flew off course and landed in a swamp. The dm gleefully described this beautiful city in the distance that he clearly wanted us to go to. But we wanted to finish up our quest with the wizard before continuing on. So we start walking back to the wizard’s tower (carrying our friend’s character) when my boot gets “stuck in the mud”. I was not allowed to make a check to pull them out. So I take of my boot, pull it out by hand, then slip it back on. Somehow, in the two seconds my shoe was off, a spider had slipped inside and bit me. I was instantly paralyzed without a save and was told there was nothing I could do for the next three days. Now my question is not if the dm was in the wrong, but rather if instant paralyzation is at all possible in dnd? Besides homebrew, is there any monster that instantly paralyzes you without a save? This question has haunted me for years and while I have not found anything, I hope that by rescanning the case your jury has more luck than I.

Hello cherished justices and the juicy bailiff Bake. I bring you the case of the successful critical failure. My friends and I were playing a norse mythology themed campaign. During our penultimate battle against a group of frost giants. My level 13 Dwarven barbarian rolled a critical failure on one of his attacks, but as he had a +12 to attack I still rolled a 13 to hit. Normally I would've let this go as a miss. However previously another player had rolled a 12 (not a crit fail for this player) and our DM said it hit. So I asked my DM why my 13, even though it was a crit fail, missed while a lower roll succeeded. He ruled that a crit fail always fails. Was I within reason to question my DMs ruling, or should've I kept it to myself?

Dear Brian, Lynn, Hugh, and tucker, I'm here to turn myself in. This happened over a year ago and I've been secretly holding on to it ever since. My table and I were playing a Waterdeep: Dragon Heist campaign, and we had just tracked down the target of our quest and confronted her with her three hired goons in an alleyway. She climbed up to the roof of a nearby building and made to escape while we fought her minions. My character, a centaur ninja who's kind of obsessed with getting glory for himself and being impressive, decided to ditch the fight and follow her. I couldn't climb up to the roof fast enough, but with my feats and the Horseshoes of Speed I had a speed of 70, so I tried to dash out of the alley and chase her from the ground. Passing by two thugs, I had to take attacks of opportunity from each of them. After I accepted that, my DM said "they have multiattack, so they're each going to swing at you twice," then proceeded to take me from full health down to 6. After I made it out of the alley, a group of five bugbears emerged from a nearby sewer and immediately knocked me out. Judges, I looked it up while this was all happening: creatures with multiattack still only get one attack of opportunity. If they hadn't hit me an extra time each I might have survived to chase the baddie down. To this day, I have said nothing about this error, and it is still my most humiliating moment with that character. It's obvious that the DM didn't want me short-circuiting this escape scene, but was it out of line to double up his attacks? Was it out of line for me to keep my silence and never even give myself a chance to learn whether or not it was an honest mistake? Is Lynn your real middle name as AI claims it is? I humbly await your judgement and/or forgiveness.

To the esteemed justices and the wittle baby who's still in diapers, I present the case of the drunk monk. My wife and I had played in a wedding themed DND one shot the night before her friend got married, with all of the wedding party battling for survival. I was a monk, and had thought to use alcohol by holding it in my mouth, and blowing it out on someone while holding a torch between us. My character had not drank any of the alcohol, I had specifically stated that, and had been holding the drink in my mouth for a few minutes. The DM, also the bride to be, decided that I should roll constitution to see if I was drunk. I argued that holding a mouthful of liquor wouldn't get someone drunk, and she stated that it was the strongest they had, as requested, and so it soaked into my blood stream. Of course, I rolled a nat 1. I then played the rest of the night, waiting for 13 other people to go, before I could go again, and she made me roll everything with disadvantage. My night ended after I finally had my head chopped off by a guard. Justices, was making me roll to see if I was drunk a justified move on her part? I await your judgement.

To the Supreme Justice Axford and her 3 musketeers, I present the case of too many DM's. I recently started playing with my boyfriend and his friends who have been playing D&D together since highschool. The campaign we were playing was in its early stages and after a few interpersonal issues both away from and around the table the forever DM dramatically quit at a house party where most players were in attendance. Judges, since this power vaccum opened everyone has been at each others throats vying for the seat. Some players argue they should be our new DM because they have held the position before, others have campaigns they've allegedly been planning for years, and one player went out and bought $250 worth of DMing materials to try and solidify their claim. I just want to play D&D and until now they have been the only group I have ever played with that have a consistent weekly schedule. Also, its ruining my boyfriends social life. I thank you for your consideration.

Exalted clergy of the crittian church… I have a confession. I altered another player’s online character sheet without their knowledge or consent. We are a party of 6, and each of us have… different levels of commitment to the game, to put it gently. I am a passionate player who wants characters that at least make sense on paper, whether optimized or not. Some of my party members just kinda do whatever. Like the bard who gave themself high intelligence, constitution, and wisdom, and absolute dogshit scores in everything else. Like negative DEX and 0 charisma bad. They also selected no spells or skill proficiencies. Our first post-session 0 game is tomorrow and I couldn’t help myself: I picked some spells for them and readjusted just a couple stats for them. IMO it’s criminal to have 1 bardic per long rest and literally 9 AC. I confess my sin to you, clergyfolk, but I will not confess to the bard nor to my party. I did mention it to my DM who didn’t seem to care (the bard is his old friend who mostly just likes to show up and smoke weed and hang out tbh). I just want him to have options and feel useful, so I do feel like my motivations are dice-Christlike, but will I be forgiven for my meddling ways? I await your judgment with bated breath, but I have negative constitution so I only have 30 seconds before I run out of air.

Epic Justices and FAILiff Jake, I present the case of the Sonny Angels. I have DM'd for my current party for over two years, and have but one case to bring forth: long ago, during combat on a battle mat, a few of my players, including my wife, opted to use Sonny Angels in place of actual minis to represent their characters. If you've never seen a Sonny Angel, they're a series of collectible figurines of a mostly naked baby wearing themed hats and outfits, which my wife collects. I didn't mind that none of their PCs looked like this; the real issue was that the figures were poorly balanced and thus kept falling down and knocking over others. My players thought this was funny, while I did not appreciate this added challenge to running combat, and so despite half-hearted protests, I banned Sonny Angels from my table, exposed genitalia and all. Was I justified in forcing my players to use real minis (which I provided free of charge) or should I have allowed a little bit of bare-buttocked whimsy on the battle mat? I humbly await your judgment.

To the most honorable justices, and my burpless brethren the baby bailiff. . . Blake? 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.

the case of the concealed carry ice cream man. my privateer party, The Scurvy Dogs, and i were on the sleepy island town of Merrin and decided to split. half of the party failed to stealth into the manor of the infamous captain blue. guards descended on them and a signal flare went up. the other half of the party in the town square saw the flare and ran towards it. an ice cream man saw them and exclaimed that they were up to no good and drew his flintlock pistol. what followed was a deadly shootout and grenade barrage from the ice cream man, a haberdasher, and various other small business owners. at one point the haberdasher revealed a suicide bomb vest and told us to quit the funny business. my lizardfolk fathomless warlock, Chevron, killed 6 guardsman with a single lightning bolt during the fight. in retaliation, i was downed, and then finished off with a melee attack while multiple other party members were up in the vicinity. justices, is it suspicious merely to run towards a flare? is it meta for a simple guardsman to attack a downed character to avenge his fallen friends when several other party members are still up? is it too wacky for small business owners to pack such deadly firepower? i’ve never seen a sleepy island town where the ice cream man was packing. i humbly await your ruling

May it please the court and may their glories be eternal, and to the Bailiff who knows naught but shame his was years ago but I was reminded of it today. The first time I tried adventure league my wife and I rolled up some characters, her a cleric me a warlock. the hook was we were providing security for a caravan though a well patrolled and relatively safe area. The convoy head asked my character (lvl 1) to stay outside and cover first watch. Fine whatever Then he sends an assassin after me (CR5). He gets by my perception check and double attacks me before I can get even move and then wins initiative and finishes my off. I was pretty shocked and said "ok well that happened do I just become my identical twin cousin?" he said "no you have to wait for another session" so was like I'm out, and we left. He seemed upset that my wife left too which is why Im pretty sure he wanted to hit on her or something. My question is we just left but should i have made a bigger deal out of it?

May it please the court, its divine judges, and the bedeviled balif. I come before the court for a ruling on whether PVP is allowed if it saves another PC’s life. One of my players invited me to join in a game he was starting and I,as a forever dm, jumped at the chance. We ran the game more mission based rather than a single large overarching story, which allowed us to run basically a bunch of short stories in different locations. The big bad for this mission was an evil wizard who sent a group of guards to hold us off while she went to find an artifact. While she was leaving the evil wizard cast a spell on our Assassin rogue which put a flaming crown of razor wire over his head. I (a divination wizard who ran an illegal casino) knew this was probably crown of madness, but didn’t want to metagame and let the others know without checking first. Through pure luck I was first in the initiative, and asked the dm if I could roll arcana. He allowed it, I rolled high, and was told that this was not only a crown of maddness but one that would cause any attack made while under its effects to add an extra 4D6 to the attack, but instead of being on one person continuously it bounced around to anyone in the fight, including enemies. Our Assassin was now a ticking time bomb and he was standing right next to our cleric. As I was only level 4 I didn’t have dispel magic, and so I decided to cast hold person on the assassin. I used one of my portent rolls to force him to fail, and watched his face fall. While not a brand new player he had only started playing with this group and we were only about 8-10 sessions in at the time. He enjoyed doing big damage so I could tell he wanted to use the empowered strikes. But I didn’t want to take the risk of him potentially killing the cleric. On his turn he dejectedly said “I guess I do nothing” and I released the hold person on my next turn when the crown had disappeared. After that fight I had the idea of stocking crown of madness to try and get in the way of the enemies spell next time it happened, but it never came up again and I fear I may have dampened the mood for the rogue, and possibly the dm as I may have scared him off of using the spell again. I appoligized above the table and the rogue said he was ok with it, but I still feel bad. Was I in the right for taking away this players turn in the attempt to save another’s life?

To the honorable Justices and the local Borne expert, I bring to you the case of the inglorious paladin. Last year my friends and I played a oneshot, all of us still pretty new to DnD. My friend played an Oath of the Glory paladin; what the rest of us played does not particularly matter as the oneshot turned to be about a mindflayer placing us into bodies of monsters and sending us to fight demons (fun!). Once in the bodies of DnD monsters, we were supposed to infiltrate an invading force of demons, gather intel, and eventually have a big showdown on a run-down ship - and if one of us died while in the monster's body, our consciousness would just be yanked back to our sleeping real bodies. The mindflayer, and this is crucial, also promised us a monetary reward and a magic item (that we could keep if the oneshot ever got a sequel). During the final battle, only our paladin friend died - and in a very dramatic moment, remembering that he swore an Oath to Glory, the rest of us proclaimed that the fight goes on in his name and wrote his name in blood on the walls of the ship to make it look like he was the hero here. Just as we were having this moment, the paladin wakes up first and tells the mindflayer that he's here to collect the promised reward...thus taking the finesse sword that he did not even fit his build and running the fuck away with our item and our money. Justices: to this day, the paladin insists that what he did is not a dick move, and that we probably would have forgotten about the magic item anyway. Does my friend deserve to continue to be razzed about their paladin running away with a rapier stuffed down his pants?

To the honorable judges, lowly bailiff, and also Murph. I bring you the confession of the finger in the ass. Every year my friends and I go on a week long trip to a cabin in the woods. We swim, hike, but most of all play D&D. This is a sacred tradition, but it has now been tainted. On the last trip, we were playing a dare game where we roll a big fuzzy d20. You say something someone has to do, roll it, and if it’s a nat 20 they HAVE to do it. Someone said “nat 20 and Darren gets a finger in his ear!” I laughed and continued with “nat20 and Darren gets a finger…up his ass!” I rolled it, and it was a nat 20. Immediately, my other friend Blake pointed at me and said “you’ve gotta put your finger up Darren’s ass!” I protested, but everyone jumped on this immediately, telling me I had to put my finger in Darren’s ass. I looked to Darren for help, but he was sitting across the room with his hand on his chin looking conflicted. In an attempt to save myself I rolled that on a nat20 everyone had to do it. It was a 20. Blake then immediately rolled on a 20 only I had to do it. It was a 20. This sealed my fate. I obviously did not put my finger in Darren’s ass. But for the rest of the trip I was rolling terribly in our games, and every time I did my friends would tell me it was because I was cursed from not following through on putting my finger up the ass. They genuinely made me feel bad about this for the entire trip. It was already awkward too because another friend Sarah and I secretly made out on a previous trip and there’s tension there too. I ask you, should I bite the bullet and put my finger in Darren’s ass, even though I’m unsure if our friendship can survive it? Or is there another way I can make it up to the dice gods. Please help.

To the honorable and immutable Supreme Crit Justices, and the man who i think is supposed to validate my parking, i present the case of "Targeted Resistances". My friends and I have been playing in our first ever campaign for over a year now. We've all learned a lot as we've played and our characters have evolved, too. My character (a level 8 changeling gunslinger/rogue multiclass) has evolved from a sneaky assassin type, to a frontlines, revolver-wielding powerhouse. However, I find my damage often halved by enemies resistance to piercing damage (at least once a session), taking the wind out of my sails when I roll otherwise high on my damage. My issue lies in the fact that this seemingly only happens to my character, as everyone else can bypass resistance with magic weapons or spells. I have in-character teased about needing a magic revolver to help this, but to no avail. Justices, am I right to feel lightly spurned from my DMs unwillingness to let me kick ass to my full potential, or should I continue to be patient and hope the a magic gun is dropped in my path soon, allowing my to do the 50+ damage rounds i built my character to achieve? I humbly lay myself before the tracks of the ever chugging train of table justice.

To our respectable justices and the irrespectable bailiff, I bring to your tabletop the case of the Weenie Warrior. I'm not part of the game in question but my roommates are, and they generously host this wild affair every other week. Recently, an argument arose between my roommate and another guy we know, over who should act first in an initiative and subsequent roll off tie, the enemy assassin rogue or his human fighter. Their stats were the same, but the guy argued that he had some background feat that should let him narratively be able to strike first in even circumstances like this, citing his real life experience that he based his character on, but my roommate argued that a trained killer would be faster on the draw than some random boxer. Neither side budged, the dm tried to peacekeep and just give the boxer guy first hit just to move on, but the other two players wouldnt give this guy an inch more, evidently now fed up with his repeated whining for more leeway. At this point, my roommate woke me up, explained the situation, and asked me to break the tie by proving to this guy that his boxing training wouldnt make him faster than me, a mixed martial artist. We squared up, i asked if he wanted to just flip a coin and move on, he said lets do this, the dm counted down and I swiftly, gently, kicked him in the groin. Justices, you would have thought I ripped it clean off with how much he wailed about it. My question is, did he deserve to get what he asked for, or should we have taken the high road on this one? I humbly wonder what you would have done in my place.

To the Honourable Justices of the Supreme Crit, and Bailiff Jorts I am running a play-through of Acquisitions Incorporated for members of my roller derby league who wanted to try their hand at Dnd. We got to the River Barge encounter, and our gnome, trying to find a creative way across, used her Wand of Pigeon summoning (the best magic item). She rolled a 12, hoping that 12 pigeons would be enough to carry her tiny gnome body across the river. I googled and did some maths - irl it would take 80 pigeons to carry a 40 pound gnome across a river. I think this is not fun, but my players insisted if the numbers checked out, then there would be no magical pigeon flight. Justices, who was in the right? How many pigeons does it take to carry a tiny old lady gnome? I await your response via carrier pigeon

To the lofty noble justices and the oft-demeaned insignificant bailiff I submit the case of blind sight vs. the trash panda. I DM a campaign for a group of friends who are currently level 13. One of them plays a Mapach (humanoid raccoon) rogue with reliable talent and always rolls above a 25 on stealth. The issue came when the party fought a gulthias blight with blindsight. The rule states “you can see anything that isn’t behind total cover”. I said therefore his high stealth rolls wouldn’t be enough to hide from the creature. He argued he could, saying that good a camouflage, like hiding in a bush, should still apply. Ultimately I ruled he needed some level of cover to hide, but I ask the court, was I initially too strict or was the raccoon rogue in the wrong?

To the Glorifed Souls of Dice Christ, I come before you with a small stain upon my soul but a stain nonetheless. A couple months ago we had a player leave our table to whom Zak, my Moon Bard/Lunar Sorcerer, had given a Ring of Spell Storing he had been able to convince a king to let us borrow. Before our DM had his pc leave the group I had meant to ask about maybe getting the ring back. The temptation was there, and I was able to overcome the desire to have access to more spells, or at the very least giving the ring to another player and bestow upon them the majesty of spellcasting. But it still lingers in the back of my mind, and I hope that we are at least able to return the ring to the king.

The Case of Inevitable PVP: Hello Honorable Judges and Little Buddy Babyliff, I played in a campaign where the premise was essentially villainous Hogwarts- complete with house ghosts, house parties, and teachers and students who sought eachothers' downfall in an effort to create the most dastardly beings possible. By order of the school's headmaster, myself and another PC were put in a situation where we were told to fight to the death as a cliffhanger before our next session. I told my DM between sessions that I was planning to escape to the Astral plane to avoid the combat altogether since as a player and a character I was uncomfortable with PvP. I was fine playing a new character, and I even prepped a backup baddie. I looted the school's magical items, said my goodbyes to my closest friends and other PCs, and used a portable hole with a bag of holding to launch myself into the Astral plane with the intention of becoming a planar pirate. My DM said after 6 hours had passed in the material plane, I appeared back in the same spot from where I had left. Since our game was streamed live, I didn't want to fight about character motivation in the moment as to why I would want to return even though it felt contradictory to what we had discussed. In the end, the duel took place and both PC's wound up dead as the victor of the fight was hit by a power word kill by the school's headmaster. Both bodies were tossed into lava destroying any chance of revivify along with all of our magic items. I ask you, was I wrong for trying to avoid the combat? Should I have accepted the PvP and put my feelings as a player/friend aside in an "evil" campaign? P.S. the DM's wife who played with us told me he had said the session before that the other PC involved and myself "are cockroaches who refuse to die"... I eagerly await your decision.

May it pleasure the most Supreme of Courts and tickle the bailiff’s fancy until it wets itself… I present the case of the Bullseye Druid! I joined a campaign my partner was in with her friends, who I didn't really know. The DM was running the same module with another group and thought it would be fun for both parties to race to retrieve a special amulet for a town festival. Each group ran separate sessions through an underwater grotto, using potions to breathe. At the start of the joint session the DM made it very clear that no one would be allowed to die from PvP. Our group was not allowed to make stealth rolls even though we ended the previous session having Pass Without Trace up. Our rogue got the amulet off a giant shark and I cast Invisibility on him. The DM's husband in the other group said, "Focus fire the Druid (me) to break concentration" even though his character had no way to speak underwater. Their party of 6 players proceeded to ignore the shark and take me down in one round, though I held concentration and the rest of my party dashed away with the item. We ultimately "won" but I was salty as the sea. Your honors, should we have gotten to make stealth roles against the other players’ perception? Should the DM have stopped the table talk to uphold her "No PvP killing" rule? I await your ruling with potion-baited breath! Supplementary Evidence: Our group was two Rogues and a Barbarian, starting at level 3, so I had built my Druid to specialize in stealth. We had used Pass Without Trace to avoid most combat in the previous session and still had plenty of time left on it. The full group session was online with about 10 players, so I really tried to be understanding about how much cat-herding the DM was having to do. We entered the final area, a large sea cave, from opposite sides, where the amulet we were all after was being guarded by the giant shark. The amulet was hanging from a spear stuck into the giant shark. One of our Rogues had the ability Psychic Whispers, which allowed our party to communicate under water. We planned to just grab and dash rather than fight, to avoid unnecessary PvP or animal cruelty. The other group initially fought the shark until our party got the amulet, then ignored it to take me down even while it was still attacking them. I had pointed out that the DM’s husband had no way to speak to his party underwater when he told them to focus on me but they all still acted based on his table talk. Our Barbarian did manage to scoop my unconscious body but it still felt like I got punished for our

To the Honorable Justices of the Supreme Crit, and Bailiff Jake In high school, my best friend was a DM. He needed a new place to play because of his strict parents, so I offered to let him play in my basement, which was known as the "party house". He took me up on the deal and asked if I wanted to join him for a 1-shot with his crew. We started, and his friends, some of whom I knew, were great. They brought pizza, snacks, and even a case of beer for me, and we had a good time getting into the world. However, around an hour into the night, one of the friends' girlfriends showed up to watch us play. All was well until they started cuddling at the table and then started kissing. The DM and the rest of the group ignored this and just kept playing. As we got later into the night, the guy and the girlfriend just started making out. This obviously slowed the game down, but the DM did nothing. At this point, I decided I had had enough and wanted to have some fun. In-game, we had just met a travelling salesman, and I asked one of the other players if we should jump him and take his stuff. This upset the lawful good Paladin... because of course it did, who said he would fight to protect the salesmen. I said fuck it and started a PVP that turned into a 2v2 where my character died, but at least I had fun. This upset the DM, who said if we weren't going to take the game seriously, we would be done. Judges, am I the asshole for purposely starting a pvp and torpedoing this already sinking ship or should the DM have tried to stop the make-out session going on?

