Cases, Cases!

To my beautiful justice axford and caldrell, murk, and Jake. I give you the case of the dead eyed grandma. I have been listening to naddpod for years and finally decided to dm for my mom- my grandmother was also there at the time and wanted to join in. She was crazy excited to roll dice and my mom was mostly in for the role play. Half way through the one-shot while my mom was talking to an old hunched tavern owner my grandma just kept looking around and saying, “when are we gonna roll these damn dice.” And, “this is taking to long.” Then her eyes went dead and she proceeded to stare of into the distance. In order to please my grandmother I admidittly ended the conversation and ran through the one-shot as quickly as I could. I cut what was supposed to be a 1 hour session into a 28 minute session. So I ask you. Was I wrong to try to appeal to both my mom’s wishes and my grandmother’s craving for dice?

Hey. Just want to throw this name out there for a npc. Spiders George

To the beneficent judges and the middling bailiff (Josh?), I present to you the case of the Tortle Ammo Skulduggery. My friends and I are playing a homebrew mini-campaign turned medium-campaign. We’re currently in an island run by criminals to gain access to their magic item auction. We’re competing for black coins to gain access (that are also worth 5,000 gp a pop, so the more the merrier). One of the competitions is an archery (or your preferred ranged attack) competition. The rest of the party used their preferred weapons while the Tortle Druid and Elven Bard teamed up. The Tortle has a magic item that allows them to levitate (only slightly off the ground), so they decided the Elf would push the Tortle and once the Tortle got up to the target, it would hit the target. Myself (oath breaker paladin) and the rouge of the party argued that this was bullshit as the DM very specifically said we would be shooting from a specific distance and moving back each round till we had a winner. And surely this Chelonian chicanery (chelonian is the scientific term for turtles) violated that rule. Since party’s Elf (who was pushing the hover Tortle) wasn’t actually the one hitting the target. It was the Tortle who was well past the set distance for each round when they attacked the target. It got to a distance of 360ft (my paladin had been eliminated several rounds earlier) and the Elf didn’t roll well enough, so this time the Tortle cast Title Wave to “hit” the target. The rouge and I were outraged that the DM continued to allowed this insanity, but he wasn’t having any of it and doubled down on his ruling that this was allowed. Obviously the grifters won the 2 black coin prize (so TEN THOUSAND GP), which they split. So judges, I ask you this, what the fuck? I’m all for the rule of cool, but was it not seriously uncool allowing certain party members to cheat in broad daylight? P.S. the DM did not allow us to have magic items going into the campaign. And only found out the Tortle was levitating via an item which the DM allowed him to have as it was “just for flavor.” Maybe I have a different definition of flavor, but I don’t think it means “a mechanical advantage that you can use to help win 5,000 gp”

To the Juicy Judges and Beefy Bailiff I bring a cold case to the court that happened around 7 years ago. Me and a couple of friends from work decided we wanted to play DND. I decided to DM since no one else wanted to so naturally I also offered to host. The problem lies in this, at the time I was living in a small two bedroom apartment with my brother and his girlfriend (now wife) and the only good place to play was in the kitchen/dining/living room (all one room no walls). So when the first session came along my brother was watching tv on the couch, it wasn’t too big of deal at the moment because we were mainly making our characters but once the game started I could see my friends were a little distracted and self conscious with him loudly watching tv a few feet from us. So after the session I politely asked my brother to not watch TV in the same room as us next session and he said “No problem.” And sure enough next session when my PC’s showed up to our place he turned the Tv off, but instead of going to his room he and his girlfriend proceeded to lie down and cuddle in silence for over an hour while we played. I can’t even begin to describe how weird and awkward it was for everyone else but them. They did the same thing next session too and he was upset and passive aggressive when I asked them to go to their room but still did. So justices am I right to think this was mad weird or is he right I should respect “The Shared Living Spaces”? P.S. I asked him to join the next campaign and he had me make his character and refused to name him but was otherwise happy to spend time with me.