COLD CASE REOPENED: UPDATE ON THE RIDE AND DIE Hello mighty crew of justices! Just wanted to give an update on my (or rather my dad's) cold case that was presented last year. If you need a reminder, this was a cold case from the 70s, where my dad gave my "Uncle" Dave a ride to dnd game "Uncle" Dave was dm'ing. After driving a few hours to play the game, my "Uncle" Dave gave my dad a PC to play and then immediately killed him. Dad then had to wait multiple hrs to then drive him and "Uncle" Dave home and Dad hadn't played since. My parents listened to the case and your ruling, and dad was delighted and felt vindicated. He thought your punishment for my dear "uncle" was just and gave him the motivation to want to play! We haven't played yet but over the holidays I helped him, my mom, and my younger brother make characters. Dad is, of course, playing an Oath of Redemption Paladin (named Tiberius). We'll hopefully be able to play a game where I'll be dm'ing (for the first time... Yikes) so wish us luck! I'll send an update when that happens, if desired. Crit-fully yours, Annie B, Esq.

To the esteemed judges, and the- hey come one guys leave him alone, he’s sensitive, look he’s gonna cry- bailiff. After asking a powerful npc ally for "tangible boons', our party received custom magic items, each designed to upgrade a specific class feature. My level 18 divine soul sorcerer received an item that allows him to upgrade his Twinned Spell meta magic option to Tripled Spell. Instead of targeting an extra creature for a number of sorcery points equal to a spells level, i can now target 3 creatures for the cost of double the spells level. Oh and I take 1D10 for each sorcery point spent. This means that were i to cast haste on my three other party members, i would take 6D10 - which is potentially half of total hp (112hp). When i mentioned that was a huge amount of damage, my party members replied with "you got heals though". Tripled spell is an amazing ability, but i feel like the cost is too high for it to ever be worth using. Judges, am i wrong, or did my DM balance this item fairly?

The Icarian Dilemma: Intros quick cuz it's 2026 To the Saints of Dice Christ and her Bitch Boy (positive) Jake (positive or negative, your pick): Im worried that my character (lvl 10) may be too mid max'd but I also don't want to change her build. I'm currently tri-classing as an Arcane Trickster Rogue, Hexblade Warlock, and Oath of Redemption Paladin (Rogue-lock-adin, if you will). This was ok'd and actually suggested by my dm, but I'm feeling kind of bad. You see, I have an artifact that makes my attacks crit on 19 & 20. So, when I cast Hexblade Curse I can then crit on 18, 19,& 20. Add that with divine smite and sneak attack, I can do an insane amount of damage in a fight- I did 93 damage in one turn the last time we played This would all be fine and dandy but, while fellow players still seem to be having fun and no one in the party has said anything otherwise, I fear they may get annoyed. I'm having so much fun with the build of this character but should I ask the group if it's still okay?? Should I wait until someone brings it up??? Please issue your guidance in regards to my hubris- as I fear that I may be careless Icarus and my pc's power the sun that I'm so drawn to. Dutifully yours, Annie

Esteemed Justices Axford, Murphy, Tanner, and the (baby-like or bodacious, however we’re feeling today) Bailiff Jakey, I present to you the case of the flying camel clutch. I am a forever DM who finally got to play my dream character: a Goliath luchador inspired by Rey Mysterio named Maximus Damage. He was a College of Dance Bard with expertise in Athletics and the Grappler feat. The DM and I had chatted about the build ahead of time and he was excited to see it in action. In the final battle against a red dragon. I used a Goliath ability to grow Large, jumped onto its back, and successfully grappled it in a camel clutch. On the dragon’s turn, after getting wailed on by the rest of the party, I expected it to spend its turn breaking free from the grapple. Color me surprised when it simply just flew straight upwards with me still on it. I brought up that the grappled condition reduces a creature's speed to 0, so it shouldn’t be able to move at all. The DM replied that since I didn't specifically mention restraining its wings, it could still fly. Justices, the creature then went on to use its breath weapon against me specifically, used a Legendary Resistance to break out of my grapple, and dropped me from 80 feet in the air. Tough but fair, this is what feather fall was made for. The dragon stayed airborne for the rest of the fight and I played out the rest of it just doing regular bard things, so my carefully built grappling luchador bard build never really mattered again. My question to the fair court: was I robbed of doing the one thing my character was made for or did I fly too close to the sun?

To the honorable Supreme Crit Justices and the unnamed Bailiff who inhales toast: A few years ago, I was a new DM running a homebrew dungeon crawl one-shot with a few friends and my then-girlfriend, who was playing a rogue. My players approached a long stone hallway that I had planned to be trapped. Based on her character’s training as a rogue, I narrated that the rogue noticed something unusual about the hallway. Without prompting, the rogue shouted “I roll to seduce the hallway!”, then proceeded to roll a nat 20. We all had a laugh and I narrated that the stone hallway was “rock-hard”. (Soo funny, I know). The rogue then led the party into the hallway without looking for or disarming the trap. Halfway through the hallway, the trap was sprung, the entire party failed their saves, and fell into a pit of spikes. Nobody died. But the rogue protested, saying “I rolled a nat 20. That means I get what I want”. I stood firm, arguing that “seducing a hallway” with an unprompted roll was not the same as identifying or disarming a trap. The players extricated themselves from the spike pit and went on to enjoy the rest of the one-shot, but my then-girlfriend was notably quiet from that point on. Justices, was I wrong to not honor the nat 20? Or was my rogue being unreasonable in expecting a nat 20 to get her whatever she wanted? I await your judgement.

Whattup judges whose auras shine like the feathers of the Firebird, and the guy who likes the Dungeons and Dragons movie. I was playing in a campaign themed around a group of childhood friends leaving their village to become monster hunters, taking contracts across the region in the style of the Witcher. For our first contract, our Paladin drew up an elaborate contract in Google Docs, which our DM read and agreed to. When the monster had been slain and we returned to collect our prize, our Paladin asked for the 200 gold we had agreed to. The DM said “What. It was 100 gold.” To which the Paladin responded “read the contract.” We opened the doc. It said 200 gold. The DM was quiet for a bit while we celebrated how much our Paladin had boomed him, before saying “check it again. It says 100 gold.” Our Paladin was confused, until someone in the party checked the edit history. The DM had changed the amount of the contract during our conversation! When confronted with this, he said “I am God.” And paid us 100 gold. We moved on fairly quickly, but judges, does the power of the DM surpass that of written contracts that they themselves have agreed to, and reach into the power of space and time itself? I humbly prostrate myself and leave this decision in your beautifully manicured hands.

To the honorable justices and the low life bailiff surewitz. I have been a forever dm since I was 12, in my first year of high school I made new friends who wanted to try dnd, including one who wanted to dm! I finally had a chance to play and made an arocockra ranger who was pledged to the god of music. The problems came from the first encounter as we were hired to take out a camp of goblins. One member of our party a lawful good dwarf cleric refused to join the pretty tough fight against a huge amount of goblins and instead started looting the camp while we fought. I turned to him and asked, aren’t you supposed to be a good guy. He replied, I am, my character flaw is that I’m greedy. It gets worse, after receiving recognition from the king of the arocockra kingdom the goblin camp was in we were sent to guard the princess as she went to the neighboring other arockackra kingdom for an arranged marriage with the king there. The king there was a horrible despot who imprisioned and tortured his citizens. On the way there our party was ambushed by a rebel group and after a brief combat we parleyed with them and ended up sharing a drinks and merryment in the woods. The dwarf cleric pulled the rest of the party aside and said that we should take the rebels prisoner because the EVIL king had a bounty on them. My character tryed to argue and the cleric used thaumaturgy to mute me, when I pointed oit thaumaturgy doesnt do that and pulled up the spell description the dm said, eh idk he said thats what it does. I then flew away to be outside of the spells range so I could plead for the lives of these rebels. The cleric cast create water to make my wings wet so I couldnt fly, then convinced the rest of the party to betray the rebels and kill the evil king. As this was our second quest my ranger felt no strong loyalty to the party and decided to attack the cleric to protect the rebels. The cleric cast inflict wounds, a touch spell, from 30 feet away. The dm allowed it. He said he crit and rolled max damage instantly killing me. We were playing online and couldn’t see eachothers dice rolls. The rest of the party immediately looted my body and carried on their way. Justices! I know that I have been wronged and more importantly dice christ has been wronged! I come before you not asking if they are guilty, but if the dwarf cleric is guilty enough to warrant the players summary execution. I humbly await your verdict.

Magnanimous Judges and I suppose Jake. I bring you a Doppelgänger Dilemma Recently I missed a session due to some work stuff. After the session I received a text from the dm that read “btw you are now a doppelgänger” Fast forward to last session I played along. Dropping hints that I wasn’t me with my behavior while still attempting to meet the doppel’s goals. Eventually I successfully cornered the party (really well). It was at this point that I had to leave, which was perfect because I didn’t want to attack my friends. I was okay messing with them, but I would hate to be responsible for a PC death… But I was. Later that night I got a text from one of the players (for whom this was their 1st session EVER) that read “you killed me”. Judges, was I wrong for leaving and not controlling the doppelgänger? I feel responsible for this player death, and their potential future playing D&D. I await your judgement

To the venerated clerics of Dice Christ and the little green catapillar guy, I seek the church's forgiveness. I believe that if I had left my DND group last year, they would all still be playing together today. The conflict comes from me and another player. He liked to talk, a lot, and would readily make assumptions about the other pcs. I would get frustrated not being able to get a word in without interrupting, which generally led me to talk even less as I didn't want to be snarky. I talked to the DM about it and she talked to him about it, but that kind of just made things worse. He would be hyper that I was annoyed and then I would be anxious that my mood was constantly being judged. I have apologized to my DM (who I am still really good friends with), and she said it wasn't my fault that the game ended. I don't think the other player is blameless, but I still hold a lot of guilt for my frustration, and I feel like the group could have gotten through it without me. But I was selfish and didnt want to leave my friends or abandon my character Please put in a good word with Dice Christ on my behalf 🙏

Appeal to a 2023 case. Judges, bailiff, I write to you at great cost from a different realm but of some importance. A grievance most vital against none other than that of the Dungeon Docent herself. I am no stranger to the contracts, agreements, and loopholes of the legal process. You see, something was taken from me that was given fair and binding. And I am owed my pound of flesh. Judges. This case has been delayed long enough, I must insist that the Docent return to the Twilight Santorum. The Watch Dog and his Doglings have actions to be answered for. A pint -a glass of beer for those of you who need help- of blood does not cover what is owed. Penny, for your thoughts? - Nico

To the prestigious justices and critically acclaimed bailiff Jakie Lee Curwitz, I beg your judgment on the case of Being Pushed to the Edge. In a recent campaign, my oldest brother played an aarakocra rogue who kept a balance book of the party's misdeeds, which he refused to take part in, preferring to fly off and do his own thing. As much of D&D is shenanigans, this initially funny gimmick became an exasperation. So, in a mage's tower, after collectively selecting one of four portals to enter single file, at the end of the line I shoved my brother's character into a different portal and passed a sleight of hand check to hide what I'd done. My middle brother, the DM, turned the shocking moment at the table into a great story opportunity for the evicted character to come back in the next session, secretly as a shapeshifter in disguise. This was right up his alley and it all worked out, but did I go too far? Seeing as how other players were more gracious and mostly just rolled their eyes at my brother's behaviour, I wonder if I just let real-life frustration seep into the game. Or was it reasonable to go PVP against a PC who was so unrelentingly oppositional to the party's goals? I humbly await your verdict. P.S. NADDPod has put a smile on my face through countless late nights with a new baby, and I'm very thankful for your humor and storytelling.

To the honorable crit justices and Jake the Rake, I submit for your judgment the case of Modifier Nullification. In a recent campaign, I played a Swords Bard Paladin multiclass (shout out to Callie). With proficiency and expertise stacked, I was rocking something like a +13 to Persuasion and Insight. Despite the big numbers, I rarely pushed to be the party face, since it was a very roleplay heavy table and it did not make sense for me to dominate every social scene. However, on the occasions when I did step forward and rolled persuasion or insight checks, proudly announcing a very silly 29 or 32, my DM would immediately ask what I rolled on the die and then seemed to base the outcome primarily on that number. Now, I fully acknowledge that DMing is hard, and high levels plus expertise can absolutely lead to some wild totals. I get the instinct. But I put it to the court: he never once asked the Barbarian or the Monk what they rolled on the die when they attacked with their own +12 or +13 modifiers. So I ask you, wise justices, is this modifier nullification fair table practice, or am I justified in retaining a modest but flavorful amount of salt?

RAZZING - WRONGFULLY? (Hello from Australia) A Bardic Inspiration to the Judges and a WIS save to the baliff for the Vicious Mockery he's taking so far in the court proceedings. To keep it brief (ish) - many years ago we were playing Curse of Strahd and Gloomstalker was hot off the press so I multiclassed it with fighter (for action surge) - now action surge is a very complicated ability (Jake please defend me on this) and wild shit was happening left and right in the initiative (tensions were high). I took too long deciding whether or not to Action Surge and someone said something like "hurry up Snail" - laughter ensued. It stuck - for years now this has been my nickname, I now have snail tattoos - our 2 rotating DMs have since had a baby together and I'm the godfather AKA "Uncle Snail" Was I too slow - or is Action Surge a complicated ability for someone filling out their character sheet in crayon? P.S Hate the show P.P.S see you at the Opera House ❤️🐌🖍️

To the lavender-scented judges and the stinky bailiff Jonk. I bring forth the case of the illiterate pseudodragon. My pact of the chain warlock and party were 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.

To the undefinable Supreme Crit Justices and Jeb. The guy who you clearly only keep around so we can make cheap jokes about a cheap man. I bring to you the case of Bart Simpson, the world's most hated NPC. I was DMing a campaign and the PCs were traveling to the Abyss to meet with a succubus warlord. During the meeting, I briefly introduced the warlord's bodyguards, which included a wispling (half gnome/half demon). I described him as “pacing back and forth behind the warlord, with his hands resting on hand axes” and “he has short and spiky hair. Kind of like Bart Simpson.” I got some light razzing for this description, but we quickly moved on. The meeting with the warlord went well and the PCs were offered to stay the night as guests. That evening, the bodyguard was sent to deliver a message to the PCs. As soon as their room door was opened, the party fighter attacked the wispling, followed immediately by the party sorcerer plane-shifting him to his god's home plane (where the demon would be hunted for sport). Despite having never spoken a word, my PCs had unanimously decided to kill the bodyguard. After the session I asked how they came to their decision. One player said, “I knew he was going to die when you described him pacing with his hands on his axes.” Two others said it was when I compared him to Bart Simpson. Regardless, they all claim that their actions were justified. The bodyguard was supposed to back stab the party during a climactic fight, so it worked out that they killed him before hand, but I ask you: Were my players wrong to kill my NPC before he technically did anything wrong, or are they just masters at sniffing out a traitorous Bart Simp-- I mean demon?

May it please the court and that Baked Jallif. I bring you the case of the one shot one kill dm. My buddy had recently gotten engaged and wanted to run a session for his fiancée, future brother in law and a childhood friend. The session was a surprise murder mystery which none of our characters were able to find any clues that were apparently spread in the airship. When we finally found the culprit after 3 hours we began combat with his super cool vampire. In the first round of combat he casted disintegrate on my friend who had waited excitedly the whole game for combat. Judges we were level 5 my friend died and was forced to sit in silence for the rest of the session. We ended up “killing” the vampire which was revealed to still be alive walking out of the ocean after the session ended as it was an important character for his book he was writing. After the session I said it was a bit rough that he killed my friend on the first round of combat, and maybe shouldn’t have done so. Judges he then got mad at me and said I could no longer be his best man at the wedding and we haven’t spoken since. Judges Was i in the wrong for suggesting not to kill a pc in the first round of a one-shot, or did i deserve to be booted from the wedding of this future author of vampire books?

Dear Justices & Tucker's girlfriend's roommate I come to you with a case from a few years back while I was playing in a Rise of Tiamat campegn where I was the fighter. We were in a moment of escaping where we came across a stable of wyverns & were instructed to give animal handling checks since we wanted to ride the away. I proceed to roll 4 Nat 20's with my fighter who had profecency in the skill despite his -1 wisdom since I built him to love animals. I argued that this meant this was now my pet. My DM abjected, assuming I was planning to become some sort of dragon rider. I explained I just wanted to roll play having Goldie as a pet & he eventually relented when I brought up the insane rolls. Justices was I wrong to dragon nap or was Dice Crist on my side? I await your judgement.

To the high crit and their step stool Jake, my DM almost killed a player for having a backstory. The party was going to a graveyard when the DM asked 2 PCs to make saves. They both failed and he described how they were now in the spirit world, he requested they both make Wisdom saves DC 20 (they're lvl 3) both failed and were offered a choice, take a temporary penalty to their Wis Score or Reject it. One player chose to reject and he had her make one Death Save, on a fail he character was dead. Thankfully she succeeded but while this was happening I was asking, do I see this happen, is there something I can do, he told me no, it all happens in a second. After the session on the car ride home he tells me the Lich Phylactory in the crypt we went to is what stunned them, and it did it because their PCs had been in the war, in his world lore, and seen too much death. He then blamed us for not talking to the blacksmith who knew the Phylactory was there. I said to him, doesn't that feel like an unfair gotcha, and he said, I guess. Justices, he does these unfair gotchas all the time, do I fight back or just quit the game?

Ladies and gentleman boys and girls, children of of all ages, I proudly bring to you, The Case of the Prepared spell. This most recent session in a new campaign with my long time (5 year) bi-weekly group, we came upon an outdoor kitchen made for a wizard ogre being ransacked by a few bugbears. Our warlock, with 2 levels of exhaustion, aids he was holding his action to cast Dissonant Whispers on which ever bugbear Obbie (my minature cosmic space titan fighter) attacks. Before my turn came around there was an argument issued about which target was chosen. Which then lead to the argument of preparing to cast a spell on someone that had not walked through a door. Ultimately we went with the DM call and tempers cooled. But what say you benevolant 3(+Jake) about our prepared predicament? We do not play 2024 rules, if that matters 😂

To the esteemed Bailiff Jake(heart emoji), and the delightful Justices, I bring you a case of injured trust. I play as a paladin alongside my friend’s rogue, in a game mostly drawing from the Baldurs Gate 2(2000) ruleset, that’s right, the videogame, no tabletop adaptation(more on this later). Our friend and DM of the game agreed to run the game if we used this system, as he dearly loves BG2 and knows the game well, though I or our other friend have no experience with it. Going into this campaign, I thought that it could be fun to learn an older system, but when I asked my friend DM if we could include Skills from 5e or another edition into this system, he merely responded “Why?”. I’ll be honest I was too stunned to come up with a rebuttal.Later we picked up after a six month break on the first real cliffhanger relevant to my character’s development: a battle between us and several demons that culminated in our narrow victory, and the mortal wounding of my characters love interest. With her last breath she imparted a magic blessing upon me, and the session ended there(to impress the majesty of this moment upon you justices, you should know that Arm’s Wide Open by Creed was playing in the background, and the sun was setting IRL as this happened). Having spent the last six months excited to build upon this story, I was rather crushed when the DM announced that we would be jumping six months ahead in game time, with no mention of the events after our last session, and then narrated us losing all of our items to “fairies” as we slept camped in the woods. We tried to retrieve them by following their trail, but were met with stonewalling, and the campaign ended shortly thereafter with our characters being railroaded into being killed. He then excitedly narrated our new characters backstories, much to our shock. Its been two years since and I am still slightly stung by this. Justices, am I wrong in feeling discouraged from ever playing DnD with my friend again after this, or should I give him another chance. I eagerly await your sage wisdom.

Justices and my most beloved bailiff. I bring you The Case of the “Implied” Virgin Paladin. I was playing a paladin in my first ever D&D game with some work friends and my girlfriend. One session my character was asked about his love life, and the rogue of our party made a joke about my paladin being a virgin. Before I could say anything my girlfriend jumped in and said “he’s a paladin, it’s implied” to resounding applause and laughter. I couldn’t believe it, the person who I thought would be on my side most made me the punching bag of the joke. This then became a running joke that would be brought up and overshadow any serious moment I tried to have going forward. I call the Bailiff Jake to the stand to give his thoughts as a fellow player who had his character, Hardwon Surefoot, constantly razzed by the table about his virginity. Is this critical piece of character lore open to being decided by a goof at the table? I humbly accept your judgement.