I don't have a case I just really need you guys to know that in Germany they are releasing a Grimace themed meal where the burger has purple buns. Exactly the kind of brain rot I come here for. Thank you for listening to my TED talk https://www.reddit.com/r/StupidFood/s/EbGWo2RRgc

Fathers and Mother forgive me for I have sinned. I purchase a One Shot book so I could host easy impromptu D&D sessions. I was DMing for my husband and my younger sister (who was nice enough to humor her nerdy older sister by playing D&D with us a few times, Dice Christ has blessed her as her first ever roll in D&D was a Nat 20). The one shot was a coastal town where something was amiss with the fish. My sister (a bard) and my husband (a druid) made it on to the BBEGs boat and the final battle began. One more note, this was not my first time DMing but apparently my first time reading. I misunderstood the damage the bad guys could do by adding both the average noted and the + whatever. EX: Hit: 10 (2d6 + 3) slashing damage. So I would roll 2d6 and then add THIRTEEN. As the encounter was happening I felt like it was too much damage but I guess I just felt too dumb to ask my husband, who is the board game instruction reader in our house, for help. As is expected when effectively dealing double damage there was a TPK. I decided that instead of killing them both the Sea Hag would turn them into octopi to “deal with them later” and locked them in a crate, giving them a short rest in the process. This is neither a skill she had, nor would she have spared them, and in all honesty I think I lowered her HP. After they escaped the crate they ended up killing the BBEG and the party got a win and solved the mystery, but can Dice Christ ever forgive me for breaking just about every rule imaginable just to give them a dues ex machina? Or must I suffer in the Nine Hells? P.S. After the fight was over my husband and I were talking about it and he mentioned the battle it was really hard, when I showed him what I had been doing he just laughed and said “Yeah, that’ll do it!”

Dear Justices and their devoted bailiff, I bring a case of great dismay to your court today. I’ve been DMing our home game for the last two years. I’ve had them on a large exploration through the wildnerness. I wrote over a hundred unique encounters across a 500 mile map. My party had been enjoying the game, meeting peculiar characters, running into interesting events, and slowly getting breadcrumbs of the larger plot. The pace was admittedly slower than we usually played but all above table check-ins, public and private, returned positive feelings about our game. At the beginning of 2026, we stalled. Our once monthly or twice monthly meetings stopped entirely. I started a new job, one of our table got married, and the Midwest winter did its job of keeping us home. So when we finally returned in April, I was ecstatic! Over the last year my wife befriended someone from her local orchestra. He asked to join our game and we were happy to have him. I got his character statted up to our party level and made sure he had appropriate loot. During our first session with the new player, and our first session in four months, we started our game in media res during exploration. The new player revealed one of their items, a Necklace of Prayer Beads. I had rolled for the player and amongst their 5 beads, one was Wind Walk. During prep, I didn’t even think about how this would affect our game. While planning the next leg of travel, it was discovered that Wind Walk was the perfect solution! 300’ fly speed for 8 hours? Why, that would let them cover the entire distance left of the map and then some! They could avoid every encounter, plot hook, and satisfying conclusion that was ahead of them. My players of course took this obvious solution and plan to start next session traveling the remainder of the map. Judges, the new player did nothing wrong by having an item that I gave them and using it. Solving the problem ahead of them is what a party should do. But I still can’t help but feel sore about the last two years of game being resolved like this. I am fine with tossing out my notes; if I wanted full control I’d write a book. But it feels like someone else showed up to my birthday and blew out the candles. I’m feeling disheartened to continue DMing and may hand off the game to another party member who expressed interest in taking over. So I ask: how do I square my hurt feelings as a person with my duties as a DM to give my players a good game? I will open mindedly hear your judgment but feel as though no one has done anything wrong here.

Good day justices of the crit court. And Bailiff [redacted]. I ask a question if that is allowed, on behalf of my lovely DM my brother. We are currently 5 months into our current campaign and it’s been running smoothly with goofs and great story. However our characters know no information about eachother, and rarely interact on personal levels. He’s struggling with how to prod our group (various levels of roleplay comfortability) into interacting more as our characters. We look forward to any and all advice given by your sage council. Please forward the bill to Jake.

To the effervescent justices, and I guess hey to the bailiff jork… or was it Jock, I present to you the case of the girlfriend focused dm, The Nat-20 Nepotism Scandal To the glorious and effervescent justices, and the bailiff, I think it was jork, I present to you the Scandal of the party's Nat-20 Nepotism. 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.

Steamed supreme crit judges and esteemed bailif; I bring forth the case of the planned execution in the name of the Brother. Valley of Barovia. Vallaki. Blue Water Inn. Party of level 4 heroes arrive, tired and wounded, only for them to be ambushed by Strahd and a nice bottle of wine. They outsmart the vampire, making him believe that Ireena is dead. Then, Strahd challenges the Paladin to a Duel, asking: "Does your oath allow both of us to walk away... alive?" They fight alone, the party watching in horror. The Cleric, ward and squire of the Paladin, recieves a book of faith from their shared god, Lathander. The Paladin falls, and Strahd forbids anyone from healing him. Death saves are rolled. He dies. I feel extremely guilty about it becouse it 100% was exactly as I planned, even though I was open to any shennanigan to save him, I had to play Strahd as intelligent and driven, or so I tell myself. I feel particularly guilty because the Cleric is my brother, and I don't think I would proceeded as I did if he was playing the Paladin. I might have executed his friend's character to foster a character moment for the Cleric's PC. Was I wrong to create such an encounter? Did I use a friend's (PC) death to fuel PC drama?