Howdy y'all! I bring you the case of the railroaded cannibal. In a game of people I found online through reddit (yeah, yeah, I know but I was desperate), I played a veteran crusader who was haunted by the things he did in the war. I left the details vague, but I established he was cursed by an enemy wizard for his actions. After months of play, the GM ran a one on one "flashback" session with me about my character's time in the war. It was going fine, until the end he narrated how I became cursed. He said that I lost control of my violent urges and started killing and eating people, including children. Justices, I had intended my guy to be haunted, but not, you know, a cannibal. I struggled having to incorporate this surprise backstory revelation in the normal game, and I was never very happy with the new change. I have since left the campaign due to the GM's toxic irl political views, so don't worry Murph, I already got new friends. I know it is wrong to railroad people into being a cannibal, so please sentence my former GM for this crime.

To the wise and judicious justices and bailiff Chafe. I present to the court, the case of the glyph of warding pvp tpk. I am currently DMing an online campaign where Wild Beyond the Witchlight leads into Vecna: Eve of Ruin. My group is amazing and it’s by far the silliest campaign I’ve ran so far. However, our Tortle Wizard has slowly transformed from mild mannered Neutral Good magician, to a Chaotic Evil loot hoarding monster. One such scheme he concocted was using all his left over spell slots every session to fill his book with volatile glyph of warding spells. The trouble started when the wizard attuned to the eye of Vecna, he immediately used the ring of x-ray vision to try and look under the Tiefling Sorcerer’s clothes. It seems the Sorceress expected something like this, as they immediately used disguise self to switch their token to some AI slop of their character with the wizard players face pasted on the head. The wizard player did not take kindly to this, unleashing his nuclear bomb book on the entire party while he hid himself and his NPC hireling in a leomunds tiny hut spell. So, justices, I come seeking advice. Am I wrong for letting the turtle TPK the party and unleash his book? Or should he have thought twice before switching up on his day ones?

To the honorable justices Emily Axford, Mr Emily Axford, Emily Axford's friend, and the temp hire bailiff that Emily Axford found on fiverr I bring to you the case of the mute monk. I (a pretty inexperienced dm) wrote a Bridgerton inspired Star Wars 5e one shot for my group and have been *vert* excited to run it. I've given my players basically free reign with character creation as the one shot has a very comic book hand wavy reason characters from any time period will be allowed, but asked that everyone have a reason to network or socialize. The problem is one of my players had the idea to be a mute monk, not someone speaking only telepathically or even a Droid making beeping sounds, just mute. I just don't see how that can be played effectively over a voice only discord session and going "I smiled" or "I point over there" seems like it'd get old quickly so I immediately said no. She accepted but I could tell she was upset because the character was an old oc of hers that she was looking forward to playing. Was I being insensitive in not letting a character have that disability? Did I in my inexperience not have enough trust in her as a role player? Or did I make the right call?

Holy emissaries of dice christ, I bring to you a confession of future crime and divine intervention. Our party was beset by many foes in what would have been a deadly encounter. Half of us wanted to flee, but I wanted to fight. We were positioned perfectly for a Firewall to completely solve the encounter, a fact that I chose to keep to myself. So we decided to fight and roll initiative. I rolled a 2, which would mean the enemies would all reposition. Now, the die I used had japanese numerals, that only I could read. I have never lied about a roll before or since, but with all our lives on the line I heard the siren song of the dice devil in my ear. I was prepared to announce my "21", when suddenly a bell rang out. It was our food order. Over dinner we decided to solve the encounter with diplomacy after all, but my sin that wasn't still lingers on my soul.

May it please the court, its noble justices and the horrible stankman bailiff. (The rest of this case was written *after* opposite day). I present to you the case of the failed backstory plot and the weird nat 1 rules. I am playin a 3.5 game with my (still in good terms) ex-stepfather who is the DM and friends from LARP. It is the first time in a few years since I have played with my stepfather and he is the one who has introduced me to Dnd and roleplay when I was 14. Since then, I have played with a few groups and have been super enjoying Dnd shows like you guys. The problem? I have come to realise that my stepdad is honestly a terrible DM. He simply lacks the ability to improvise at the table and cannot DM anything other than a pre-written module without any possibility to include character backstories or flavor. I have tried to help him improve by forcing him to improvise scenes with me that I know could not possibly be written in the module. Usually, there is nothing to do except a very specific objective and/or killing everything in a dungeon. Slowly thoughout this current campaign, I hinted more backstory from my character, about how his father was the king's champion (sort of like a kingsguard) and was struck down defending the king during a trial by combat by an Ogre warlord. He seemed very enthusiastic to start adding small details about these lore-drops, like suddenly making the raiders of a nearby village the lackeys of this warlord. I was really into it. It wasn't much, but I was happy he was making progress. Last session, we were hunting down those lackeys into a dwarven ruin where they were hiding. It was a classic dungeon where we just have to kill everything. You can imagine my surprise when we opened a door and there sat the Ogre warlord. Not in a big room, on a throne and as the boss of a tribe of orcs, minotaurs, ogres and trolls. Just a guy in a room. We quickly defeated him in a few rounds. The worst part? I missed almost the whole fight because he plays with weird nat 1 rules where you roll on a table of "mishaps". The specific number I rolled left me stunned for 2 rounds and I was only able to secure the finishing blow because of the slight meta-game from my fellow players who held back, because they felt pity for my situation. I was visibly butt-hurt for the whole fight and was distant for the rest of the session, but kept going because I didn't want to make a scene and because I was two of the three other players' ride home. Judges, am I right to think I should leave this campaign and possibly hurt my step-father's feelings? He has been DM-ing for over 30 years and has that kind of "DM vs. players" mindset and doesn't seem to make progress towards real storytelling. He also does not have a very good grasp of the game system, sometimes flat out refusing to do things by the book because we often overcome stuff simply by using the rules

To the 90s rad justices and my brother bailiff jake we should smash some bud heavys some time May it please the cort have listened to the podcast for years and have wanted to play for a long time I played my first game recently it was just me and a dm pc I was a level 1 dwaf warlock and in the first encounter of the first session the first enemy almost one shot me this continued and i just managed to pass the encounter though out the entire thing the dm pc did nothing justices was i wamped by my dm in my fist encounter or did I do something wrong p.s it was a AI dm

To the glorious and effervescent justices, and the bailiff, I think it was jork, I present to you the Nat-20 Nepotism Scandal. During covid my friend and I started getting into how to play dnd (much help from NADDPOD), obviously we could only play over discord at that time but as restrictions lessened up we started looking for our first in person game. Fast forward we find one, make characters, and are super pumped to finally play in person, that was until we went to the first session. In the game was myself, my friend, two other random players, the dm, and his girlfriend; this is where the problems started. We started at lvl 3 which is typical, however the dm’s girlfriend had not one but two lvl 5 characters with magic items and feats from another home game. At first I was not too bothered but as we started playing it was obvious the story was meant to have her as the main character with everyone else as supporting cast. Once again as a first time in person player I was not too bothered just because I wanted to play so bad, however what finally got to me is when I realized she had completely stopped rolling to do anything and was proclaiming NAT 20s and damage that were supposedly rolled before it was her turn in combat because “she knew what she was going to do on her turn.” We didn’t want to be accusatory but we noticed this kept up encounter after encounter for a few weeks, ultimately taking away all of the stakes with the game. So we brought it up to the DM and he said he lets her get away with those things because she has a lot going on personally and he is only dming to bring her some joy so we could either like it or not. We chose not to like it and my friend and I completely ghosted them and finally convinced our friends to play with us starting up our group that still plays together today. But I ask Justices, should we have given them the benefit of the doubt or were we right to leave the game and ghost them? P.S. One of the girlfriend’s characters was a mute, that could only telepathically talk to her other character because they had a psychic link that was formed when they were younger allowing them to take actions on each other's turns basically giving each of her characters two actions and bonus action per round.

To the Honorable Justices and the worm bailiff, Lowly - I present the case of the Marvel Menace. In the early days of our playgroup one of us wanted to try DMing for the first time with just me running two PCs. The practice session was fun and I agreed to another. What I didn’t know was that the DM invited a second player to the next session. I was nervous because my two characters were parodies of Marvel characters - funny for a one shot but far from what I would typically play in a full campaign. Of course, the new player comes in with Thor and Black Widow and a full campaign ensues. From there things only got worse as the second player created exclusively Marvel characters for all subsequent campaigns, one shots, and mini arcs in our larger play group. These PCs have not been well received at the table as we tend to play typical medieval high-fantasy adventures. Judges, I ask you - who must bear the blame for this superhero epidemic that has been going on six years now? Is it the second player for forcing his superhero fantasy into our forgotten realms, is it the new but overly permissive DM that enabled us, 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.

To the esteemed justices Axeford, Murphy, and Tanner, and in reverence to the spirits of all past justices: Beardsley, Cartwright, Cobb, Daymond, Farek, Iyengar, LaPetit, Nwadiwe, Oyama, Radford, Shankar, Thompson, Wilson, and Yaffe, I come with an appeal on the rulings of the lower court, and beg for your wise counsel. If it pleases the court, I will be representing myself as the DM in this case, I run a space cyberpunk campaign where one of my PCs has a cybernetic metal arm and leg. During combat they were grappled, and not being strong enough to confidently escape, asked if they could cast heat metal on their own arm. I allowed it, and the grappler took fire damage, failed a con save and dropped the object (aka the PC) ending the grapple as the player hoped. The issue arises in that I stated the player also had to take fire damage, and would have disadvantage in subsequent rounds, seeing as how they are “wearing” their own arm and unable to drop it. They objected, claiming that they could choose to cause damage on subsequent turns and should be unaffected if they did not, while still being able to have the spell available for the remainder of the fight. We debated and ultimately my ruling stood, they took fire damage from the initial casting and dropped concentration as a free action as soon as the grapple ended to avoid any further repercussions. Play continued amicably, nobody got broken up with, virtual tables remained unflipped, but I submit myself to the mercy of the court to review my judgement and punish me if needed. I ask in advance for leniency for the player should you rule in my favor, they do not need to be punished severely, they are a great player and also listen to the show so just an official proclamation that I was right is enough. Thank you for your time and may the three of you thrive in the light of our savior Dice Christ.

To the dear delightful justices and dubiously diligent bailiff George, I present the case of “Shit, I Just Gave My Players A Hydra.” I am a college senior who has been DM-ing a homebrew campaign for my four friends this school year. A few weeks ago, they finished a tough dungeon and I gave them invisibility cloak as loot. The cloak uses the rules of the 2nd level invisibility spell (action to become invisible, stay invisible until you attack or cast a spell) This past friday, my players were attending a meeting of major religious leaders. One of the leaders had been replaced by a changeling, who had a hydra in an iron flask (for those who don’t know — basically a dnd pokeball) that he was going to release into the meeting to attack everyone. The Druid decided to cast pass without trace on herself and enter in an invisibility cloak. Through some really good stealth rolls by her and failed perception checks by the changeling, she managed to steal the flask and escape unnoticed. So, now my players have a CR 8 monster trapped in an iron flask AND they skipped the cool encounter I had prepped. They don’t yet know what it is, but justices, how do I proceed? Will my next encounter be screwed as well? Should I never have introduced this in the first place? I humbly await your advice and/or punishment.

Soupreme Justices and the one named Jock. My party is currently running the Never Stop Blowing Up system for Avatar the last Airbender. We are all new to the system, and our DM to DMing. The story takes place in an alternate timeline where Aang is long dead and the world is waiting for a new fire nation Avatar. Here lies the issue. The avatar revealed to our group was an infant. This lead to our party seeking full isolation outside of Omashu to protect and raise the child. For this time jump, our DM prompted us to share birthday party ideas as each year passed while sprinkling in geopolitical news. This resulted in a 5 hour session of just birthday party ideas where the child turned a mere 6 years old. During the session one member fell fully asleep for the last two hours and another was playing GTA V. Everyone seems to be enjoying themselves otherwise and we have had some good combat encounters since. But I ask, Noble Justices, should our DM be dragged through the razzberry patch for putting us through 6 consecutive birthdays across 5 hours, or should I simply find new friends?

To the noble and benevolent judges plus Mark, I bring you a story where I think I may be the villain, and if so I await my just punishment. For context we played remotely and had a first time DM. After months of trying to put a pathfinder campaign together, finally one was organized. In our first couple sessions things went well, but a little slowly due to a couple players whose characters would argue over the morality of pretty much anything we encountered. We were all just happy to finally be playing since it had been years since a few of us had gotten the chance. However, by the time of the 4th or 5th session these arguments were getting really time consuming. Finally, after a random encounter with a couple bandits, these two players ended up arguing for almost 3 real life hours (more than half the session) about whether the remaining bandits could be killed or if we would have to trek all the way back to a town and hand them over to guards. We were at least 2 sessions of exploring removed from the last town we had been to. Multiple players left the chat and periodically returned to see if the argument had resolved, players were messaging each other about how bored they were. In character I repeatedly attempted to interject but to no avail, and this is where I feel a bit guilty. After a certain point I just decided to fireball the remaining bandits so we could get on with the game. The player who felt we should’ve taken them with us became upset and left, and the campaign did not have another session after this. Judges, am I at fault for blowing up this campaign, or was it doomed from the start?

To the judges of the highest Crit in all the land and jake, May it please the court, I come before you today with a "simple" question: how flexible are dragon necks? Our party fought a young white dragon after trying to harvest ice from an iceberg to make ice wine; it turns out the iceberg was its lair... Oops. As a Goliath Monk, my character doesn't have many ranged attacks, so I used my "Large Form" to grow to large size and my "Cloud Giant Ancestry" to "Cloud's Jaunt" (basically misty step) onto the dragon's neck behind its head, grappling it. Due to a terrible strength check from the dragon, it worked! It fell from the sky, and everyone got some good hits in before it flung me off. I tried again, and after another terrible roll, it worked! At that point, the dragon used its breath weapon on me despite being on its neck, which immediately brought me to zero HP (we were only level 5). But it made me wonder, how was it that the dragon was able to use its breath weapon when I was positioned behind its head? Just to clarify, I didn't push back on it. The fight was a lot of fun, and I’ve been lucky enough to find some strangers online I enjoy playing with and a great DM, but we're about to face another dragon in our next session, and I'm going to give it another shot. I'm just curious how you, the magnanimous justices, would rule, and if jake has an opinion, that's fine too!

To the croissantly justices and bailiff Cake Horwitz, I bring you the case of the Lackadaisical Level-Up. I have been DMing various groups online for 5 years now and have been yearning to get an in-person game together to get that classic D&D experience. I've been lucky enough to cobble together a group of 4 PCs made up of my wife's friends and their spouses (my wife doesn't want to play and that's fine). They are all new to D&D but are avid gamers and genuinely seem excited to play, even investing in dice and leather bound note books. My issue is that one couple seems to be struggling with the manual nature of D&D when it comes to leveling up. They were supposed to level up to level 2 two sessions ago but haven't seemed bothered to learn how to do it. I have sent them resources and offered to help. Before each game they say they will finish leveling up but when they arrive they are still level 1. I offer to help level them up during the game but they say not to worry about it and they will just do it before our next game. In the upcoming game I expect the party should reach level 3 right before this arch's mini BBEG fight. I have given them advanced warning and asked they come prepared with level 3 character sheets to help keep the game moving, but honestly I don't know if I should just take it upon myself make up character sheets for them or be prepared with a nerfed BBEG. I get the feeling it bothers the other couple who come prepared, enthusiastic and want to enjoy the game with a properly levelled party. I beg the justices for their wisdom and will humbly accept the blame and punishment if I have let down this party.

To the judicial embodiments of Jupiter, Saturn, and Venus, and the bailiff who’s kind of like Pluto: I bring you a case about the spell “command.” In a session recently, I cast the spell command, and upon the failed save, I used the single word “defenestrate.” We were in a very tall tower, and complying with the command would have killed our CR 10 bg without issue. However, the DM (my brother) ruled that this would cause the bg to try and knock one of us out the window. I ask the justices to rule this horseshit. Commanding someone to “grovel” doesn’t require an indication of who should be groveling . The spell assumes that it is the commanded entity who has to perform the action. This was a fun battle and there were no hard feeling. Nonetheless I demand justice ( and a heavy punishment)

Dear Mighty Morphin Justices and the left hallux of the Zord, Balif Jake. This is a case about the legal precedent of spell descriptions. My party got into a fight on a moving train. The person they were fighting stole a magical book off of one of the party members and was attempting to flee with the book. The thief cast fly on themselves, moved 10 feet to the train door then jumped out the door and flew 50 feet away. At the top of the round, the train moved 20 feet in the opposite direction, making the thief 70 feet away from the party. On the next turn, one of my players cast Command, and chose the Approach option to try and stop the thief from getting away. The description of this spell is as follows: Approach: The target moves toward you by the shortest and most direct route, ending its turn if it moves within 5 feet of you. Reading through all of the options for command, I noticed that most of them (Drop, grovel and halt) all specify that the target either uses an action, or ends their turn after the command, except for Approach, which only ends their turn if they get within 5 feet of the caster. The thief used their 60 feet of flying to approach and ended 10 feet away from the caster, then used their action to toss the stolen book to another thief who had been hidden on the roof of the train the whole time (high stealth checks, all above board) My party protested, saying that he shouldn’t be able to use his action to throw the book My party argued that the fact that the other options all consume the creatures actions shows that the same should happen with Approach. I argued the opposite, since other options explicitly say they use an action and Approach does not. Am I wrong for sticking to the RAW spell description? Should I have rule of cool’d this idea or should my players have just picked a different command?

Dearest Justices, I offer the case of Lex Benadryl and the wasted wild shapes.

Esteemed judges and bailiff, Juice: I bring to you the case of the Disarmed DM. My very first campaign brought me some hardship through character building, as it's intimidating the first time, and I was joining in a campaign late. The DM graciously helped me build a level 5 character. To start, he asked me what I wanted to be, and I told him that all I really care about is dual wielding. Ranger interested me most, so I went with that. He told me "Rangers are pretty underpowered, so I'll give you some things to help you keep up." Well, he ended up giving me two +3 katanas to dual wield pretty early on. Needless to say, my character was insanely strong. After a few sessions, my DM decided he wanted to "nerf me" and ripped my character's arm off in a cutscene (no rolls). I was devastated, not only could I no longer dual wield, but my feats didn't even work anymore because I needed to dual wield to get the +1 AC. After the session, he assured me opportunities would present themself to get my arm back, like greater restoration from a high level NPC or something. Judges, it's been 3 years and I'm still running around Oppa Commander Erwin Style. Judges, was this nerf justified? Should I have tried harder to have fun with my crippled character? I leave myself at your mercy.

To the honorable justices and their pet rat of a bailif, I present to you the case of flavor gone wrong. There we were, battling in a sinking ship. The entire bottom level was already filled with water while we were escaping. Having to fight hoards of pirates on the way up. My paladin was up a floor fighting while another player was down below, trying to rescue someone. On my turn, I finish a pirate and the DM asks "How do you do this?" I just said I run him through and kick him down below, just for flavor. He then goes "Oh, that's where they're climbing up!" despite it being like a 15 ft square opening, the DM decided the enemy would land on them, causing them to fall. This was a failed death save for the person they were rescuing and made me feel like an asshole. We did manage to get them out without any deaths. However, to this day even years later I NEVER flavorfully describe my kills to this DM even years later. Tell me justices, was the DM in the right for having consequences for just flavorfully describing a kill? Or should they have just harmlessly went down to Davy Jones' locker?

To specifically the Justices Emily, Brian, and Tanner. Un-specifically, Jake. Love the Substack. I bring you a case that my wife continues to talk about to this day. While playing through an Adventure Path we came across a trap in the middle of a sandy desert area. At the bottom, in the middle of a set of dunes, was a mirror. I stated that I would approach it first. As I did I saw my reflection and lost control of my character who started attacking the party. They were quickly subdued by the others. Being more cautious, my wife stated she wanted to approach it from a side where she wasn't reflected in the mirror. The DM, my brother, had the same thing happen to her. Also, quickly subdued. In the end, only one of our party was left and was able to break the enchantment by knocking it on it's back so it faced the sky. The trap was described to us later that it was "swapping us with an evil version of our characters while trapping our characters in the mirror dimension". The DM told us that this was one of the "Total Party Kill" traps the book put in front of us, and was afraid it might happen. The trigger was seeing yourself in the mirror. My wife believes she provided a way to counter this trap, and at least believes she should have been given some sort of roll to not be affected. I had forgotten about this until she brought it up, though we had been playing up to a year when this occurred. Should there have been a roll to avoid this trap, was my wife's approach enough, or are there sometimes just things that you can't avoid?

To the esteemed justices and , I bring the case of shagadelic scheduling. For years, I have been running an online campaign for a group of friends. They are all wonderful players who are super invested in my world, but due to our differing schedules and timezones, I have had to do a lot of rescheduling and rewriting around player absences throughout that time. When my players finally reached a major plot reveal and climactic battle I had been building towards for the past four years and 100+ sessions, I took my ONLY planned hiatus from DMing, since I needed more time to plan the final parts of the campaign. I assumed everyone would appreciate a break from having to jump through scheduling hoops, and also maybe some time to consider how their characters would react to the recent huge story developments, including the sudden death of a party member. Judges, I was sorely mistaken. After I announced there would be no sessions for a bit, my players continued to convene at the regular time for not one, not two, but three consecutive weeks-- a feat I had only managed to successfully schedule a handful of times. Their reasons for doing so were, of course, so they could watch all three Austin Powers movies together. Which they did. Justices, am I right in being a little offended that the international man of mystery is a better schedule-clearing motivation than my actual campaign? Or do I just need to accept that my DMing simply isn't shagadelic enough? I humbly await your ruling.

To the omnipotent justices and deacons of dice christ and that other guy jort: I present the case of the DM in need of dice christ. My wife and I are currently playing through a very fun strahd campaign with friends we met online. Since we all play online, most of us roll on dnd beyond so others can see the rolls. The DM however always rolls physical dice. There have been many super convenient moments for rolls for the DM, such as frequently hitting for just one over someone's AC or spell save. These typically come in moments when we are doing well in a fight. Conversely, when things start to look bad in fight, suddenly no bad guys can hit and start failing saves. My wife and I have complained a few times to each other about this, but since the campaign has otherwise been a blast, we've chosen to ignore the kinda blatant lying about rolls. This came to head last session, when fighting baba lysaga. We managed to take out baba lasagna in just one round. Our DM was visibly annoyed that we did this and kept saying how much Cool stuff she wasnt going to get to do now because we killed her too fast. Mind you, we were all below half health because of her cloud kill spell and her creeping hut was still attacking us. A few characters managed to get inside the hut and disable it. While others were doing the disabling, our warlock got a nat 20 investigation check to find loot. He was told he saw a chest in the room so he tried to open it. The chest was trapped and an explosion went off and some spider hand things appeared. The explosion dropped our cleric and paladin (my wife's character) leaving just the warlock and monk in the room (my bard, calliope was too far away with ezmerelda to make it inside the hut on my turn). During the spider hands turn, instead of attacking the living characters who were actively attacking them, our DM informed us that they would instead attack one of the downed characters based on a luck check. The DM then rolled this check on their desk and informed us the spider hand would be attacking my wife's paladin, who had just failed a death save (the cleric had passed her first one). The DM then rolled the hit with advantaged, and would you believe it, rolled exactly one above the Paladin's AC, permanently killing her character. My wife was obviously pissed and immediately logged off the zoom call without saying anything because she didn't want to say something she'd regret. I quickly left to check on her and the session just disbanded after that. Now the party is split. 2 players just kinda want my wife to apologize and move on, but my wife and I and one other player all agree we should have a little more visibility to the DMs rolls in such high stakes moments. My wife and the DM have a call scheduled tonight to talk things out, but are we wrong for wanting more clarity on rolls? Or should we have just sucked it up to avoid all the drama? I humbly await your judgment, but please only punish me, not my wife if we are found guilty. Shes dealing with enough lol.

To the ever-wholesome justices and the deeply unacceptable bailiff: I ask you to weigh in on my DM’s mid-battle statblock changes. Last session my party and I were in the midst of a classic D&D quest: fighting one of our dads. The dad in question was an evocation wizard. Earlier in the session, when we had broken into his tacky mansion, my Hollow One druid cast Conjure Woodland Beings in the hopes of eventually performing the Moonshine Cybin special (which is, of course, using 8 pixies to attempt Polymorph 8 times in a row to turn a bad guy into a dolphin). Their spell save DC is only 12, and the wizard had a +10 to Wisdom saves, so he needed a natural one for it to work. He rolled a nat 1 for pixie #4. My DM announced that he would burn a legendary resistance, and the Moonshine Cybin special ultimately failed. Three rounds later, we had been placed under arrest, and our party will start the next session in prison. Our DM hung out for a while after the session (my husband and I host, since we have a 3-month old baby). The DM admitted that the wizard DID NOT originally have legendary resistances on his stat block, and that they had added them after rolling the nat 1 because we were supposed to lose the battle and go to prison to start the next arc. I didn’t protest in the moment, but am I wrong to feel a little mad? I don’t know how to feel about battles going forward if our DM already knows how they are “supposed to” play out. I look forward to the court’s ruling and hope to see y’all again whenever you’re back in Chicago! - Jenna PS, my husband and I adopted a dog last year and named her Moonshine, because she is also a Southern sweetie who doesn’t understand personal space.

To the ecclesiastical excellencies of Dice Christ and the littlest altar-boy, I come seeking absolution, not for myself, but for my 7-month old baby. My wife and I welcomed our first child into the world last summer. We put our long-running campaign (that I DM) on hold while we navigated having a newborn, but recently have chosen to pick it up again. We hosted a little kick-off and baby meet'n'greet to talk logistics with the other players, and one brought a set of big colorful foam dice as a gift for the baby. Delighted, we opened up and let the little one roll "stats" by picking up the d20, chewing it and dropping it, all while we clapped. Distinguished clergy, the kid rolled WELL. 2 Nat 20s, 3 over 15, and a Nat 1. We laughed, marveled at the rolls, and did our thing while the baby chewed on the d4. It wasn't until a few weeks later, picking up toys, that I realized the d20 was actually a spin-down; all the high numbers grouped on one side, low numbers on the other. The stats weren't "rolled", so much as "dropped", and while I know none of these matter as stats, I worry for my child's immortal soul because their first rolls were not with a true d20. Please, I implore you, absolve my child of the sins of the father, and wipe the slate clean. Permit their first roll, high or low, to be with a true d20. Dice Christ be praised!

To the honorable spud judges and Strahd simp Jake, I present the case of "Too Many Rolls" Our party is doing a silly universe-hopping campaign and our DM enjoys creating dice-rolling games in place of mechanics. It's fun but can also be confusing since there are usually different rulesets for the different games. One session, a few hours and dice games in, we had another for a singing contest. I and my friend had missed what dice had to be rolled...or maybe how many? But not wanting to bog down session more than necessary, during my turn I improvized and rolled whatever dice seemed right and shouted my totals until I succeeded. But my friend, ever the honest one, spoke up midway during her turn to admit she had been rolling the wrong dice. Our DM thanked her for being honest, and then proceeded to punish her character, nerfing them for the rest of the day in-universe (think: losing the use of your hands). She got upset and mentally checked out for the rest of the session; our DM didn't notice the shift but our characters lightly razzed her in-game to keep her engaged. She later expressed her disappointment to us players and since then it's been hard to care about these dice games anymore. We acknowledge the effort our DM is putting in for us to have fun, but it seemed like it shouldn't have been that serious. Judges, did my DM go too far in punishing them for an honest mistake? Should players who admit fault still suffer when we've forgotten a rule? And am I the asshole for not also admitting I was rolling wrong? I lay our fate to take root in your fertile wine fields, and pray that WinterSplinter does not take us this day.

To the unknowable justices and the could-stand-to-know-you-less bailiff, I present the case of babysitting the 5th grade chaos gremlin through PVP. I recently played a one-shot held at a local bookstore, advertised as a spooky adventure of hikers getting lost in the forests of Appalachia, with pre-made character sheets. Imagine my surprise when I arrive and, in a table of 8 adults, there is one 5th grader with his mom. I was immediately concerned, but I thought, hey, let's give the kid a chance. Well, justices, it should not surprise you to learn that a 10-year-old had trouble sitting at a table of strange adults in a realistic setting for 4 hours. The DM (and the mom) really tried, but the kid's response to most situations boiled down to "I shoot it" or "I set in on fire". Everyone at the table tried to be good sports about it, and the session went... fine, if not exactly what was advertised. But my question actually comes from one of the few things that kind of worked in focusing the kid, which I have mixed feelings about. No one wanted to step too hard on the kid's agency, even though in game he was playing a full adult waving a gun around wildly at grandmas. But at one point, the bard asked the DM if she could roll to persuade the maniac to give her the gun. The DM was clearly conflicted, but allowed the roll, and the bard rolled high. Well, justices, the kid rolled a nat 20 to resist. The DM, in a Herculean effort to get things on track, narrated that the kid got to keep his gun, but that his character was persuaded that everyone needed to vote before he shot it again. This actually did work for a time, and the kid started to engage better with the game. But justices, again, this was a 4-hour session with no other children, and eventually he started acting up more. I have to admit, I ended up leaving before the session ended, which was a shame because the DM really was doing her best to tell an exciting story. Justices, I ask you: who was in the wrong here, and what should have been done? Obviously an age expectation should have been set beforehand, but failing that, if you're in this situation as a DM or a player trying to support the DM, what can you do? If you determine the players should have done more, I'm fully prepared to accept your punishment, which I know will be appropriate and just.

To the most honorable supreme crit justices and bailiff Jake (I don’t care what they say about you). I’m (first time) DMing a campaign set in the Doomed Forgotten Realms (setting where all published modules have failed and the big bads won). I asked my Paladin player if there was a specific god he wanted to follow - he told me Bane, the embodiment and face of pure evil and despotism. I said no, and that I wasn’t allowing evil aligned players at my table. Did I take away the player’s agency? He didn’t specifically say he would be evil-aligned but I could not find a way to distinguish a follower of the god of pure evil and an evil-aligned character.

To the honorable Justices and the Bailiff Jake, who I don’t respect, I present the case of the rope trick robbery. I was playing in a one-shot (the one with the rat gods) that ended with a PVP competition to win entrance to Heaven+, a premium afterlife. We had to find an unbreakable barrel on an island full of barrels and grab the Heaven+ gift card out of it in order to win. After the barrel was found, I grabbed it and climbed up a rope trick and pulled the rope up. It took 2 actions to open the barrel and then grab the gift card, so on the first turn I opened up the barrel and waited for the next round. One of the other players directed a kraken, which had followed us onto the island and had been attacking all of us, toward the area of the invisible portal in the sky in a last ditch effort to stop me. My brother, who was DMing, had the kraken use all of its movement to get directly under the portal, then said that it made a grapple attack with its tentacle through the portal, rolling to see whether it attacked me, another player that I had charmed, the open barrel, or just the air. I argued that it shouldn’t be able attack inside the portal because it wasn’t inside the portal and attacks can’t pass through rope tricks portal. He ruled that it could attack because he thought you would be able to punch someone through the portal even if you couldn’t shoot them. He rolled a 1 on a d100, which resulted in the barrel being grabbed and yanked out of the portal. I attempted to save my plan by saying that the gift card might fly out of the barrel when it was yanked. My brother agreed, but gave it better odds to come out outside of the portal than inside. The card ended up falling out outside of the portal, letting the next player in initiative walk up and easily grab the card to win. Did my brother make the correct ruling by allowing the kraken’s attack, or was I robbed of my well-planned victory?

Dear Most Illustrious Justices… and Jort is it? I need a ruling on a spell, water walking to be specific. We were playing in a pirate campaign where we had to find the hidden relics of the previous pirate queen to become the new rulers of the sea. We had a great time but got into a deep discussion when trying to escape a cliff cave from a rival captain. We tried to run out onto the ocean using water walking but our DM said “The surf was too choppy and therefore it would be difficult terrain” and we would have to make acrobatics checks to successfully walk across the water or otherwise fall over and potentially in. Justices, is this fair? We now rule that any body of water that is not fully placid requires extra checks is using water walking. Help us decide is this is the true interpretation of the spell. We most humbly bow to your wisdom.

To the honorable Justices and he who does not merit mentioning, I present the case of the barrel rider. I was playing in a one-shot (the one with the rat gods) that ended with a PVP competition to win entrance to Heaven+, a premium afterlife. We had to find an unbreakable barrel on an island full of barrels and grab the Heaven+ gift card out of it in order to win. After the barrel was found, I grabbed it and began climbing a rope trick with it under one arm. When I was one turn away from reaching the portal at the top, one of the other players attempted to misty step up to me. More specifically, he wanted to misty step onto the barrel, hoping that the extra weight would cause me to drop it. My brother, who was DMing, initially ruled that I would need to make a strength save to hold onto the barrel, and then the other player would make an acrobatics check to stay on the barrel if I held on successfully. After some further deliberation, he decided to reverse the order of the rolls, citing that the misty stepping player might just immediately fall off and make it easier for me to hold the barrel. He failed his check and fell off, which resulted in me having to hit a lower DC on my save due to only having to withstand the initial impact rather than having to hold a whole person’s weight continuously. I succeeded my save and was able to make it into the portal and pull up the rope on my next turn. The other player initially argued that he shouldn’t have needed to make a check to stay on the barrel because he teleported directly onto the barrel and that I was unable to move out of turn. My brother cited that he might fall due to the rope moving drastically at the fulcrum point of my grip, causing me and the barrel to tip because of the extra weight. The player then argued that my save shouldn’t have been easier even though he fell off, but was overruled due to the original justification for the lower DC. For the record, I rolled higher than the higher DC anyway, so the lower DC didn’t even matter. I’m glad things worked out for me, but did my brother make the correct rulings, or was the other player robbed of his cool moment?

To the well-informed, well-read, studious judges and the smelly little pee baby bailiff James, I present the case of the apathetic party member. The party took a job from the bounty board to find a missing cat for a resident of the inner city district (rich neighborhood.) The reward was, "name your price." When it became clear the owner was not that wealthy and his sister-in-law made the listing, the party worked out a deal for free food. The fighter took off to get supplies as the monk got into harmless banter with the establishment's rival across the street., who eventually noticed he was a half-orc, of which the snooty rich people labeled as monsters, and called the guards. The fighter being the only one in a position to help, walked off acting like he didn't know the monk. Later, the party questioned the fighter's choice to let the monk be attacked by corrupt guards, to which he said the monk deserved it. After we wrapped, the players kept debating each other's actions well into the night. I ask you, judges (and I guess James) for your earnest ruling. Was the monk wrong to show his face, knowing what the people of that district thought of orcs, should the fighter have helped his party member, or is this my fault for having NPCs react in such a way?

(Disclaimer) this is not a confession nor a case To the honored jake and the other guys also ismurph is cool I beleive i have been cursed though i dont know why dice christ would do such a thingI was playing in an amazing homebrew homegame it was modified to be simpler but a few months after i had joined the group it disbanded i Had spent about a month making a charecter because i was new and Was partialy busy it also took awhile for me to actualy join as someone had to leave first eventialy i got in but like i said the group disbanded so i was kind of dissapointed but then i was able to join a group at my school it was great but once again it disbanded a few days later and i was confused as there was no argument we all just stopped playing over time so im now thinking i may have been cursed justices please give me advise to lift my curse

To the sinfully sexy vicars of Dice Christ, I come to ask for graceful absolution… i recently tried to get my new GF to play D&D with me by getting and DMing a couples date night pre made module which I am DMing, in our first combat, our party (2 PCs and 2 NPCs) were being walloped by undead, her character got knocked out and was doing DSR… since I didn’t want her first D&D experience to be a TPK I ended up fudging some of the enemies HP by a couple points and adding one or two healing potions, to our characters inventories, which led to a very romantic bring back to life scene mid fight, we won and everyone was happy… yet I feel I should still ask for forgiveness as I wouldn’t usually go against the dice commandments, I might have sinned in order to D&D rizz my GF’s PC and abuse my power as DM, but I just wanted her to enjoy the game as much as I do… I’ll accept my penance gracefully

Dearest Clergy of Dice Christ. I write to you with a confession, i am playing in a long running game with my best friends and my husband. My husband is playing a warlock named Hal lelujah praise-alot (Hal for short) and I a Paladin named Blair. We were playing one night and our party was about to be TPK'd. Now, before this, we were in a hallway and I casted a fire bolt at him because he was being a dick. We where fighting a smoke dragon ans two of the players were already down and my husband was at 10 hp. Me being very beefy was doing okay but we all needed to escape through a black hole. All of a sudden my husband goes down getting hit with the EXACT amount of hp I hit him for previously. He would have stayed up if i didnt hit him before. Now for some context, our characters playfully hate each other, like full on despise each other. At this point I'm panicking, not knowing what to do. Im 30 feet away from him and can't get to him in time without taking an opportunity attack. In a fit of joy, I realized I have the spell aid, which can be casted from 30 feet away. I proceed to cast the spell he proceeds to get up and make it through the black hole. Here's where it gets bad, and I will take any punishment or penalty you thrust upon me... i didn't realize I didn't have an open spell slot I was completely out of spells. When I realized it, it was about five minutes later and I said nothing. From this point our characters only hate each other more and mending that has been difficult, i prostrate myself in the name of the church. Thank you for your wisdom

Good day, and may it please the Supreme Crit and also that unpaid intern dude that hangs around you guys, Jorsh or something dumb like that. I bring you the case of “The Smitten Paladin.” An unfortunate event occurred during the final battle with a big bad guy in what was a standard fare heist oneshot. My “friend” James, playing as a warforged Paladin named Junkbot, got charmed by an Incubus and politely asked far too eagerly, “Shall I Divinely Smite him, Master?” while turning to face my poor himbo Barbarian named Hurricane. Junkbot hit twice with his sword and used both of his highest level spell slots to Divine Smite me, after which my PC dropped unconscious, leading to our party TPK’ing immediately afterwards. Justices, I beseech thine most discerning of deliberations. Was this Incubus-smitten Paladin within his right to savagely smite my himbo or should they have toned it down a couple notches? I await your most shrewd and sangfroid of sentences. P.S. - To my ‘friend’ James, “Fuck you, I love you, eat a rat.”

Dear Justices/Members of the Clergy and Cake, Not a case but a simple secret that i have carried with me for years. I have never played D&D. I’ve listened to every episode but have not sought out a group of my own. Can i truly say i have a love of the game?

To the honorable Justices and …… I’m sorry that’s actually everyone, I present the case of the NPC that Ended my Campaign. As a new DM, I had created an adventure for two players (my roommates) and I asked one of my players to come up with a NPC he grew up with - to be a permanent NPC for the party - the said player (my cousin) did not end up getting back to me even tho I consistently reminded him. I even made the NPC a Dwarf since my cousin was raised by Dwarves (Hardwon style) The session arrived where I planned to have the NPC jump in and assist the party after they touched a magical object with a curse to make the user go berserk. I had the NPC jump in and assist with defusing the situation and when I told my cousin this was one of his childhood friends (that I gave a name because he didn’t give me anything) he got very upset out of game because I was “writing his story for him” - the campaign ended the next session because of the turmoil. So honorable justices I ask you: Was I right in creating an NPC after no response was received or should I have made it a more generic NPC after no response was given? I am at the mercy of your court and accept whatever decision the honorable court deems. PS - this was the first small campaign I ever DM’d and I didn’t do a lot of things right but I thought this situation was slightly overreacted.

Hello O Righteous Judges and also that guy that was in a skit with famous rapper Zohran Mamdani. I am having a slight disagreement with my players. I have one player that believes we shouldn't play unless everyone is available for a day. In an optimal world I would love to play this way, but I know that if we organize in this way, then we may never meet up again. I have had games before where we waited for everyone to be available, and it just fizzled out. I know this can also be an issue with people not being fully committed to the game, but like, we are adults and have other shit to do. Anyway, I am just wondering how the judges feel about this. Should we delay forever waiting for the perfect moment, or just play every once in a while without a player to keep the momentum? PS This hasn't actually caused any issues with our group, so if need be, you can sentence me the DM to meet your quota.

To the resplendent judges and their bailiff Joke, I come to you with the case of murder by proxy. In my longterm campaign, the murder happened during our last session. We were in combat and I, a bard, was down with a failed death save. Another player, a self-described (and proven) chaotic rogue, assured us that she had a potion and she'd bring me up next round so our other bard wouldn't have to take attacks of opportunity to get close enough to heal me. Great teamwork, right? Except for the fact that the rogue was 10ft away from enough diamonds for a resurrection spell. She went for the diamonds even after the DM reminded her of the house rule that new PCs show up a level lower, insisting that it would be fine and I would just need to roll a above a 1 and I'd be good to go. Judges, I was not good to go. I rolled a 1 and my character died. Our crew doesn't have a cleric so we have no way to bring me back. Oh, and those diamonds for resurrection? Consumed by the enemy to rez a servant of the BBEG. The rest of the crew had to flee and the session ended. Judges, should my next character murder the rogue (character, not player) in their sleep? Should I just suck it up? Should I beg my DM to punish the rogue for her greed instead? I eagerly await your verdict so I can properly plan my (hopefully) lvl 5 character to make sure that the rogue never steals again.