Hello. I need advice. I play a monk in a dnd campaign with my sister and her friends. The personality I’ve given this monk is blunt and off putting and she often says some odd things that the Cleric finds hilarious. He’s started a quote book in our discord server that is mostly full of quotes from my monk. The problem is that the Paladin has gotten noticeably upset that she doesn’t have as many quotes in the quote book as me. It’s to the point where she will say something she thinks is cool, turn to the Cleric and literally beg him to add whatever she just said to the quote book. This gets kind of uncomfortable after a while. And very awkward. The Paladin also gets very jealous after a quote of mine is added to the quote book and one of hers isn’t. It’s making playing with this group difficult because it feels like I can’t play my character without making someone upset even though I don’t think I’m doing anything wrong. Help.

To the Highly-Esteemed Crit Justices and the Blandly-Steamed Bailiff Juck, I bring you the case of Unintentional God Cannibalism. Many years ago in a campaign with my then-girlfriend and her friends, we killed a huge lake monster and one of the players said they took the body back to our camp to eat and we all sort of went along with it, jokingly pretending to have a BBQ. Next session, the DM revealed the monster was actually the corrupted divine body of my Gnome Cleric's missing god. I was distraught. My character absolutely loved and worshipped their god and would never eat her. I immediately sought to clarify everyone was only kidding about eating my god, but the original player double downed, saying they turned the leftovers into jerky to eat throughout the campaign. I made it clear in and out of game that I wasn't okay with that, but they argued we all participated in the initial god-BBQ, and I just had to be cool with it. After lengthy debate, I managed to convince the table that we had at least not eaten the heart (which I needed as part of the quest to restore her to divinity), but it still haunts me. Justices. Was this extremely weird behaviour and I'm justified in feeling wronged, or do I need to own up to my own part in the god BBQ and let it go?4

To the benevolent judges and "AHHH!!!".....Oh Jake! I didn't see you there. I bring you the case of Counterspell Clairvoyance. A few years ago, I DM'd an online game for a group introduced to me by a friend. Things were good to start, but as we progressed, we found ourselves butting heads over the mechanics of the game as well as the quote "actual" lore of the world. But there was one moment that lit the powderkeg of our bickering brighter than any, and it has to do with Counterspell. The party was engaged with the bbeg of the arc in the Feywild, when the PC druid was ready to cast a powerful spell. The bbeg knew this would cause trouble so I proclaimed he casted Counterspell and I asked what level the spell they were casting was. The answer? ......Guess! "... What do you mean guess?", I asked. He claimed that nothing in the rules state he had to say what the level was and I could potentially waste a higher spell slot to Counterspell there druid spell. I argued that even though I didn't know the spell stats, the bbeg, who was a powerful fey magic user, surely would know and I could know the spells level and plan accordingly. This devolved into a semi heated argument, where I relented and just "guessed" to use the higher spell slot to stop the spell. Ultimately they succeeded the combat and we went on to eventually wrap the campaign up and dissolve the group for other reasons, but I think this argument was the beginning of the end. So I ask you judges, was I right to assume that a BBEG would be able to know a spell's level to Counterspell, or should I have let my druid continue playing guessing games? I throw myself at the mercy of the court.

To the honorable judges and that handsome devil — I mean bailiff — Jack, I bring you the case of Polymorph Pandemonium. Me and my friends were playing a campaign set in Kalakeri — a plane of shadowfell from Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft inspired by Southeast Asia. We started as a party of 4 level 12s and level 16 by the end. I played a Ranger (7)/druid(5) multiclass and I must’ve done it the wrong way as I felt significantly weaker than my 3 fellow non-multiclassing players (Wizard, Bard, Fighter). So weak that I barely landed hits and since both classes focus on concentration spells/attacks I rarely was able to show full potential in combat. My table noticed. In one of the first boss fights against a young dragon who had imprisoned a small island’s inhabitants I was 0 for 6, so the party’s wizard cast True Polymorph on me and turned me into a Giant Ape (it is only CR 7 and the spell’s limit is CR 9). This resulted in me successfully womping the young dragon in a King Kong vs Godzilla type scene. Fricken rad, right? However, this then set a precedent where during every boss fight I was turned into some large beast and somehow managed to get the killing blow every time. These polymorphed moments were the only time I felt truly powerful in combat and equal to my fellow party members. It also lead to some great cinematic boss kills. I do have guilt we cheated the spell a little and I shouldn’t have been able to do this. Judges, was I wrong to accept this wizard’s positive polymorph? should I have just tried rebalancing my character? P.S. The DM begrudgingly conceded this tactic working saying it was my connections to nature and animals that let me be in control in these forms.