Forgive me, Justices, for I have sinned. I was a first-time DM, running Curse of Strahd after discovering D&D during covid with my brother and nephew. I thought I was ready to take the mantle, but among my players was my brother’s friend — a Tabaxi monk who tested my patience from the very start. He refused to use our virtual tabletop roller, yet somehow averaged about ten natural 20s every session. He refused to turn on his camera. He refused to do much beyond what he wanted, and I overlooked it all for the sake of keeping the game together. But after a year of play, the party finally reached Strahd’s castle. In the depths, the monk discovered the Tome of Understanding, which would grant him a bonus to Wisdom — if only he read it for forty-eight hours over the course of six days. Naturally, he demanded the party stop everything and wait while he read. Naturally, they refused. Strahd was hunting them. The final battle was upon us. And so, the monk threw a fit…and then refused to participate in the climactic fight. Here is my sin: I stooped to his level. I abandoned the VTT dice. I pulled out my real dice, and when Strahd attacked, I claimed natural 20s — and I focused those critical blows on the monk until he was dead. It was not the story that killed him. It was not the dice. It was me, my pettiness, and my DM’s wrath. I humbly ask you, Justices, for forgiveness.

To the hallowed Judges of the Supreme crit and the lowly baliff... I want to say Jim? John? Something like that. I present to you the case of the callous counterspell. I am the DM for an online space based campaign using the Mass Effect 5e homebrew rule set with my longtime friends. After a long adventure through unknown space, my party was accosted by a notorious bounty hunter. This bounty hunter had been a thorn in the party's side for years in game and irl, and it was a climactic dangerous fight the party was excited for. Part way through the battle I had thought a party member was using a healing spell, and being devious a bounty hunter, he started to counterspell it. However I was mistaken and they were just using a potion and so the counterspell never happened, but the party heard me start to describe it before the player corrected me. A turn or so later the bounty hunter used a powerful ability allowing him to sneak attack multiple targets at once. A different player, we'll call him Tee (who was otherwise having a hard time in the fight) used a shield spell. The bounty hunter had their reaction and started to counter spell, and Tee said "No wait, I forget he had that I don't do that" I told the player he had already used the spell, and as he hadn't actually counterspelled in the fight his character didn't know he had that ability (as it is quite rare in universe). He said "GM if you do this, I will leave the call right now" I was dumbfounded and eventually said, "Okay leave". He did and we had to take a break because I was rattled. He eventually came back and we finished the fight, but it put a sour vibe on a climactic moment and the rest of the session. So I ask ye noble judges, was I wrong to not allow him to retcon his shield, or was his counterspell knowledge misbegotten?

To the sexy judges and the pretty but approachable bailiff, I submit the case of the final session backstab. I recently played my farewell session before moving as a fey ranger in my friend’s campaign. One of our friends had her last session right before and ascended to the fey high court. I let him know that my character had a full life and was open to whatever closure he saw fit, including death. He said cool and the only campaign related communication I had from him before our session was him sending my a Titania (my ex’s) stat block. The session was interesting; instead of planning with me he had a devil we opposed, mammon, sign an in real life multi-page contract with another player assuring my death in exchange for several boons. I later found out that they negotiated outside the table for several hours. This player was evil in a good aligned campaign but right before our mission I tried to reconcile, show trust, and even gave him my custom bow, the queensguard. I survived but all I could do during the session was encourage my teammates to let me die so they could escape hell. I feel duped and like the session ended anticlimactically. Am I overreacting and not appreciating my amazing dm’s efforts or should I have been involved differently?

To the titans of the Court and their little buddy: I am on my knees begging for your wisdom. I bring before you: The case of a brilliant DM and his lackadaisical players. I am in a longtime D&D group with some very good friends, and our DM is my wonderful fiancé. The worldbuilding and encounter set-ups are top-notch, but because the DM makes encounters so difficult, we keep losing. For example, bad guys have taken over cities after we've failed to stop their uprising. We are running out of allies and places to turn. I have begged my fiancé to give us an easier fight/storyline once in awhile, so we can finally end a session in a win. He says that we should strategize better. I say that I do my best, but I'm only one player at a table of people who seem to just want to hit things with swords. Titans of the Supreme Crit, give it to me straight: Am I wrong for asking our DM to re-evaluate the difficulty level of his campaign? I place myself, and the love of my life, at your mercy.

To the radical, esteemed judges and…the bailiff. I bring before you the case of the Starving Dhampir. My friends and I paid a DM to run a Spelljammer campaign for us. It ruled. Great DM, strong backstory integration, and good vibes all around. Midway through, a new player joined who chose to play a dhampir that would only drink blood…despite us having plenty of rations. Well, because we were in space, this meant constant, tedious pit stops to random planets so that they could restock on “ethically sourced” blood. I.e. blood we didn’t know the source of. They wouldn’t eat from a “Hat of Vermin”, any monsters we slayed, or even when we offered our own blood. It slowed the campaign to a crawl, turning one player’s character choice into everyone’s problem. We did finish the campaign, but I’m still a little annoyed as this was my first experience with DND. Am I right to be peeved, or was this just some heavy roleplay that I should get over? I await your judgment.

To the honorable and most supreme judges of this court room… and the other guy named Jake who is still here. I bring upon you this case of mine that still haunts me a year later. I, myself was running a DnD session that was the very start of this hopeful campaign. The group of mine were sent to the Dwarven Mountain, The Bronzen Summit, looking to find new jobs that would bring them honor, fame, glory, and most importantly, money. The group, had met for the first time at a tavern where the elven bard, Portia (Porsche-uh), was thrown out for a bad performance roll, nat 1, and unwanted flirting. The group brushed the bard off from their covered dust, found a poster that promised gold and platinum, and set off to the king’s throne to find the missing prince. When they arrived and had found out that the prince had disappeared towards an unknown plane of existence, the Feywild, Portia had decided to try and seduce the King and convince himself and several guards to join them on their adventure and rolled 3 Natural 20’s back to back and obtained 2 Royal Guards and the king’s interest later if she were to return back to the throne room with his son… (she of course wanted more guards) What had set them off though was that on their first encounter a few hours later, I had set up a situation where they came across an abandoned town in the Feywild, the new plane that the prince has been lost to, and they were looking for anyone to point them in the right direction as to where to go. As they were exploring, one by one over time, each guard had mysteriously vanished. When the first guard had disappeared, he had no concept of understanding that there was a second guard to begin with and thought the group was messing with him, and then they had vanished a bit later and left the group confused as to whether they had guards in the first place. Basically setting up an encounter with a modified false hydra to show that their new world would not be as easy as they had imagined. Portia though argued that rolling 3 Nat 20’s and having the guards killed off before any major battle was a huge issue and bad storytelling. I figured that it was a way to give more clues as to what had happened to this town. Was I in the wrong?

Jolly justices and barmy bailiff, My DM is a sweet, kind, gentle guy. I am proud to have had him as a friend for many long and tender years. So, so nice. Just great. Justices, every single NPC this guy ever makes is a massive arsehole. They are nasty little dicks. Rude, cruel, stupid, unfriendly trash. I'm sure it's not on purpose - my DM is genuinely trying to make NPCs to be our friends, or quest givers, or allies - but we just hate them all so very much. Sometimes, the party hates these guys so much, we end up derailing the stuff my lovely DM had planned because we don't want to help King Dickhead save the realm of ass-clown jabronis. Your honors, I just want to make a NPC friend sometimes. Please, mete out your powerful justice upon us.

Two years ago, in our weekly campaign over Zoom. One of our members was getting bogged down with work and at the end of a session told us that he was leaving. At the beginning of the next session Our DM role played his wizards death, we mourned, and moved on. That same session we were sneaking into an evil church’s courtyard which ended in a TPK. After the game our DM revealed that this was supposed to be an easy encounter that was geared twards the wizard and had lumped the enemies together in large groups at the beginning of the fight to make full use of his AoE spells. But our wizard told the DM he was leaving after he created the encounter and didnt feel like changing it. So i ask the Judges, Should our DM have switched up his battle tactics to better suit that of a Ranger, Barbarian, and Rouge? or did we just get good ole fashioned whomped? either way no shade to our DM! LOVE YOU MIKE!!!!

To the judges of inestimable wisdom, and the powerful bailiff of ill repute, may it please the court to hear the case of "Rampant Old Man Adoption". I ran a Curse of Strahd game a few years back, and in my version there was an old man who was sabotaging efforts by the town of Vallaki because he believed Strahd would win and capitulating was the only safe choice. Once the party found this out they ended up beating him up, and handing him off to the Wereravens to keep an eye on. This happened in some fashion or the other 4 more times, because rather than kill them the players felt bad and wanted to keep adopting all the weird old dudes that tried to fight them. Eventually I had to have the Wereravens tell them that they couldn't hold anymore old men in their basement in order to stop my players from backtracking to drop off every weird old man they fought. It all worked out ok but my players were sad that they could no longer "adopt" old men that were trying to kill them. Was I right to put a stop to it, or should I have let them have their harem anime moment?

To the magnanimous and fair justices, and the bailiff whose name escapes me and ultimately doesn’t matter: I present to you the case of the Silly Christmas One Shot. I am the DM of a years-long campaign with friends that’s going really well, we’ve never really had any major disagreements and they all seem engaged with the story. The only time we got actually heated was this past Christmas, when I designed a very silly, non-canonical adventure for them to play through. Basically they had to fight a bunch of mind-controlled characters from those kids Christmas movies, like the Heat Miser, the Snow Miser, Santa Claus himself, and eventually the Grinch, who was behind it all (obviously, since I’m a huge Surprise Round fan). One of my players immediately was hesitant to participate, saying “My character’s mother just betrayed her and banished her wife to the nine hells… why would I go on some dumb adventure to fight the Grinch?” I tried to laugh it off and say it was just for fun, but she dragged her feet the whole adventure, playing her character as depressed and brooding, while the others had a great time opening silly Christmas themed dnd gear presents and fighting claymation reindeer. Fair justices, I ask - was I in the wrong for having such a silly one shot for the holidays, or was my player right and I should’ve planned something different? I await your judgement.

To the virtuous justices and the sinful bailiff, I present the case of the DMPC who did everything for us. For a time I was starving to play DND as my normal play group couldn't meet regularly, so I joined a game through my college's TTRPG club. The campaign was set on the ocean and we were to be pirates for a tabaxi captain named Atlas. I rolled up a parrot aaroacokra artificer and showed up ready to play some DND. Unfortunately, the first beat of the session was our ship getting rolled up on by imperial soldiers. We tried to lie our way out of being arrested but we weren't allowed to roll deception so we were caught. Atlas, however, was able to parley with the captain while we were sent to the brig. That's fine, now we have an escape encounter. After two hours of in game playtime of strategizing we executed our plan to split up the guards through various distractions. But, right before we could, the ships wall burst open with an explosion and there Atlas was, coming to save us. We ended up escaping and that's where the session ended. I left the group after just that one session. I felt bad for doing so since it was a party of just three players (me included) but it felt like we spent three hours trying to play a game while the DM played for us. So, was I wrong to leave the campaign after one session or should I have stuck around?

To the divine justices and the impish bailiff I present the case of "The Dead Man's Disadvantage" I run a homebrew game where my players have to face an aspect of each of the 7 deadly sins. My players were fighting a modified Medusa (gorgons are a different creature entirely) instead of its instant stoning I made it 3 con saves over 3 turns. The first fail gave 0 speed and no reaction, the second gave disadvantage on attack, and the last was fully stoned. I had planned on the players having a way to save a PC in case of a full failure, a scroll of remove curse that came at a high sacrifice or something important to a player. The fighter failed all three and was fully stone while the other players had to finish the fight. After a close battle, the players won without another stoning. The warlock tried to have a cool role play moment where he would entreat his patron to help them end the curse. As he began to prepare a ritual for the patron the rogue asked to help. I ruled that I won't allow help because the warlock was out of spell slots, but I also will not impose disadvantage, so a flat roll. The dead fighter says not to worry about it he has already rolled up a new ranger and don't save him. I ruled that the warlock wants to do something cool but I won't force the fighter to return, the fighter has the opportunity to impose disadvantage if he just wanted to die. The warlock was quite annoyed that he spent time setting a scene and preparing saving a PC while asking multiple questions and looking for alternatives in case his ritual failed. The whole time the stone fighter had already moved on. Was the warlock right to be highly annoyed and somewhat angry about wasting time trying to save a PC or the fighter for moving on before anything had been settled. I implore the radiant judges and slimy bailiff to help my table with a ruling.

To the honourable justices and the coy diva bailiff, I present to you the case of the precog player. A couple years back, I DM'd a good pal and two of her friend through the Lost Mines of Phandelver book. One of the friends proved to be, from what I can tell, some kind of psychic wizard. The player, not the character. In a dungeon about halfway through the adventure, he offhandedly said "wouldn't it be cool if the treasure in here was personalised magic items?". Justices, the treasure was exactly that, and it was located in the very next room. This was the first instance. A couple of sessions before I added a traitorous NPC (the plan on paper, but the NPC hadn't arrived yet), he said "I hope none of these townsfolk are secretly evil, we trust them a lot". Some of his predictions could've been in-depth DnD knowledge, but all 3 players were total newbies - they weren't even into fantasy that much! Even so, he'd be able to say "I bet there's some kind of creepy ghost woman in this town" at least a session before they fought a banshee. But Justices, here is the rub: I changed anything he guessed correctly. The personalised magic items held back to be given later, and the traitorous NPC became a doppelganger who was always on the bad guys' side, instead of a sudden betrayal. Monsters would be swapped where possible, dungeons would be rearranged. I wanted them to be surprised and therefore delighted! Is that wrong? I ask, who is guilty - him, for being a creepy psychic? Or me, for not allowing his predictions to come true?

To the highly esteemed justices and the so-lowly-he’s-subterranean balif Jork: I write to you because I have a repeat offender of this very court. A few Patreon-exclusives ago, you ruled on behalf of my friend who had been unfairly sent to the astral sea with no means of return by their DM. The two of us are in a new campaign run by that same DM (who, for the record, is one of our best friends). This campaign was framed as a whodunnit, with members of a large royal family (Gengis Khan levels of descendants) being murdered for reasons unknown. One of the members of our party was actually a victim of these murders who, with a wonky Reincarnate spell, has now possessed the body of the cleric meant to bring them back to life. The problem, dear judges, is two-fold. Firstly, we haven’t received a single clue pertaining to this crime. We explored one crime scene with high investigation and insight checks (17+) and received information we already knew like the occupation of the victim and the time of the murder. Then we went to the crime scene where our party member had been killed and, with rolls above 16, we found out that someone had died in that room. Justices, we knew that. The person who died is IN OUR PARTY. Nothing more substantial, no fingerprints or witnesses, and incredibly unhelpful NPCS. But it gets worse. Desperate for any information, we read the local newspaper to see if there was any reporting on the crimes. Our DM mentioned an article on a beauty pageant to be held with the grand prize being the hand of the king in marriage. “Perfect,” we thought, “perhaps there will be some sort of murder plot to kill the king at this event.” So we joined. We have since spent four sessions doing nothing but prepping for this pageant. At the beginning of each session, our DM summarizes the party practicing instruments, buying gowns and swimsuits, and perfecting our drag (our party consists of 3 men and one elderly woman—the aforementioned murder victim) and then asks us what we’d like to do. Each time we’ve tried to pivot to investigating the crime again, we are met with the same barriers: no clues, no witnesses, and no leads. So we are shoehorned into focusing on the pageant. Finally, last session, we asked if all our work regarding the pageant would lead to a level up (we are at level 3) to which our DM said “No. I level you guys up after combat.” Since we started playing in October of last year, we have had ONE combat. We play twice a month. We fought a gang of knolls and that session did not result in us levelling up. No other combatants have crossed our paths in our investigating or in our pageantry. Our DM insists that we are milestone levelling. Justices, is our party wrong in feeling disgruntled about our lack of levelling up when our DM has presented us with a plate of almost nothing? Should we be allowed to level up after this beauty pageant when it has been the sole focus of our last sessions? Or is our DM justified in their ruling that we should only level up after combat?

May it please the Court, and tickle the Bailiff but not too much! I was DMing a game where my players were unknowingly working for the Big Bad. During a heated confrontation one of my players asked to do an insight check on my secret BBG, and rolled a nat 20. While my players dropped their guard due to the high roll I rolled a deception check to see how much I actually had to give away, and I also rolled a nat 20. With modifiers my nat 20 scored slightly higher so I gave my player a vague answer that something might be going on, but nothing too malicious. From then on when other players brought up doubts about who they worked for this player defended them often bringing up this roll. During the heel turn reveal this player got very quiet for the rest of that session, and from then on refused to return to DND sessions. This campaign has since concluded and this player and I have reconciled albeit him still bringing up this betrayal whenever we play any type of game, but was I in the wrong to mislead my players due to a high roll? Or was my player putting too much faith in a nat 20? I await your judgment.

Wise justices/clerics of the court/church, I beseech you to please hear my prayers. I have a friend who recently dropped from a campaign with some mutual friends. It was a situation where Justice Murphy likely would have advised getting new friends (they’re lovely people but awful in dnd and the venture was doomed from the start). My friend was sad because he was looking forward to playing again after such a long time. My own campaign ended just over a year ago because 3 of the 5 party members lost a parent. Yes clerics of the divine crit, our lives are messes, but that’s not why I’m here. I have taken up the mantle to run some sessions as first time DM — just some modules that are meant to be one shots that I assume will actually take us 2-3. I am terrified to DM, but having learned from the supreme crit that the number one thing is to make sure my friends are having fun, I shakily raise my halbert in the name of dice Christ. Please bless me and my holy mission. Amen.

To the supreme Crit Justices and Bailiff Jerk, I present the case of the Piss Boiz. I’ve been running a home brewed campaign for a couple years now with my partner and good friends. Early on I designed a trap encounter with a trickster entity named Hammy Mendel who forced the party into what was essentially a game of Deal or No Deal. They got through the game and eventually killed Hammy. As I began to narrate their way out of the trap, they stopped me and instead described how they wanted to pee on Hammy’s corpse together in tandem. Justices: this has become a pattern. Every villain they face, be it a random bandit or an acolyte of the BBEG, they insist on pissing on their dead body. They’ve built their whole identity on this, calling themselves the Piss Boiz (with a z) and even designing superhero-like costumes for their characters. They’re still engaged with the story and are actively “bought in”, but every major story or character beat eventually leads to piss. Am I wrong to sometimes wish we could be a bit more serious in our storytelling, even though we’re all having a good time? Any ideas on how I can steer the ship into less piss-filled waters? Hate the podcast, never listened before.

Long time listener first time caller!Oh my great lords of dice and chance I beg thee forgiveness for my transgressions I’ve committed the sin of of starting campaigns and abandoning them to my friends because I get bored. I know d&d can’t live up to my expectations and now I feel like I don’t have the right to play any more I’ve started two separate campaigns with two different friend groups and i bailed when it got boring. I find myself now wanting to play but I’m worried I’ll do the same again. Please help me lords I need guidance in my trying times. PS LOVE YOUS

(This case has been given to me by my best friend Kate!) 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.

Dear Honorable Justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner as well as the questionable but endearing court baliff Jake. I bring to you the case of the dead civilians. This was several years ago during one of the first campaigns i'd played so i was still pretty new. I was playing as a Cleric and the party was in a church when a fight broke out, the crowd immediately started panicking and fleeing. During my turn i casted an AOE spell (i dont remember which one) on a group of bad guys, the DM asks "Are you sure?" This of course gave me pause, but i couldnt figure out WHY I wouldnt cast the spell. I spent 10 minutes going back and forth with both the DM and my own party trying to figure out why this was a bad idea, but they refused to tell me so i gave up and did it anyway. Lo and behold, there were still civillians in the church and I ended up killing 5 innocents and injuring another and this ended up affecting how the rest of the town treated us. The rest of the party gave me shit for this, but i had thought all the people had fled the church and while i dont necessarily blame the DM for not telling me, should my party have at least helped? I leave this up to the court and will abide by your rulling

To the Golden Gods of the highest council, thy kingdom come, thy crits be done, and Jake, leader of the Animorphs. I bring THE CASE OF THE PRIMATE V SPIDER At age 13, I asked to be in my brother in law's Mutants and Masterminds game with two other (adult) players. My character, Snap Clackers, was a Nature powered monkey who gained his abilities and sentience after being captured and experimented on. Me and the other players got along and it was shaping up to be a fun campaign. At the end of one of our sessions, the DM (Brother in law) announced excitedly that there would be a guest who would play a villain next session which excited the rest of the table as well. However, me being 13 and getting shit grades on my report card, I was grounded that week and couldn't go to the session. The next session I was filled in by the DM what happened. Apparently, the guest played an evil spider queen who womped the party and demanded they bring her 100 peasants to turn into her spider army. Judges, they agreed to do so. My character, who was present while I the player was not, was made to agree with them. You can see how this would be of big conflict to who my character was and, being new to roleplay, I simply played him dispondant and angry for the rest of the session, going against what the party was trying to do that session. The campaign shortly fizzled out due to other factors outside of anyone's control. Should I have been more malleable with my monkey's morals or was I right to lash out at my party for their decision? (PS. The guest who played the spider queen was my 23 year old sibling. The one who was married to my brother in-law)

To the honorable glorious pigeon justices and the lowly hawk of a bailiff, I being you the case of the coin of crits and the bugbear ass. I run a campaign with 5 players new to D&D, we're over a year in and it's been going great, for the most part. One of my players is an oath of the watchers Paladin named Stomps. Early in the campaign, he acquired a "greatswordsword of banishment" which automatically casts banishment for free on a crit. However, he is cursed by Dice Christ, and has never crit with it despite many combat encounters. To remedy this, I had the party discovered a different magic item, the "coin of all or nothing", which once per day can guarantee a crit fail or success depending on a coin flip. I even bought a special fantasy looking coin to go along with it. However, the character that technically found the coin was a bugbear monk, Botticelli. After a few sessions without the coin being used, the players (out of character) got into an argument as to who should have the coin, and I weighed in saying that it made more sense with Stomps. Botticelli responded by saying that the coin was his, and he promptly shoved it up his ass. Seeing this as an opportunity to punish botticelli, I made him roll a con save. Crit fail. I said "you can no longer feel it, it will emerge on its own time". It's been months. Justices, was I wrong to take this cool magic item from my players, or was this just the consequence of a stupid move from one of my players? I prostrate myself before the court

May it please the court and leave the bailiff feeling satisfied but not too satisfied, I present to you the case of permanent disadvantage. One time I was playing an Ancestral Guardian Barbarian, mainly for the purpose of using the Ancestral Protectors subclass feature. In our first session, my friend who was playing a Cavalier Fighter discovered that their Unwavering Mark feature applies the same effect (disadvantage against everyone other than the PC that applies the mark). He then suggested that we use both of these features against a single enemy, ensuring that they have disadvantage on EVERYONE (ourselves included). Though the Ancestral Protectors feature doesn't use the language of "applying a mark", I tried to argue that though RAW that could work, it definitely shouldn't be allowed RAI. Ultimately, our first-time DM decided to allow it and we cheesed the final fight of the session so bad that we never played in that campaign again. O just and impartial court, how do you read and interpret these rules and mechanics? Should we have been allowed to carry out this campaign-killing whomp?

To the magnanimous and fair justices, and the bailiff whose name escapes me and ultimately doesn’t matter: I present to you the case of the Silly Christmas One Shot. I am the DM of a years-long campaign with friends that’s going really well, we’ve never really had any major disagreements and they all seem engaged with the story. The only time we got actually heated was this past Christmas, when I designed a very silly, non-canonical adventure for them to play through. Basically they had to fight a bunch of mind-controlled characters from those kids Christmas movies, like the Heat Miser, the Snow Miser, Santa Claus himself, and eventually the Grinch, who was behind it all (obviously, since I’m a huge Surprise Round fan). One of my players immediately was hesitant to participate, saying “My character’s mother just betrayed her and banished her wife to the nine hells… why would I go on some dumb adventure to fight the Grinch?” I tried to laugh it off and say it was just for fun, but she dragged her feet the whole adventure, playing her character as depressed and brooding, while the others had a great time opening silly Christmas themed dnd gear presents and fighting claymation reindeer. Fair justices, I ask - was I in the wrong for having such a silly one shot for the holidays, or was my player right and I should’ve planned something different? I await your judgement.

To the honorable justices and the baneful baillif Joke, I present to you, a crime yet to be committed. I am starting as a DM for a Waterdeep Dragon Heist campaign, I have a player who has seemingly given themselves several feats as a level 1 character, I don't know how to approach this crime in progress that I am a witness to! Help please, an already anxious, amped DM.

If it pleases the most honorable and level-headed judges, and that beautiful son-of-a-bailiff Jake, I present to you the case of the ruined Christmas. A few years ago, I decided to make a Christmas one-shot for my friends. It was based in a town that was littered with classic Christmas references, like Jack Frost as the Mayor, a small dungeon crawl based on the house from Home Alone, Rudolph, Frosty the Snowman, and many others. I put a lot of effort into making props, including a brochure with a map of the town with all of the Christmas references. The one-shot centered around the PCs trying to find a missing Santa, and saving Christmas. Things were going along well enough, and the PCs headed towards a Christmas Market to pick up some holiday themed items, when things took an unexpected turn. One of my players, made his way to a stand that was being run by the Grinch. After talking to him for a bit, he discovered that the Grinch was selling some clearly stolen items. The player immediately attacked the Grinch, which I have to admit surprised me, and had not planned for it at all. Combat only lasted a bit, as I had the other merchants come in and break it up. It was in this moment that I froze a bit Judges, I had not planned at all for a player to essentially commit assault on a non-hostile NPC. I didn’t even have a jail or anything in this Christmas-themed town, and so went with the player being forced to go to town hall, where the Mayor said that he would let this go if the player just apologized to the Grinch. I should stress that at this point all I wanted was to resolve this issue quickly and get back to the rest of the one shot. This is why it was surprising to me when the player refused to apologize. We went back and forth in character about him needing to if he wanted to be let go, and admittedly things got heated enough that the argument went outside of the game. We essentially were yelling at each other for several minutes, me saying he needed to apologize, and him absolutely refusing. Eventually things calmed down, we got back to the game, the other players mounted a rescue, and we moved on. We finished the game a little while later with the PCs rescuing Santa from Jack Frost, and everyone seemed to have fun with it, but I can’t help but feel like it ruined the mood for the night. I ask you judges, was I in the right to be mad that the player wouldn’t simply apologize and ruined the mood of a one-shot that I put a lot of time and effort into or am I overreacting? I await your most excellent wisdom.

Noble Bailiff and Honorable Judges, I entreat you for your advice on something that happened to me. Last winter, I had signed up to do a 48 hour dnd session(not actually 48 hours due to the amount of sleeping involved but that’s not relevant). We were playing the gms modified version of curse of strahd. Strahd was a charming and attractive woman who greeted us with graciousness and kindness. Because of this, our characters had no reason not to trust her. Midway through the story, we had to escort Irina. Strahd had invited us for dinner and we decided to bring Irina, who did not tell us anything about Strahd being up to something, along with us. Upon arriving at the castle, our dm told us we had lost the campaign. Strahd had Irina so he said that she had no reason not to kill us. Because this was a paid session, he then asked if we wanted to play a different module. Eventually, after about 45 minutes of protesting, we were able to rewind and continue Strahd. I ask you justices, was it wrong for our dm to rewrite the module to bamboozle us into losing?

To the illustrious judges Axford, Murphy, and Tanner, The bailiff can choke on some grits. I bring to you a case of rightful razzing. I (an experienced player) recently put together a group of brand new players and we started out with me DMing a one shot. The players got trapped in a "magnificent mansion". The very first room they explored was a library with a cat that WAS sitting on a chair. The druid and paladin immediately rolled animal handling to pet the cat. Each rolled poorly so I narrated the cat ignoring them and walking away. Are the same time, The rogue rolled to stab the cat and rolled quite well, killing the cat. The rogue has since been heavily razzed for this insane move. The court should know that the rogue's irl fiance (the paladin) was just moving in and he was nervous about her cat moving in. The rogue defends himself by pointing out that they had just been trapped in a spooky dungeon, how was he supposed to know that the thing that looked like a cat was actually just a cat. He also points out that the body of the cat later saved his life when he used it to distract a test tube monster that the druid threw at him in spite for killing the cat. Judges, does this rogue deserve to be razzed or should the rest of the party be reverse razzed for trying to pet a cat? And if the judges don't mind, could you make the sentencing between the rogue and the rest of the party be more fatal this time? You've gotten weak as of late. The court should also know that the rogue irl now loves his fiance's cat dearly.

May it please the court, I had a situation from a game I played in law school that I thought would be appropriate for the show. I had been playing alongside 3 other players and a DM, all law students, for about one semester. We had made it from level 5 to level 10, and a “boss battle” was brewing against a long term bad guy, a demon prince. Night before the session the following message hits our main group chat (players + DM) from the DM- “He won’t even be that hard for you with your smites, but can I knock you out to make it more interesting?” The message was quickly unsent but not before I saw it and took a screenshot. Our DM had clearly intended to send that message directly to another player, my buddy Markus who was playing a paladin, and had accidentally revealed collusion to fake a “dramatic” moment. I was pissed, and so was the other player who. I think it’s bullshit to fake these moments, and if I knew the DM was going to use kid gloves I wouldn’t have wasted months playing in the campaign. There was no apology, so the group disbanded, we never had the final fight, and frankly friendships fizzled after that. Justices, how should they be punished?

To the high honourable judges and itsy bitsy teenie weenie bailiff, I bring before you the case of the Sneaky Evil Wizard vs the Hand Crossbow Lunatic. Years ago I was DMing a one-shot for some friends. Myself and two players were very new to D&D while one player was rather experienced. The players reached the evil wizard's tower and confronted him. As my evil wizard is giving his little speech, I called for a perception or insight check from everyone. Everyone failed. The check was to see that the evil wizard was preparing to cast a spell (nothing too punishing, no surprise fireballs) and take the party by surprise mid-monologue. As I announce this and begin to roll, the experienced player begins to argue with me that I can't simply just attack them out of initiative like this while they're speaking to a bad guy. I argued that because we weren't in initiative, the wizard is free to cast spells as he wishes and that I gave them all an opportunity to mitigate this advantage but the dice had spoken. Judges, I ask you, was it buttoned up to have my evil wizard take the party by surprise mid-monologue? Ultimately, I conceded and walked back the surprise attack for the sake of the table but I still think I was in the right to this day. PS, I have since learned the value of initiative first, monologue second. Thank you Murph.

To the auspicious Justices and the guy who kinda reminds me of my brother - I present the case of the Sudden Surprised Condition. A player in the core group recently started a D&D campaign using 2024 rules to give the forever DM (who runs 2014 rules) a break. One week the new DM had to cancel and the forever DM offered to run a one shot that night. He didn't specify which rule set to use, only saying “Bring a level 13 character and prepare for a wild evening". That rainy night while everyone is getting set up in the basement, the DM says “Oh, I hope you don't mind, I invited another player to help round out the numbers." Just then the doorbell rings upstairs. Since it's your house, you head up and peek outside the front window. Standing at the door is a man in an impeccable Grinch costume. Or, hell, it might even be the Grinch himself. In one hand he has a Player's Handbook and in the other is a cloth sack - roughly the size of a basketball - filled with something lumpy. Both seem to be partially covered in a dark liquid. You begin to head back to ask the forever DM about who he invited when the Grinch starts knocking rather forcefully on the glass. Your phone has zero bars - what do you do?

To the strong, kind and wise judges and that guy that I honestly have yet to figure out what he's doing here, I come before you not for judgement but for advice. A new player recently joined my longstanding D&D group. Their character: A tabaxi rogue named Kat. Kat sometimes refuses to fight because they choose to nap or run after a ball instead. Kat also tries to take the loot all for themselves (they're a rogue after all), licks the blood of dead enemies and even ate an ear of one... We were once captured by the police and they tried to turn an interrogation into a BDSM session. Recently they've decided to introduce us to Ratto and Batto, their perfectly trained bat and rat. Not familiars or anything, they just suddenly appeared after a few months playing and apparently can perform any task they're ordered to do. Ratto even had his own sidequest and now can gather information in every new place. All pretty harmless, everyone else seems to be OK with it, although things seem to be getting increasingly unhinged. So what should I do? Should I be THAT guy and complain to the DM? Should I have my familiar owl Powlo eat Ratto, since after all it's in its nature? Should I write to NADDPOD and hope my DM hears my passive-aggressive rant? Or should I just ignore it all, since in the end the group is having fun (me included) so it's just not worth it? I respectfully await your wise advice, terst

I brush past the "Vert" Baliff and kneel before the almighty justices before he can stop me. Justices, I seek to know whether or not our party went too far in taunting a ghost, or if a friendly npc should have warned us about her in the first place. My group has been playing through a Pathfinder module. A bit into the dungeon we'd been exploring, we picked up a friendly ghoul who'd been there for a while and offered to help us out, which we accepted. We continued exploring, and found a small office area with a pretty mean ghost who thought we were her scribes. Our ghoul friend stayed outside the room Being players, we started playing along while also taunting her, eventually culminating in her saying, "Let me break this down into simple words: Go back to Desks, start putting words from one paper onto other paper. Do you understand now?" To which I replied, "I don't know, some of those words had two syllables in them." This was followed by a long pause from the DM, then us rolling for iniative and realizing that she was actually be pretty strong. On the friendly NPC's turn, he came into the room we were in, and only then warned us that we maybe should leave her alone. While we ended up escaping with some items we'd been searching for, it would've been nice to know she was there in the first place. Should we have read the room and realized that we probably should've left the ghost alone, or was the DM obligated to have our ghoul friend give us a bigger hint before even going in the room? I await your ruling

Dear honorable justices and Jake the coolest and/or uncoolest baliff around. I present: the case of the "player stat" NPCs. I'm in a seven sins campaign (level 11) where every NPC has either a) player stats or b) stats so high we cannot figure out how they are getting these stats. For example, a pirate npc, not a captain or anything, just a guy, that has a +10 intelligence, strength, and charisma save, while having a +15 dexterity and wisdom save, as well as a +13 to hit, and a 21 AC. This was the most mild example I could come up with. Combat takes forever, nobody can hit, and after 4 or 5 rounds of combat - we have 6 players and each round takes no less than thirty-five minutes - our DM has the tendency to have a different one of his NPCs step in to save the day. This has happened no less than 7 times. We tried to tell him this isn't fun, no NPCs should have stats like this, and even asked how he got these stats. He told us "I stat all my NPCs like player characters, it's more fun for me that way." Judges, are we in the wrong for think that's insane? Also maybe not possible? We await your judgement humbly. Thank you.

Judges, I implore!! I have a case in dire need of a wise and great ruling. I have an online group I have played with consistently for almost 4 years! I love them dearly and we play averagely once a week. Everyone loves to DM, so we currently rotate between 3 campaigns. Unfortuantely, I one campaign started almost 3 years ago and has been kind of rocky. It is centered around an adventuring college and for almost the entirety of the 3 years we did not go on an adventure and had mostly slow, roleplaying sessions that included an incredible amount of npcs with almost 16 other students in our class, that all participated in each activity at the same level as the pcs. I want to quit, but I fear this will hurt my friends feelings and irrevocable change my groups dynamics. Would I be wrong to quit or is my dm wrong for holding me hostage while roleplaying through actual literal school? Some additional campaign highlights if you are so inclined: -multiple sessions of a hombrew sporting event in which we did not play --a multiple hour session of an 'adventuring fair' in which every single npc presented -leveled up once in a 3 year period -roleplaying through full class lectures

Dear First Team All-Pro Surpreme Crit Justices and that Waterboy Baliff Jarf, I come to you with a classic tale of DM antics gone wrong (Murph cover your ears). About a year ago I was prepping an Autumn Festival session and was admittedly in a wacky mood. Beyond the normal festival games, I created an NPC who would polymorph PCs into toads for a little harmless fun. As a secret option at the festival I hid a small toad sized hole, which when entered the PC would come upon a sacred seance with tiny toads in witches hats surrounding a pentagram. Said PC would be greeted as the chosen toad-brother or sister whose arrival was fore-toad by Toadstradamus. After a ritual the PC gained a leaping ability and the sworn allegiance of all evil toads. Here's the issue...before all this I mistakenly made the polymorphing NPC a shapeshifting toad, so naturally they swore allegiance to my chosen PC and travels in her pocket. Now my PC has near-unlimited access to toad polymorphs and has used them to get other players out of sticky situations by polymorphing them and tucking them in her pocket. She is amassing a small toad army and I fear there's no turning back. Please help.

To the highest and mightiest of justices and the ineffective wet noodle bailiff I present the case of the horny Monk. I’ve recently started DMing my first campaign and my group is 2 sessions in. The group is comprised of myself, 2 previous party members (including the DM for our last campaign) and a new player. This new guys is very nice and great at getting in to character and having fun the issue arises with his characters personality. Justices every single NPC he has asked about “any ladies”, or attempted to flirt with. part of his character is that he’s had problem with women in the past but I would like one shop keep to not have to bring up the weirdly high marriage rate in the town that I’ve had to create so he’ll stop flirting with people. Justices and the other one. Would I be crossing a line by telling a new player to cool it on his shtick. I don’t want to stop him from having fun but there are many other things within this world I want to focus on than roleplaying shutting this guy down again.

To the inscrutable justices and the bailiff want I to say gorp? I would like to bring maybe the first class action lawsuit. While sitting on the train the I over heard too people arguing behind me about dnd. The dm told the player he was a disruptive player for not going with the party to the armor shop and insisting that splitting away from them to go to a magic shop. The player retorted that he didn’t need armor so why should he go with them. This conversation devolved into the player saying the dm is a bad dm and dm saying that him and the other players find him “the player not the character annoying” So who is right about shopping and how much legal compensation do I get for having to listen to it.

May it please the court and the unconventionally handsome bailiff, I present to you the case of the unrepentant player. Once in a session I was DMing, my most problematic player—a tortle named Hektor—snuck into a friendly vampire’s crypt and beseeched him for his assistance in a very personal quest. The vampire, who had his own obligations and no real motivation to help someone he had just met earlier that day, politely declined and retreated into his coffin for the night. Hektor’s next words have lived in infamy ever since: “I light the coffin on fire.” While the CR 13 vampire easily could have killed my best friend’s level 3 tortle, I (somewhat regrettably) showed mercy by having the vampire simply mark Hektor as a thrall whose service could be called upon at any time. Important context for this is that I started this session by reminding the party—6 of my silliest friends—that D&D is a game about consequences, and going forward if they said that their character did or said something, I wouldn’t be giving them a second chance by asking the classic DM warning: “are you sure you want to do that?” Most lawful court, did I make a mistake by showing leniency after my friend so obviously challenged my authority? I humbly await your decision.

To the Clergy of the Crit, I come with a confession…maybe. More specifically I come with a query as to if I have committed a sin against Dice Christ. A few years ago, I conspired with my DM to kill off my character, not because I was sick of playing the character, but because I thought it would be narratively interesting. Myself and one other player were playing identical twin air genasi rogues named Dylan and Dilan. In the lore of our family all the males must have “the twinsblood” or be shunned from the family like our “uncle” Jerry (may we never meet his soul). Because being twins was so integral to the characters, Dylan’s player and I started wondering what the ramifications would be if one of us died. After discussing this we approached our dm and asked if he would be ok with trying to kill one of us at some point in the future so we could explore that narrative thread. He agreed and a few sessions later Dylan fell and died in combat and my character Dilan used a magic item we had that gave access to a single use of divine intervention in order to take his place. I managed to roll within the 6 number wide success window on a d100 and my character revived his brother at the cost of his continued existence in the material plane. So I ask was this a sin and do I need to repent in the eyes of Dice Christ or was this miraculous roll his blessing and I am absolved for pseudo-scripting a character death?

To the Court. Whoever presides. I'm running a campaign based largely on the works of Green Day, specifically using part of the narrative of American Idiot as a base for the lore in the world. I've asked my players to listen to the album at least once for preparation and to get the general vibe of the story. Most players have done this, but one hasn't, saying "It's a lot to ask." Am I crazy?

To the amicable justices and the sly rascal ballif, I present to you the case of the invincible tortle. When I was new to dming I ran a campaign for my buddies and one of my players decided to play a tortle barbarian. Every fight my players were in, this tortle would dominate, his AC was nearly impossible to hit and his rolls were almost always a hit. I had to make fights deadly difficult to compensate, which resulted in my other players complaining about the difficulty. As it turns out, he was adding the inherent tortle AC to the barbarian unarmored AC, and interpreting the barbarian's advantage on strength checks to include all attacks. I ask the court this: am I, the dm, at fault for not catching these mistakes or is my player at fault for not knowing the rules of his character? I humbly submit myself before the courts decision.

To the lavender-scented judges and the stinky bailiff Jonk. I bring forth the case of the illiterate pseudodragon. My pact of the chain warlock and party were 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.