To the enigmatic judges and the, oh its you, I really would've preferred emily as bailiff but sure yeah hi. I bring you the case of the would-be dragon's apprentice. I was playing a wizard in a dragon heist campaign being run by a friend of a friend. Nearing the end of a grueling heistless campaign of constantly being broke and getting our low level asses kicked in a city filled to the brim with powerful and legendary npcs, we did end up getting to the treasure hidden in the city (by losing every fight and begging an Npc to get the mcguffin for us). My wizard asked to apprentice the golden dragon looking after the treasure and he agreed. I was pretty hyped between sessions. After so much losing, i felt like my wizard finally won one. The DM told me the apprenticeship would lead to special spells, and i made a list of magic items i wanted to gift the party with my cut of the prize money. Sitting down for the next session, i was told the dragon would spend the current stretch of downtime basically testing me and making me study. While this made sense, having to sit in the room not participating for 6 (six) real life hours while the rest of the party made decisions about running a bar my character wasnt around to be apart of, didnt feel quite as fitting. My character was also too busy studying to spend any of the prize money everyone received. To top it all off, at the end of the session, the planet was attacked and the bar i spent 6 hours watching my friends upgrade blew up before we were pulled into our next adventure off planet. That was the final straw and i politely left the campaign. We're all still friends and the campaign is ongoing but tell me judges, was i justified in leaving after being sidelined for so long or should i have played the long game for a possible epic space dragon wizard?

To the honorable judges and EWWWW WHAT IS THAT!!? I bring you a case of your own creation. I play as a classic dumb ass barbarian with a group of long time friends, most of whom listen to NADDPOD. Every now and again court rulings come up during our sessions to guide our DM, and on one occasion I believe one of the precedents you set was misused. We were in an enemy’s home during a heist and I asked if I could look inside a specific book for a key to a locked door. There was no major set up to this decision, just that I knew the book was important to the owner of the home. My DM asked me to roll an investigation check, and thanks to my -3 int I got a 6 and didn’t find anything. 2 minutes later, the rogue decided to investigate the whole bookcase , gets a 19 investigation check and finds that THE SAME BOOK I OPENED was hollowed out and the key I was looking for was inside. I was all like “wtf” to which my DM said “dude, there’s no way your low int barbarian would have thought to look inside that book, this comes up in DnD court all the time; outside skills should not impact in game results. Do I make you bench press 1000lbs to see if your character can pass a strength check? No I make you roll a dice. It works the other way too, just cuz you, a player, associated a fact from 3 sessions ago with a hiding place for a key, doesn’t mean your barbarian could have done the same”. Anyway, we argued about it a bit, but it quickly turned into a series of jokes and rightful razzes, we’re all still friends, all still play weekly, all still hangout outside of DnD, like this impacted nothing, but who was right? PS hate the show.

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

Hey Queens -- let's get right into it. My DM wouldn't let me jump out a window. This was during a Call of Cthulu game. Our party was on the third floor of a library, stealing books from the forbidden section, when an alarm went off and police began entering from below. We decided the window was our best bet, and the DM asked us to roll the "Jump" skill. Here's where it gets criminal: the DM ruled that this Jump skill determined not how well we could jump, but if we could muster the courage and ability to jump at all. None of us had any points in this skill. We failed. Four times. Two players were arrested, and the third finally succeeded in falling out the window, breaking his legs, and then being arrested. Nothing fun happened in prison. Queens, I throw myself at your mercy. How do skills work? Does Jump decide if I can jump at all, or do we all have some little, god-given jumps?