To the honorable justices of the supreme crit and anyone else who might be there - I present the case of backstabbing and betrayal. A member of the party I was playing with rejoined the campaign with a new character after his old one left for plot reasons. Our party accepted this new character who claimed to be on the run from the githyanki. Everything was going fine until we entered battle with a beholder. All members were hit with the antimagic beam at some point or another, but we eventually came out on top. The problem arises when said player beings whispering to and private messaging the DM, because as it turns out his character is actually a high ranking member of the githyanki military in disguise. Instead of the DM and player sharing that they forgot a crucial aspect of this recently introduced character, the DM narrates that the character we know disappears and is replaced with a gith, who proceeds to down another player, steal a massive amount of our loot, blow up our spaceship, and disappear. All of this occurred without PvP being brought up as something acceptable in the campaign. Should the DM and player have gone about this a different way, or am I and the rest of the party’s anger and frustration at the scenario justified? Thank you for your ruling

To the Sweetie Justices, and the part timer…Luke? Lake? I think that’s him. My case starts from a question, should the DM know what spells the players have? I’m running a Strahd campaign, and my players started by Krezk. After gaining access to the town, they learn that Dmitri’s last surviving son, is infected with lycanthropy. I intended for them to make their way up to the Abby to get a cure, spell scroll/serum to remove curse. That is when our wizard up and casted “remove curse”. I role played a grateful Ilya, and had the whole family together with the party eat a nice dinner, for a nice wholesome moment in an otherwise dreary campaign. This loops me back around to my question. Should I have checked to see if they could have whomped me in but a second? While they did end up at the Abby towards the end of the session, they had less of a reason to look around or investigate the place. They’re planning on retrieving the wedding dress, but also left Esmeralda in the barracks for later. Only time will tell. Thanks for the awesome show! Can’t wait for future Ezry!

To the delightfully chaotic justice and bailiff James who has the same name as me! Welcome to the brotherhood! I bring to you the case of the BBEG Romance! I was playing in a campaign where our characters were fighting a shape shifting evil wizard. Our DM would use his abilities to pop up every now and then as we adventured. With one case our Bard expressed interest in our BBEG’s disguised persona, an interest that only increased when they revealed themselves as the BBEG. Us players then began to joke that they should seduce the BBEG much to our DMs annoyance. This led to our final confrontation with them where us players decided to send the Bard in first and the rest of us would attack while they’re distracted. Our DM told us only a nat 20 on disadvantage would work but we stuck to the plan. Lo and behold Dice Christ smiled on us and gave two nat 20s. Us players were so excited while the DM begrudgingly narrated how the Bard led the BBEG to another room. However, because we took so long celebrating our Bard, the DM argued that the BBEG saw thru the ruse in the afterglow and we did not get our surprise round. We honestly were so happy it succeeded that we didn’t care, but almighty judges should we have been given our agreed surprise round for successful seduction?

To the most exalted justices and the most eviscerated bailiff, I appear in court today to advocate pro bono on behalf of another in need of justice. My friend's boyfriend's sister's boyfriend was recruited to play in a DnD group by a guy who was teaching him how to lift at the gym (charging $1200 for three sessions, should the court find this relevant). The guy DMed for the group, and the Boyfriend had never played before. In their first session, the DM looked visibly upset after Boyfriend introduced his paladin character and ended up killing him mid session, saying afterward that they hated the character and instructing him to make his next character a fighter. Boyfriend kept playing with them, but recently the DM asked if they could play on Wednesday instead of Saturday. Boyfriend said that would work better for him anyway, and after being questioned by the DM said it was because he had a conflict that Saturday. The DM decided that it was unacceptable that he would have wanted to prioritize real life, cursed his cat, kicked him out of the group, and blocked him. Prioritizing DnD has not previously been an issue in this group, as during a recent session they didn't play until hours after the start time because some of them were playing Magic the Gathering instead. Your Honors, I implore you to deliver justice for this innocent new player, lest he lose his spark for the game just as quickly as he discovered it.

Dear judges I beg for your advice on this matter! And Jake….Yeah you’re here. Please please, I am in a group of friends where (used to be three) but two of us go back and forth on who runs their session next! But it has been almost two months now and I am still waiting for this other friend to plan their session but in the one time they have tried to plan theirs, no one was able to go so they are stalling to plan their next one. Judges, I am running a two year on going curse of Stradh campaign and want to try to help them plan their next season but they see disheartened in planing theirs in fear of no one being able to play in any days they pick. I am tying to not be an eager lad and am patiently waiting my turn. How can I help?? (My name is Sam by the way I can’t change my account name !)

To the wise, honorable, and all around pretty rad Justices, and the bailiff whose name I shan’t say lest he be summoned like Beetlejuice, I bring to you the case of Barovian Betrayal. I was invited to play a modified Curse of Strahd campaign with two of my friends, and two people they knew but I did not, DMed by one of the people I didn’t know, with the other stranger playing a Rogue named CC. At dinner with Strahd, it was revealed that Strahd was directly responsible for my sorcerer’s family’s wild magic curse, as well as the death of our Druid’s tribe (and cause of their lycanthropy) and kidnapping the bard’s husband, as well as many other awful things involving Ireena and the townsfolk not normally in the module. Later in the campaign, when we were around level 5, Strahd invites us to join him and claims that he’s not all that bad, he has his reasons. Me, the bard and Druid all say hell no, except CC agrees and says that she feels betrayed by us when we still refuse. Strahd gears up to attack. Not wanting to fight the bbeg and our friend, the three of us run, leaving CC behind, and the session ends for the night. I was a bit miffed by this but thought it could be an interesting direction for a campaign to have a party Betrayal, and figured CC’s player would maybe roll a new character or there’d be a redemption arc or something. No. In the discord after session, CC’s player again says (out of character) that she feels betrayed and and the DM agrees with her, seeming upset and saying we don’t have a good reason to go against Strahd and CC! I try to say he’s a bad person that did awful things and instead of responding, the DM deletes the discord. I haven’t spoken to either of them since. Justices, did I wrongfully betray a party member or ruin my DM’s plans for no reason? This wasn’t advertised as a villains campaign to me and the guy cursed my family and tortures townsfolk! That feels like it should be reason enough! I accept whatever fate you deem fair and just.

To the Mighty Justices and the almost as Mighty Bailiff, I submit to you the case of the Lich's Mistake. I was DMing the Dungeon of the Mad Mage, the alternate version where Halaster is an interdimensional Game Show Host, and my players ran afoul of a Lich. The Warforged Paladin had been knocked around a bit, but was bearing down on the Lich, so I had the Lich cast Power Word Kill on the Paladin. What I didn't know is neither their Druid or Divine Soul Sorcerer had stocked anything close to a revivify, and that in fact the only character with Revivify was the Paladin. The player of the Paladin even agreed it was the right play for the situation, but to this day he is still salty with me about killing his character. Am I right to feel miffed by this?

Highest Justices of the click clack stones and to the guy from Substack I give an east coast fist bump. I bring you the case of “DM controlled Death saves to spare a character I didn’t want spared” My first campaign with some friends in college ( it is now disbanded after some other issues) saw me making the decision to get in a tree to look into the forest the DM said was very dangerous. Even though I was a winged tiefling flying away his home brew lion monster climbed a tree and leaped into the air swatting my level 1 PC to the ground. I went down obviously and rolled a nat 1 death save and I rolled the finale one failing it because the party was not near me to revive me. The DM said “I don’t like the meta game of everyone knowing what death save you are on. So if you all agree to letting me roll the death saves for your characters in private and sending you a private message if you die or not. I will roll for William one more time.” I said no that’s not fun and I like to control my own characters and am okay with a death (though the way I died didn’t feel fair). But someone else at the table said “no I agree to this” and another agreed but most didn’t. The DM then rolled a nat 20 to revive my charcter and said that was the rule for the rest of the campagain which lasted for months before disbanding. I ask is that a fair home brew rule to roll for people? And even if so shouldn’t I get to say no and let my PC die and not take the deal myself? I humbly await your ruling.

Dearest Justices and… I bring to you the case of the Giga-Grapple Vampires. I was running a wild west themed campaign with my regular DnD group where they had to defeat a gang of sharpshooting vampires. There was a standoff, the vamps had members of the town held hostage including two of the party members mothers. It was a rough fight and 3 out of 4 PCs died and became vampires. The last PC had to make a deal with an evil god to regain power and defeat the vamp lord. Here’s the problem: anytime the players were grappled by a vamp (which was often) I had accidentally given attacks against them advantage. I didn’t realize this till the campaign was over and my wife (one of the PCs) berated me even though they got super cool vamp powers. I was consistent however, and when the PCs grappled someone I gave them advantage as well. Tell me justices: did I fuck up, or was it fair because they could do it to?

Hello Bailiff Jake. I present the case of the DM vs the Right Honourable Justices of D&D Court. I am not the DM of the game in question, but as one of her players I am standing in as her legal counsel. This was during a dungeon crawl style game. We were on a roll, so instead of stopping after completing two floors of the tower as usual, we decided to keep going without taking a Long Rest. We took a 30-45 minute break for food during which the DM statted a monster of an appropriate level, which was later revealed to use Spinosaurus stats. The fight began with the monster dealing 20+ damage to each of our three characters, and so during her first turn, the wizard cast Hold Monster for the first time, which immobilised the Spinosaurus. Long story short, combined with a Bane from the cleric (myself) and some unlucky rolls from the DM, this meant that the Spinosaurus never got to take an action, or one of its many Legendary Actions in four rounds of combat. We all had a good laugh about this and it was a hilarious, if anticlimactic, ending to a great night. However, the DM lamented that the Spinosaurus had no Legendary Resistances, a feature which has been described as demoralising and spell-slot-wasting by one of the judges of this very court! The charge is levelled towards Judge Emily Axford for disparaging the noble Legendary Resistance which would have saved this poor Spinosaurus from an undignified end and our DM from getting whomped. PS. The DM introduced me to the show and Emily is her personal D&D hero, so it's not real heat, I promise.

Dearest deacons of the dodecahedron, I come seeking absolution for my wizard who is alive when she should be dead. I was unconscious with a failed death save when a boss we were fighting was killed. it was a full round before I could be stabilized, and on my turn that round, I rolled a natural one for my death save, killing me instantly. In sadness, I said to my partner, who plays a fighter with a magic item granting him one portent roll per day, that it was too bad he hadn’t used his portent roll. On hearing this, the DM said that he would allow it despite me having already rolled. Deacons, the portent roll was a four, and I see no universe in which the fighter would have used a portent to make me fail a death save. However I did not bring this up at the table and have felt wretched ever since. Is my wizard cursed forever to live a half-life, knowing she should be well beyond the veil but still trudging along this mortal coil? Or is there any way that dice Christ’s light can still reach her, despite the lack of consequences for her natural one?

To the Justices Art Jake, Angry Jake, Girl Jake, and the Beautiful Baby Balif, I present to you the case of the No-Good Backstory Killing DM (P.S. it's me. I'm the DM). Years ago I started a campaign with a group of friends using a heavily homebrewed rule set that allowed my players to experience New York City with all of the powers and aesthetics of an episode of Jojo's Bizzare Adventure. That's not really relevant to the issue I just want you all to know how cool it sounded to us. When we started our session 0 to go over characters and backstory, one of my players gave a brief synopsis of what their PC was like and began to describe their friends and family. Thinking myself clever, I shouted, "Wait! Save it for the campaign!" In that moment I decided it would have been better to hold back on a PC's backstory to reveal it throughout the story of the campaign, not realizing I had actually just doomed my players to a handful of sessions of bumbling RPs between people who had no real idea who the rest of their party even were. I tried desperately to open up ways for the group to talk about their stories and their character's lives in game but nothing seems to take and I think I might have stunted the eagerness to role-play for them. I lay myself before the mercy of the court begging for forgiveness for my folly as well as their wisdom on how I can get the trust of my players once more and get them to open up to each other! (P.P.S. we have had 15 or so sessions since then and everyone seems to be enjoying themselves for the most part but I still feel bad for potentially kicking at the shins of what could have potentially been a more serious campaign with players sharing excitedly about their ideas)

Dear judges, I present the case of the intentional player death. My long running descent into avernus campaign was nearing its end with fewer than 10 sessions left, but my party ran into the classic boss: scheduling. Two of my players work schedules changed so there were zero times they could both make sessions. I split the party of 4 into 2 groups of 2 and ran them both through a dungeon meant for a whole party separately. One party found a too-strong enemy first, and I focused the player with a schedule conflict in combat. Despite getting some cool stuns off, the monk was killed. We had a very nice death scene and the rest of the party mourned their fallen friend, but was I wrong for killing this character on purpose so late into a campaign? I humbly accept your judgement.

To the lovely judges and Schrodinger's bayliff, I bring you the cast of the Paladin who would not learn I've been running a curse of strahd campaign online for a few months now for a small group of people who I know. Two of them are great and have picked everything up super quick, but the third (a paladin) is putting no effort into learning what she can and can't do. I've tried countless times to teach her the difference between an action and a bonus action, and how "no, you can't just cut off his head, he has health", but she just never seems to learn. This has led me to pretty much handholding her for her entire turn, giving her a list of everything she can do. She seems to be having fun so it is not a huge issue, but should I have to be telling her what she can do every turn? Or should I like a mama bear does to her children and leave her up a proverbial tree to fend for herself ? I throw myself down the stairs for your wisdom P.S if Jake were a my little pony he'd be spike

Exalted, Eclectic and Engorged Justives, and the weird little creature that reads the cases. I bring you the case of the Lore Loving DM. I play with a DM who just placed 3 massive pdfs in our Discird chat. Each Pdf has pages and pages of lore, history and international world politics. The problem...it's all AI generated. Now my DM keeps hinting that my character, a person made to have deep connections and understanding of the world, has to basically read to learn these pdfs off by heart. I don't know what to do in this situation. Should I read these massive tomes of Chinese Food Filler? Or should I probably damage my real friendship with this DM and tell him, I don't want to read this slop he seems so proud of?

Dice Christ Confessional: The Ruined Goon Cardinals of Dice Christ and the consistently disappointing choir boy Jacob Penn Cooper Hurwitz AKA The Pinch. I emerge from my milk bath and kneel at your religious feet in search of absolution. In college I began a campaign with Huey, a problem DM. Huey insisted the campaign be “just like Fantasy High”, but dropped NPC voices sentences after introduction and took away magic items as punishment for jokes. He skipped PCs turns intentionally and killed the only first time player, who was my girlfriend at the time. Worst of all Huey fudged rolls, changed stats and increased DCs after rolls to fit his “vision”. I felt the calling of Dice Christ to punish this sinner and was inspired by this show to enact my justice. I began spreading vicious rumors to staff and students alike. I orchestrated fights between Huey and other PCs leading to the campaign ending and Huey friendlessly loading up a U-Haul. Though my actions are 100% justified I confess religion was a veil for my real motivations: a ruined goon. I was content to let the weaker players suffer because Huey recognized my role-playing genius and rightly made me the main character. I used the campaign to bang hot NPCs and live out my weird sex fantasies, it was cash. However one evening when I was brushing my teeth, Huey walked into the dorm bathroom stall barefoot. For several minutes Huey loudly farted, grunted and shitted, he then left without washing his hands. After this I could no longer roleplay my weird sex fantasies at his table. For ruining my weekly goon Huey’s life had to be ruined. Obviously my actions are in accordance with Dice Christ’s teachings but my heart was not. I ask you: is this sin too great to be forgiven or are we totally chill?

To the most high rolling justices and the bailiff who is medium at mid. I have the conundrum of “ my game has no plot just scenarios” I play with a group and we are now at the point the DM has told us we are going to be doing a ‘ level reset’ from 12 to level 1. This is because his game, and I quote him “ has no plot and is never going to end and the average scenario is too easy for a level 13 player ” I understand some prople truly enjoy these types of games but I let him know on level reset I would step away from the table as I don’t want to be in a game where we never have an ability to advance or a story to play along too, in the same sitting season he told all of this to us. Three other players ALSO are leaving and the DM blames me for this, suggesting I shouldn’t have told him this in front of them? I ask the justices…. Should I have stuck around and been level squished or was I right to reply in the same sitting I had no interest in a game with no overall plot and no ability to get past level 12 without some kind of logical reason for the level squish?

To the delightful judges and that guy who stands in the corner, Jork was it? I present the case of "asking for an adult" a few years ago we were playing in a Ghibli style campaign. My friend, the DM had set up a traditional anime style tournament arc with the main plot interwoven. All ways going well, however on the second night of the tournament we saw a rival walking mysteriously into a wall, which was solid for us. Your honors, it brings me no honor to say that our party of scrappy teens immediately went "no thank you" and asked if we could speak to an adult. We rolled a natural 20 on seeking out the organizer of the tournament who blasted down the wall and we accidentally skipped several hours of investigating and mystery to unvail a conspiracy by discovering the big bads identity, lair and plans. I ask the question, were we right to ask for help or should we have let our DM lead us down the rabbit hole slower.

To the cromulent Justices, Brian "Murph" Murphy, Emily "Wife Worm" Axford, Caldwell "Flip a DVD" Tanner and the unsung Baliff, Jake "The Cake" Hurwitz, I present the case of the Slime of the Century. This happened nearly nine years ago, but I am still a bit salty. My older brother was DMing for me and my friends in 9th grade, and we were all very new to the game. Our party consisted of my generic human rogue, a dragonborn sorcerer, a paladin based on DJ Khaled, and Shrek, a half-orc barbarian flavoured as an ogre. In our 3rd session, we were tasked with escorting the seven dwarves on a mining trip where we encountered two gelatinous cubes. Things quickly went south. I found myself with the rest of the party stuck in a cube and several dwarves dead. Our DM told us that we could try to succeed a skill check before an attack to do double damage. Desperate, I got the remaining dwarves to form a ramp so I could do an acrobatics check over the cube to do extra damage. I failed, and fell in. My dumbassery ended up having one of the party members being spit out, which resulted in the rest of my party surviving but my character being quickly dissolved. After the session, I looked up the stat block for gelatinous cubes and found they had a challenge rating of 2, making this was a very deadly encounter. I felt that this lead to PC dying unfairly. I questioned my brother about why he made the encounter so deadly and he said that because the cubes are so slow, he expected us to attack with ranged attacks and keep out of the cubes range. He pointed out that he showed us the stat block when our sorcerer rolled a Nat 20 looking for a weak point on the cube and that we had the dwarves continue to mine instead of fighting (even though they had commoner stats). Was I right to be upset at my brother for giving us such a deadly encounter, or was my PC's death the fault of our lack of strategy and my dumbassery? I await your righteous judgment.

To the most holy clergy I am asking for you all to intercede on my behalf and ask for blessings for my D&D music therapy group. I am about to graduate with my masters in music therapy, and was given the go ahead to gather a group of college students to play a D&D module called the Garden of Fog. The goal of this group is to destress, have fun, practice social skills, and build community. We are almost halfway through as the group prepares to rescue their friend from a night hag that has cursed her into a catatonic state. They first must fight off the embodiment of depression and anxiety. I ask that you bless my party of new players as they adventure on, rescue their friend, and make music and friends along the way. May the dice always share their crits with you - Alex, the real life bard

To my beloved Justices Axford, Murphy, and Caldwell, and their… interesting pet bailiff Jake. This is barely DnD related but y’all are the only ones I trust. I’ve been seeing this guy for like 18 months. He’s a proud DM who currently has 3 games going, two of which started after we started dating. And yet there is never space for me in his games? But two of his ex girlfriends are in these games. He’s said I just wouldn’t fit in his normal group but he wishes I was in a game and keeps toying me with pitches for games that never happen. Am I wrong to be jealous? Is this a red flag? 🧡

To the venerable justices of The Supreme Crit and-holy shit! Is that JORK HORSESHIT?? Sorry, got distracted. ANYWAYS! I come to you with a case that has been making waves in the lower courts for some time now; the case of The Joke The Flew Over The Griffon's Head The character that I’m currently playing with in my longest running DND group is Cub Funny. He is a racey, freshly canceled comedian and who is, mechanically specking, a Satyr College of Eloquence Bard. He is, to put it nicely, an asshole and a problem. ESPECIALLY for our DM. These problems boiled over during a battle against a giant and three griffons hoping to capture Cub and take him somewhere; presumably to be charged for his crimes of being just the worst. But when it finally came to my turn in initiative, I get an idea. I decide I want to use my Universal Speech (a subclass feature that allows me to be completely understood by a certain number of creatures per long rest) and then attempt to trick the griffons into thinking that I am not Cub Funny and that they have the wrong Satyr. This, for some reason, made no sense to the DM. He claims that griffons don’t have the brains to comprehend the concept of a “These are not the droids you are looking for” gambit, regardless of whether or not they can understand me. This lead to a heated argument amongst the entire group that lasted for about an hour and ended with the DM slightly caving and making me roll an Animal Handling check to convince the griffons. That check would end up being a NAT 20, because Dice Christ has favorites and it's they're the ones who make him laugh. With that being said, we bring the case to you. And all I ask The Justices of The Supreme Crit is that you remember when making your final ruling that this a case of Player vs DM and not a case of Cub Funny vs The Woke Mob

Hey guys! Help. (jake i would love decaf 2 sugars) So I dmed an all day one shot for my birthday with some friends who hadn’t played before. It was going great until the last hour or two when i could tell people were getting ready to go. one of my players even got up and sat on the couch in the other room and just rolled in there and told us his rolls through the door. My question, I am right to be frustrated at their boredom, or are my players right to be bored after 5 hours of dnd? How can I spice things up? Thanks!

Dear jovial justices and the bogan bailiff, I present the case of the character crash out. I have a group of friends I played a campaign with for 2 years before it came to an awesome end. We recently started our second campaign, an unsleeping city inspired version of magical Chicago set in the late 1990s. One of my characters chose to play a paladin businesswoman who is feeling incredibly burnt out in her job, inspired by her real life. In our second session that character stumbled on a plot point that I had been seeding for later, which was the murder of their drug dealer/friend NPC. Through a series of hilarious and unfortunate rolls, the player completely implicated themselves in the murder they had nothing to do with. This left me in a real corner, but I decided that I could find a fun way to navigate this, so I spent a bunch of time creating this elaborate murder mystery with threads of NPCs who might be involved and ways the Paladin could prove their innocence. The next session, I gave them the evidence they were able to gather from the murder scene. The character was hellbent on solving this murder immediately. They very aggressively and successfully interrogated an NPC they thought might have something to do with the murder. After finding out they had nothing to do with the murder, the player was pissed. They insisted this specific NPC was connected to the murder, so the paladin pulled out their sword and attempted to kill them. In another series of bad rolls, this ended with the cop showing up and the player being shot dead by the real world, Chicago police. When I asked the player why they did this, they said they didn’t know what else to do and they felt back into a corner as a character. Justice am I wrong for sticking to my guns that this NPC did not have anything to do with the murder nor did they know anything relevant? Should I have just relented and given them some information that a different NPC was going to have or was my PC being impatient and not respecting my ability to lead them down the multi session murder mystery path I had set up for them. The irony of it all is, the next scene I had planned had a party members meeting one of the murder suspects, but we never got there.

To the most honorable members of dice Christ’s clergy and that little guy ringing the bell in the tower… I come before you to confess an unknown sin. I was DMing a curse of Strahd session. Before the session began I was rolling dice with my players, and lo and behold I rolled 3 natural ones in a row, between two different dice. Immediately after, as I was packing one offending set away (one of my favorite crystal sets), the d20 fell off of the table and shattered on the kitchen tile. I am unsure of what crimes I’ve committed against Dice Christ…. But nonetheless must accept a clear message he gives me. I come seeking forgiveness for whatever I’ve done, revoke the dice devil, and hope to atone and get back in his good graces. Amen P.S. it was also my birthday (hate the show)

Dearest Honorable Crits and your X-lowly baliff Jake, i present the case of personal hell. The party needed to steal a gem of planes-shifting from the villains. One player accidentally triggered one, and was warped to hell, where they began to rescue NPCs important to the party from personalized hells. The other PCs encountered a villain, who offered them a gem. Because one of the NPCs i mentioned was one of their husbands. The player was so intent on getting to that scene that she didn't ask any questions, and they were consequently trapped in their own personal hell and missed it entirely. As DM, did i utterly fail to reinforce this self-admitted villain may be lying, in seperating the party at all, or does the fault lay in another aspect?

To the benevolent judges and "AHHH!!!".....Oh Jake! I didn't see you there. I bring you the PC Custody Battle. I was approached by my forever DM and he asked if I could run the next campaign so he could play. I was nervous cause I've never DM'd before, but with his encouragement I gathered the group and we set off. The game was going well for months until my DM approached me. My DM asked if he could make a new character claiming, "I'm bored, I feel I have taken his story to their end." I was worried cause I still had so much planned for him and even offered to workshop, but he was firm. So I narrated his PC leaving and introduced his new character: a swashbuckler rogue pirate captain. Everyone loved the new character, so I thought we were all good. Untill one session later, my DM approached me again saying quote, " Im going to leave the game. I'm finding myself bored and uninvested." Once again I offered to workshop, but he was firm so we bid him farewell and we continued forward. But I had a problem. I was left with his Captain and crew of his NPCs that was taxing for a new DM to organize. So in the next encounter, I decided to introduce my BBEG and as a way to show off the bad guys power, I would have the Captain sacrifice himself so his crew and the players could escape. When I told my DM this, he was upset. Saying that it was his character and he should get to decide what his ending was. I argued that since he left the game, they were now a NPC and as DM their fate was in my hands. Well suffice to say this soured the group and the campaigned fizzled out. So I ask, who owns a character once a player leaves the table? Should I have let his 2nd PC sail into the sunset? Or was I allowed to give him a heroic death? I throw myself at the mercy of the court.

To the hot and humble couple at the table and their jesters— what is your ruling on couples playing in the same campaign? I had a player breakup end a campaign prematurely, and just finished a short campaign where I want to invite one member of a couple to play again but not the other. How do I handle that messiness and do you have any general advice for having a couple at a table? Sincerely, Plagued by Other People’s Problems

To the ever honorable judges and ever deplorable bailiff, I present the case of the classic scheduling conundrum. While I’m very aware that scheduling conflicts are basically included in the book, one of my groups has been struggling to find a consistent time for our daggerheart campaign. What makes me write into you about it is that our dm has been getting more and more aggressive towards the players each time we have difficulty make our schedules work. And I worry he is starting to “scares the hoes”. I also don’t want to see this campaign fizzle but I’m starting to fear it’s fizzling due to his rude comments when we have life come up. So judges I ask, is my dm in the wrong for being angry at schedules or should we as the players try to be better about scheduling so he doesn’t have to get to the passive aggressive point? Thank you. P.s. he’s started threatening to kill our in game tea cup pig companion if we couldn’t find a time

To the magnificent judges and... bailiff? If he's here? I bring to you the case of "my players keep razzing me about level ups." If i am ever so slightly late to our online sessions (which includes basically me not being first into the call) my players yell that theyre level 69 in every class and subclass. They also ask me for level ups almost every session (they leveled up and fought one (1) monster of a slightly higher CR than them and they were like "we get a level up right we go from level 4 to level 5 right are we level 7 now omg we're totally level 10 we gotta be"). Do I have any recourse?

Hello, high priests Axford, Murphy, Tanner and choir boy jake. I have a confession for a sin I fear I may have committed on my players. It was all of our first time playing dnd (although I knew a lot from play shows). The party successfully completed their first mission of finding the culprit who was stealing valuables from villagers. At this point the PCs have had spent plenty of time together but didn't actually like each other, they bickered and fought and tried to kill each other regularly. I was unsure of how to get them to want to stick together to move on to other things so I crafted a plan. They were celebrated with a party and gifts which included a cursed sword which took the appearance of something each PC would want. I narrated them each grabbing their item and watching as it transformed into the sword which they could not let go of. To get the party to stick together I literally stuck them together. It ended up working well as they worked together to find a wizard to remove the curse but I feel guilty. The very least I could have done was to give them a wisdom saving roll but I took advantage of them not knowing the game to get them where I wanted them. Will Dice Christ forgive my sin or am I to burn in the fiery pits of dice hell...

To the judges who I pay full reverence to and the bailiff who constantly messes up their paperwork. I present you the case of The Most Deadly Dodge. In a home campaign that I played in, another PC named Rebel was a war-forged eldritch knight fighter from a desert kingdom. After returning by himself to his homeland in order to find his creator, he eventually found his sort of Dad and had a heart to heart about his creation and purpose. Rebel had been struggling with the fact that he possessed an incredibly powerful magical hammer imbued with the spirit of an earth god but despite his best efforts, he couldn’t draw out the weapons magical power. We at some point learned that the hammer works similar to Thor’s hammer and will only lend its power to someone who it considers worthy or virtuous. After sometime the town came under attack by an evil wizard (my character’s brother). The wizard was able to take control of the minds of the other war-forged and had them attack the people of the town. Rebel sprung into action to defend the people of his homeland and eventually he is all that physically stood between a group of children and his mind controlled metal siblings with crossbows. With his shield raised, Rebel assured the children that he was prepared to defend them with his life. The DM let the player know that the war-forged were about to open fire on him and in an attempt to brace himself and get some bonus to his defense the player said “I take the dodge action”. The DM then described how as the bolts fired towards Rebel he dodged out of the way at the last moment, allowing the bolts to fly past him and into the group of children killing them all. This lead to a morose end to the session and the hammer still not seeing Rebel as worthy. The player protested that he was just trying to take some kind of defensive stance in order to take less damage from the oncoming attacks. I ask you judges, was the DM right to interpret the players words literally? I throw my friends, and definitely not myself, at your mercy

OH MY GOD! Is that a slide?? In court??? Where's it leading us...? A TANK????? Here's my idea: How many times in media have we seen wizards who fully exaust themselves, to the point of collapsing, to conjure a complex and more powerfull spell? Wizards that put their integritity at risk for a very potent magic? Hence comes my wizard homebrewed subclass: THE EXHAUSTED CASTER ( https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/wgcImhepmQWR ). This wizard is able to augment their spells with "Exhaustive Boost" options, but, after doing so, they must make a CON Save or get a level of Exhaustion, or even get the Unconsious condition if they fail this save on two subsequent turns. With time, this wizard gets more boost options and gains ways to deal with their exhaustion (this subclass uses the 2024 rules for Exhaustion). For a total of 0 eggs, but Shellmily playing this subclass in a oneshot, I'll sell 97,2% of this idea. But yes, if you insist, I will accept a symbolic number of eggs as incentive.

humble greetings to everyones favorite worm enjoyers and the early bailiff who somehow still misses the worms. today i present before you the case of the campaign-wide banned cantrip in a campaign a few years back, one of my dear friends, who is a little notorious for finding all of the little loopholes in spell wording, was playing a tiefling rogue/sorcerer who had taken the cantrip booming blade. she had the metamagic option twin-spell, and figured that she was able to twin-spell cast booming blade to attack 2 different people, and give the effects of booming blade to both of them. she spent the required sorcery points, was within melee of both, she had the warcaster feat, and she was dual wielding daggers. the first time she did it, it was kind of glossed over by our dm (her bf), and then a different session, they paused combat for fully 30+ minutes while they had an intense argument about the mechanics of it. (the table sided with the player) i don’t remember how exactly that combat resolved, but i know she was never allowed to twin-spell booming blade whenever she brought it up in subsequent battles, and our dm ended up adding it to his list of “spells banned for campaign two” (the only other one was the ninth level spell wish, by the way).. all that being said: who in the world is right?

To the honorable justices and I guess also Murph’s DMPC “Jaek.” I present to you the case of the Difficult Druid and the Bleeding Bard. I have been in a campaign for nearly five years with four level 9 PCs: a wizard, a monk, a druid, and me, a bard. We are all great friends and there is no bad blood here. Anyway, our dragonborn druid refuses to wild shape, and instead hangs back to use her acid breath or the spell Wind Wall. ONLY Wind Wall, every time. As the only PC up in the mix, I get absolutely rocked. The wizard takes hits so I don’t have to, and the monk has stopped using evasion. To add insult to injury, we all watched the DND movie together and when the druid in the movie wild shaped, our druid said, “that’s so cool, I wish we had someone who can do that,” to which I responded, “you can turn into a fucking bear.” I prostrate myself before the court and ask if we should get over our tank not tanking or if we should trap our tank in a wild shape a la Tobias from Animorphs. P.S. don’t play, hate the show

To the stylish justices and the over achiever, I bring to you the case of The DM’s Secret Sessions. I’ve been playing in a D&D campaign for almost 2 years now, and most of us are new players. We are all friends from college, and the DM and one other player are especially good friends. This player’s character fell in love with one of the NPC’s, and as a party we worked together to get them to go on a date; the two characters are now dating. The relationship has been really beneficial to help develop this player’s character. I have no issues with this relationship, however… I have recently found out that the DM and this player have hooked up, and are now dating. This would not be weird if not for the fact that they are roleplaying as these characters in the bedroom. Should I confront them about it, or keep quiet about the fact I know at all? I leave the judgement up to you.

May it please the court and the croissanting bailiff Jake I present the case of the deck of many things spin I was the dm of this homebrew curse of strahd x hell mini campaign for my college friends. As the final bbeg battle started, one of my players pulled the fate card, and chose to change the event of them choosing to break in to the dungeon where they got the relic strahd needed, basically time traveling the party back to three sessions earlier. In that moment, I admit I had a bit of a dm sweat moment because I had nothing planned. I made it a impromptu race to the relic. When my party lost a few opposed rolls to see who would get the relic first, the party got upset saying that using the fate card would not have let strahd know their plan of keeping the relic from him. Little did they know I made it nearly impossible to win the race because if the race was won, strahds master plan would have been cut off and any storylines that would have had a nice resolution would have remained unfinished. The campaign ended in a good place but I still wonder if I was wrong for twisting their use of the fate card to progress the story.

Vert afternoon, really Jake?

Good day Justices and the mighty bailiff Jump. I come today with a case of a poorly planned assault. I’m a PC in a campaign with some friends and the DM is running the Princes of the Apocalypse module. We were planning to attack a fort that we suspected of housing a cult. While we were planning the attack we agreed that the sneaky members of our party would go ahead during the night to open the gate. My Giff paladin and another non sneaky Goliath Druid waited to get a signal to enter. The sneaky members managed to get to the gate and started to open it after sending a signal with a lantern. This however alerted some guards and triggered an encounter. I asked my DM if we could join initiative but he said “you’re over a mile away, it’s going to take you awhile”. This had never been established during our planning so I think he made up this number. We eventually joined the fight and ended up losing one of our PCs. We did eventually emerge victorious but it’s bothers me that we planned that whole thing and then just stood a mile away. Justices, should we have asked for more information or did our DM wish to make us run a mile in character?

hi jake

To the honorable Supreme Crit justices and the dreaded lowly baliff that shares my name, I bring to you the case of the centipede that “doesn’t take opportunity attacks”. I was playing a level 2 variant human paladin with the shield master feat, allowing me to bonus action shove enemies when I take the attack action. We were a party at three, with myself and the cleric being relatively tanky protecting our squishy warlock, who was the DM’s boyfriend if that matters. We play with a full battle map/grid and the bonus action shoves had allowed our party to, dare I say, whomp our dm with masterful positioning. The encounter in question was against a centipede like thing that was only one size larger than me, allowing me to shove it off our warlock who quickly scampered away. The stakes were all but gone, but the DM had it go for one last stab at the warlock. When I asked about an opportunity attack, he said this had an ability to negate that. We were able to survive and after the session, I asked my dm if it really had that feature and he told me no, he just wanted to take one last stab and knew it was low hp. Justices, I ask you, was it fair for my DM to ignore the rules in order to keep stakes high or was this a case of a power hungry man who was just unwilling to take the small L. PS - we were later TPK-ed in this same session and I don’t fault him at all for that. My only complaint for this night was the one described above.

May it please the Court, the pulchritudinous justices, and the stinky little bailiff, I present the case of the spousal serial killer. My husband is the DM for me and two of our friends in a game of Tomb of Annihilation, a module known for being extremely deadly and centers on a death curse that nullifies resurrection. My first character was one-shot eaten by a teleporting dinosaur. My next character was unceremoniously beheaded by a monster that, on a crit, automatically decapitates and kills players. This campaign has been going on for more than two years, and I am the only player to have even one PC death—neither of which allowed me to make death saves. Justices, make no mistake—my husband was technically right to kill both characters. That is not the case I bring before you today; instead, I ask the court to consider custody of razzing rights. In the past week since my most recent death, I’ve been razzing my husband with things like, “Oh, you want me to pass you the salt? Guess you should’ve thought of that before you killed me twice.” To add insult to injury, he also took me out in a game of Commander later that week. Justices, am I in the right to continue to razz him at the very least until I can introduce my new character? Or should I file for divorce and tell the judge about the irreconcilable difference of my husband killing me in D&D? (P.S. – We always listen to Dungeon Court together, so please be extra brutal in whichever way you dispense justice.)

To the honorable judges Tanner and the Axfords and to jake who is here I bring you the case of the insane robot I ran a Star wars campaign a few years back using SW5e and it was a lot of fun, during character creation one of my friends (who is known for making insane characters) asked to play a droid specifically a magna guard barbarian, I hesitantly said yes. Com session 1 he had 6 reactions, resistance to all damage and 36 AC. was in fact concerned, this was a level 10 campaign but that's crazy. He explained that it is perfectly legal the rule book is just easy to abuse I said you have 22 AC and vulnerability to shock, he said that's fair and we had a blast, judges since the have razed him on it and he has exclaimed still that it's legal, so ask shall keep razing or is it just the systems fault? p.s. he said he's down to send an explanation of his build

To these absolute knobs, May it challenge the court and upset the power they wield. I bring you the case of "WTF High Crit, you got a problem with me?" I have written in in the past for your assistance and all you do is punish me. My players fill up a bag with bombs - my fault. My player brings and OP, roided out, charisma laden God bird to the scrub match - my fault. My players name them selves all Tyler - not only my fault - but justice Murphy says he must make an example of me and creates the first NADDPOD precedent in my name. Furthermore, Justice/ Lowly lowly lowly bailiff Axeford openly stated on record she wished to torment me. I have clearly been targeted and I demand retribution from this kangaroo court. I ask YOU NADDPOLES if this tyranny should continue. Good day. P.S. I don't even like this show. P.S.S. I will settle for Emily's 1st ugly mug, that unfortunately sounds extremely delightful

to the deacons of the dice, i have a confession/request for advice. i was called in as a pinch hitter for the second (and final) part of a friend of a friend’s call of cthulhu game based on a pre existing module. it was very last minute (within an hour of the session starting) as the original player was unexpectedly unable to attend and the gm needed someone to run this character. i was more than happy to join but realized, after agreeing and receiving my character sheet, that this was a module i had read for fun on my own time after playing with this group previously. what would y’all have done in this situation? i didn’t reread anything prior to the session but certain things, including some puzzle answers and crucial plot moments, were stuck in my mind. i tried to take a backseat but there were things that my character was uniquely equipped for and i worry even in trying to be realistic with myself about my own puzzle solving abilities/what i would’ve been able to deduce that i may have overestimated and stolen some moments from other players. no one said anything and everyone seems to have had a good time, with the final battle being appropriately tense and climactic, but i still wonder if i should’ve been upfront with the gm/rest of the party about my knowledge.

To the deacons of dice christ, I humbly being a tale of dice christ's forgivness and redemption! In the dark times that were the final years of my collegiate education, I was in a tough place, and it carried over to the DnD game I was in. I couldnt seem to roll above a 10, I felt overshadowed by the other players, who were power gamers, and the DM, my now ex, would consistently target my character if we were having a disagreement. I was so tired and upset, I started lying about my rolls, just to try and get the occasional hit in. Now, years later, I am in a much better spot, and have DMed a full 3 year campaign, and am also running a ongoing campaign of 5 years. However, I have always been cursed with terrible rolls, no matter the set of dice used, much to the joy of my players. Even if I played a one shot, I always rolled terribly, despite vowing when i first started DMing that I'd never lie about another roll ever again. I have patiently slogged through 5 years of penitence, waiting for the return of dice christ's light. And it finally came!! In a recent one shot, playing a favorite character concept, I rolled probably 5 nat 20s in the span of the session. My rolling average was incredibly high as well. Now when I DM, I roll so many nat 20s and high rolls I feel like I should start rolling in front of the DM screen (not that my players have balked, theyre level 15 and can handle it!) I bring this tale as a spark of joy for anyone else who may be struggling to serve the penitence of dice christ! The light will return and we can bathe in its glory together!

To my favorite justices, bailiff, and also Caldwell, whose spirit infected my friends and inspired the following fuckery: I am dm’ing a fae wild campaign for my best friends who I love. One PC, Carl, decided that he NEEDED a snow globe with the four seasons inside. He bought a regular snow globe, broke it open, used trash from a dumpster to create the decorations, and cast the mending spell to tie it all together. I told him to roll sleight of hand with disadvantage as Carl had no crafting experience, nor tools! He insisted that he should actually get ADVANTAGE because was using mending and took an art class in bard college. I told him that mending would have been fine if he was just trying to fix a snow globe. But he had instead filled a broken snow globe with trash, so this check was about how well could execute on his “Seelie Snowball.” I feel like I must have gone wrong because after much grumbling he rolled two sixteens— an ominous rebuke from dice Christ. Justices, should have given him advantage?? Was I too harsh on my best friend’s bespoke snow globe making dreams?