To the benevolent, brave and bountiful bailiff Joff, and their royal excellencies, Murphy, Axford and Tanner. I bring you my tale of woe… very petty woe, but woe none the less. I currently play a rogue/druid (weird combo I know) in Rime of the Frostmaiden, and we were up against three big bads. Our DM told us to prepare backup characters. We were naturally worried. Cut to me coming in mid fight and casting Heat Metal on their cleric who had spirit guardians up. The spell broke her concentration, but also damaged a concealed necklace that was, unbeknownst to me, linking her to a Saint of death who was tied to her power. So other bad guys she’d brought back to life died - again - and her magic went kapoot. It was my first time using Hest Metal and I was so happy and proud of myself for doing something that made a big difference. Mental happy dances etc. At the end of each session, we vote for MVP and it was given to an another guy in the fight who’s opponent just dropped dead in front of him. So my question to you, oh wise ones, is am I right in feeling a bit miffed it wasn’t me? I spitefully thank you from my petty corner

To the most jawsome judges Murphy, Axford, and Tanner, and the lowly life-worm bailiff Axford, pulling double duty after Bailiff Jake’s most unfortunate Grinching, R.I.G., I present the case of the Resentful Revenant. I was running a campaign inspired by The Unsleeping City for some friends. Each player created an NPC who had inspired their character in life. Early in the campaign, the party had their meet-cute in a public library and discovered a hidden magical library. It’s there where they were united with their specific NPCs, learning about them being secret magical guardians and their deaths fighting a mysterious threat. Until new guardians were selected or that NPC decided it was time to move on, they were in a purgatory-like state within this library. After some story exposition, the players had short one-on-one interactions with their NPCs. All of the NPCs reacted differently to their current condition, with some accepting it and others in denial. The conflict began with a player I’ll call Goblin (who was playing a goblin). His character and NPC shared a rough background and close bond. During their interaction, Goblin chose to pour one out to honor his NPC. However, the NPC was in denial about being dead and directly said not to treat him as if he was. Goblin continued anyway, even after I clarified that the NPC did not want to be treated as dead. After that clarification, Goblin broke character, turned to me, and explained the meaning of his action. I acknowledged the meaning behind it and told him plainly that his NPC was clearly upset at his close personal friend acting as if he was gone. Goblin still disagreed, but we moved on. I noted this interaction and planned for the NPC’s emotional state to decline if left unresolved. Four sessions later, nearly a month had passed in-game before any players returned to the library. I left hints for someone to check on the NPCs, but the players had a larger mystery distracting them. By then, Goblin’s NPC had mentally deteriorated. Upon entering the library, the party saw this NPC transform into a revenant and actively draining the other NPCs. The encounter was a difficult fight, as the players tried to subdue him without killing him, while I repeatedly had him shout, “I’m not dead.” Goblin initially refused to engage emotionally, insisting he was correct in pouring one out, until the situation became dire when another player went down. And yes, judges, death was on the table. After this, he finally apologized in character and, succeeding on several persuasion checks, the NPC calmed down and returned to normal. After the session, Goblin argued that the NPC would not have reacted that way, claiming that pouring one out is a sign of respect in their shared background. I countered that the NPC had clearly expressed his feelings and that Goblin could not fully know how he would react, especially given the unusual circumstances of his death and his current purgatory state. The disagreement remained unresolved, but we continued for another five sessions before the campaign ended for unrelated reasons. So, most radical judges, I humbly ask: was I correct in the NPC’s reaction, or was Goblin’s assertion of how his NPC should behave correct?

To the justices and bailiff of the court, I bring to thee the case of observers and player agency at the table. Justices in our crooked moon session this past Saturday we were asked prior to the game if one of the dms friends could observe the game. Most of us agreed thinking it harmless. More on that later. During the session we got ourselves into a bit of a predicament while trying to save an npc that we were on a mission to find. A abbey of insane fanatical cultists wanted to burn the npc alive for not swearing fealty to their god. My character spoke up in the efforts to try to save him and in her brash way was wildly unsuccessful. At this point we were given two options either submit and swear fealty ourselves or try to fight our way out. The fight was unwinable. There were about 50 clergy members and an abbot present trying to prevent us from escaping. During this fight each individual rolled their own attacks dealing on average about 15 damage per attack to a group of level 6 pcs. My character whom is a monk used her step of the wind ability which gives her disengage and dash as a bonus action to try to save the npc and get out. The enemies were still able to attack her through her disengage to try to grapple her. Our wizard tried to misty step and she was counterspelled. Our ranger had a climbing speed and tried to climb over the walls and the clergy had bows that were not described previously. All of us went down and were captured as a result. After the session the dm asked for feedback and many members of the party were frustrated because of the lack of player agency it felt like we had. The enemies all seemed to perfectly counter our abilities and escape wasn’t really an option. Justices we wasted 3 hours on this combat. Our wizard went down turn 1 and had to sit there and do nothing for 2.5 hours. I mentioned how I feel like this could have we ran differently and almost would have rather had a cutscene of escape was impossible. The dm became frustrated as a result. Later that night the dm, and her observer friend as well as a few others in our party were chatting and the observer had taken notes on all of the pcs and players themselves during the session. The observer had stated that I specifically had no right to be frustrated by how things went because that’s not how disengage works. Justices I ask was I right to be frustrated by both the observer “taking notes” on the players and the long railroaded combat or should I just suck it up because the dm ultimately has control over monsters and the story. I humbly await your ruleing

To the benevolent justices and Skaldova King Jason, I bring the case of the thankless fighter. I am a new dm running my first campaign. I just ran my sixth session, which was all combat. I had a bard a fighter and a rogue. Everyone was level 6. I started off with an Archelon, which was instantly charmed for a minute, but I had 3 Chuuls for them to fight in the meantime. Midway through round five, the rogue had cleaned them out, so I threw a water elemental at the bard. The fighter pulled him out the next round, still holding concentration. The bard cast command and said “disperse”. I wanted the elemental to stay, so I had it split in two and move away from the fighter. The fighter had sentinel, so he got an opportunity attack. I said I would let him take two, one on each piece. Then as a joke I said “because I’m such a great dm. Everyone thank Dissonance!”(the name of my god pc that I use to control the world). This is where things got dicey. The other two players said it but the fighter didn’t. He said “I spent 3 of the last 4 rounds paralyzed and almost died, why would I thank Dissonance?” I told him he would get disadvantage on his next d20 roll. He asked if I was serious and when I said yes, he started to pack up his dice. I backtracked and said it was a bad joke, but he still almost left. Judges was it fair for my fighter to want to leave just because I gave him disadvantage on a roll? P.S: Jessen, after they make their decision, please reveal that I am the fighter, not the DM. I tried to be objective in my description. P.P.S: No, the “thank you, Dissonance” is not a common thing. This was the first time and the god pc was not present at the fight, so this was to the players, not the characters.

To the Justices Bry, Well, and Ily, and the Bailiff Jacob Penn Cooper Hurwitz: I bring to you the case of Satyr-Gate. I’ve been DM-ing a game of Strahd for the last two years. The party is a diverse group, with one new player and a couple of former DMs. One of the other players, whom we’ll call Tony, played a satyr bard named Clearpast because he had amnesia and used to be a half-goat James Bond. Kind of like if Jason Bourne became Jaskier. The issue came up during one session when the group had traveled from Vallaki to Krezk overnight. They fought many zombies and wolves on the road, even briefly encountering Strahd. The bedraggled party showed up at the gates of Krezk an hour before dawn. The guards were on high alert, but the party persuaded the head guard to go wake the Burgomaster. On a high Perception check, the party heard the creak of bowstrings in the gate towers, alerting them to more unseen guards ready to fire if they attacked. That’s when Clearpast announced he wanted to cast Mage Hand to knock loudly on the gate. We had previously established that, in Barovia, his Mage Hand appeared as a sickly green skeletal hand. I asked Tony point blank if he thought that was a good idea given the high tensions. He said, “Yeah, I wanna hurry up this slow mayor guy.” I said okay and had the guards in the towers loose their arrows, thinking Clearpast was casting a nefarious spell on the gate. Justices, I rolled two crits and two hits. The total damage put him well below his negative total hit points because he had forgotten to heal himself after the last fight. Clearpast died, and the party, who hadn’t tried to step in to stop this, negotiated with the Burgomaster to bring back wine from the Wizard of the Wines if the Burgomaster got the Abbot to revive Clearpast. Tony took over Elvir Martikov until the Abbot revived Clearpast, bringing his memories back as well. Tony razzed me for killing his character until 6 months later he left the campaign for unrelated marital problems. Was I wrong to kill Clearpast, the Jaskier Bourne of the Feywild?

MAD LIBS TIME! Hello to the [adj 3] [noun 1] Justice Murphy, the always [adj 2] Justice Tanner (who makes me [verb] every episode,) the [noun 2] known as Justice Murphy, to whom I owe [possession].... and last, but also least, the [adj 1] Bailiff Hurwitz, who is always [verb ending in -ing] in new and innovate ways… I bring you the saga of The Character Secret Google Doc. While casually hanging out with my Curse of Strahd DM, I mentioned I have backstory for my PC that is just for me. To be clear, this was not something intended to be canon, but rather something I kept in my back pocket to inform my PC's actions. I had already given her an extensive Google doc with the PC's biography. My DM replied “as your DM, you should not be keeping secrets from me.” I told her this particular concept was nothing intended to come up in the story, but rather something I conjured when building my PC's psychological profile. I told her, girl to girl, that it was a rather dark subject matter. She still maintained her position, which I respected. I sent her a document I made for myself detailing my character's secrets. Aside from the one big one, it was mostly trivial things I could refer to for improv purposes- who she lost her virginity to, how her parents met, etc. DM read the doc in front of me. Besides a minor crunchy note, she said it was totally fine. Something about her wording made me believe she might incorporate it into the campaign, which I was intrigued by. Fast forward to a few weeks later. Due to another player's sensitivities, I told the DM we should definitely not go forward with that plot thread. DM said she had no recollection of reading this document. After re-reading it, she was furious at me. She said she would have never approved of such a thing. She then sent another player to rework my backstory, but declined to take part in the conversation in any capacity, or even weigh in after the fact. After I told her the player and I came up with a new idea, she asked me to leave the campaign anyway. My question is… was I wrong to have grim headcanons about my PC's life? Was it wrong for the DM to send a proxy to alter my storyline? I should also note this was my first-ever campaign.

I come before Dice Christ with update to an old court case, first ruled on at the Palace Theater Live Show, Oct 2024. The John Elway DM. I just moved back home to Massachusetts from New Mexico after 11 years away and retiring from the Military. My partner is a teacher and started her new job in MA, immediately becoming friends with her fellow teachers when they all find our they have similar interests in the way of a variety of Nerd stuff. All of them play a lot of Magic the Gathering, and in speaking to one of them, he "used to play a lot of DnD growing up, but had a blow out fight at the table with his players once, about 15 years ago and hasn't played since." We get invited to play Magic one Friday night and upon arriving, my partner begins introducing me to all of her new coworkers. One of them and I each did a literal double take before realizing we knew each other already. Guys, it was The John Freaking Elway DM. Turns out, he is also the one who told my partner he hadn't played because of table drama. I come to you for wisdom in this matter. While I was previously vindicated in 2024, I am conflicted with how to feel, knowing he hasn't played since then? Should he have gotten back on the horse before now or is this a sign from Dice Christ to mend the bridge and play with him once more? Was I vindicated at the cost of absolution? I await your guidance. PS: I should point out even back then, we had remained friends. However, before Magic Night, it had been 10+ years since we had seen each other or talked. It was great catching up, though he has no idea about this story or the ruling and I dont know if I should tell him.

To the benevolent judges and ambivalent bailiff, I come to you with a workplace D&D dilemma. A few months ago, I rounded up a few interested coworkers to begin playing D&D. We work at a tech company, so I wrote a One-Shot that blends magic and technology into "technomancy" and tasked the players with fighting the evils of a magical artificial intelligence that sought to destroy the realm. The One-Shot turned into a Two-Shot, then Three-Shot, and we decided we'd try to make a campaign of it. We had a few other colleagues express interest in joining, so after our last session we discussed splitting into 2 tables and having one of my experienced coworkers DM as well. The next day, my coworker (we'll call them Jenny) reached out with "something to show me". Judges, they had concocted an entire BIBLE since the previous afternoon - full of dense lore, fleshed-out NPCs, and even dialogue for me to read at the conclusion of the One-Shot arc to "ensure a smooth transition". They expressed they'll be running their table off the arc included in the document, and included guidelines for how to run my table's arc to make sure things are true to the lore. This was my first time DM-ing, and while I appreciate the effort on their part, I feel like my carefully crafted storyline has been ripped out of my hands and I'm now just reading lines from a page. I prostrate myself before the court and ask: Will I be a buzzkill if I try to reign in my cavalier coworker and regain some control over the story arc? I ardently await your judgement.

Hi judges! Hi Jork!! I recently joined a campaign that has been running for 2+ years. Everyone has been extremely welcoming, and they have been eager to tell me all about the world they made and send me many many many many lore documents so I can catch up. Despite all this (or maybe because of it?) I have really been struggling to immerse myself in the world and match everyone else's effort and care. I like playing DND with them! And I really appreciate how welcoming they've been to both me and my character. But I'm easily fatigued by the overarching lore and tend to zone out in outside-of-game conversations when everyone starts talking about how awesome the campaign is. I fear terribly that I'm harshing the vibe by being the only one who doesn't show interest in the family lineage of a beloved NPC or the tense relationships between the different nations and powers in the DM's world. Should I be sentenced to catch up on the lore? Should I be disbarred from the campaign? Or is the DM in the wrong for expecting this level of commitment and world knowledge from the girl playing the 6 int barbarian? Will accept any sentencing with grace and not rage about it even a little bit.

Dear Justices and [checks notes]... JPEG, I come asking for forgiveness. I run a dnd club and I absolutely WHOMPED my kids last week. I wanted to give them a tough fight as the year comes to an end, and I did. I got as close to a TPK as I possibly could have (and I'm very proud!). For reference, in a previous home game, our party of three level 5 adventures faced off against a Young Green Dragon, and it was hard, but we succeeded. Last week, there were six or seven club members present - all level 4 - and so I figured "Hey, it's just one level difference, and there's twice the number of them at least!", so I threw a Young Copper Dragon at them. I absolutely DEMOLISHED THEM, including managing to get my breath weapon back three times in a row. In the end, a rogue had managed to hide, and thus was the only survivor. It felt extremely good to mop the floor with them, especially since most of them are, well, obnoxious 9th graders. Am I good?

To the magnanimous judges and the magnetic bailiff, I bring you the case of the sympathetic problem player. I work with two members of my long running D&D group. A newer coworker of ours, lets call him Jeff, knows we play and has talked about how much he use to love playing D&D with his old group. He is also going through a tough time in his personal life right now. It would be difficult to fit him in our 9 person game, but I suggested the four of us play a one shot that I would DM. At his request I created a very elaborate escape room style game. Like a real escape room, I gave my players 3 opportunities to ask for help, which they could do by smashing a white pearl. They could also use these to ask for any mundane item. When the game started, Jeff immediately smashed all 3 pearls to create 3 large metal bowls, because as an artificer he “could do anything with these”. He also immediately stripped descriptively nude so that he could tie his clothes into a rope “just in case”. By the end of a very long night he had covered his nude body in troll blood to mask his scent, harvested a mimic tongue for a scarf, and generally just been a maniac. Judges, he loved it and wants to play again. So I ask, have I met my social obligation yet, or do I need to go back into the crazy with Jeff? P.S. - the bowls were never used.

May it please the court and mildly irk the bailiff: I play a halfling monk named Muggsy who is an aspiring young boxing champion with a mild to moderate case of CTE. Muggsy has always worn a set of diamond grilles he acquired through glory. Mechanically, the grilles do nothing but Muggsy tries his best to look tough and rich by flashing them all the time. Many sessions later, we were in a tough battle when a hefty stone was flung at Muggsy. I countered it using his deflect missiles monk ability to reduce the damage. For flavor, instead of trying to catch the rock, I figured it would be more fitting if Muggsy just took it right in the face like any good boxer would.  I was able to reduce the damage to zero. However, the DM made me roll a luck check to see how my grilles held up against the direct hit to my mouth. I rolled a 1 - no problem, with my halfling luck, I'll just reroll. But the unthinkable happened - I rolled a second, devastating 1. The DM informed me that my prized grilles were shattered and tumbled out of my mouth. I argued that this was out of line - Muggsy shouldn't lose his iconic jewels because of the flavor I added to how the missile was deflected (successfully, I might add). Had I not said anything, Muggsy's grilles would certainly be untouched. Eventually I relented. So I humbly ask the court: Do I have a legitimate grievance with the DM in that he punished my flavorful role playing by taking my favorite toy? Or is it fair that he countered flavor with more flavor, and I need to find a way to recover? I await your judgment. PS - sometime later, Muggsy was able to acquire new and expensive diamond grilles so he has his swagger back. However, unbeknownst to him, they are in fact made of cubic zirconium.

I step into the Church of Dice Christ to bring you a story from the wide worlds outside these doors. A long time ago, I wandered the realm of DM'ing and to put it mildly, it did not work well. I stumbled upon my own ambition and learned that being good at writing stories does not necessarily mean that I am good at leading a party of heroes through an adventure. I closed the door to the DM realm for good and traveled aimlessly through other plains of existence, never forgetting about the failure and wishing to return some day but not knowing how. Until I stepped into a courtroom and sat down as a spectator. Amazing people judged the shortcomings of DMs and players alike, but not only that, they also gave advice, showed compassion and shared their own stories. Dear priests of Dice Christ, through the good hearts of the judges I gained the knowledge and the courage to try again. I wrote a new campaign and will soon have the third session. And so far, it is going well. Please dear priests, bless those amazing judges and spread their words. My heart is full of love and thankfulness for them

To the honorable justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner, and the equally honorable Bailiff Jake, I bring to you the case of Move Earth versus Invisible Trees. Our party was defending our Satyr Bard's family home from an evil faction known as the Black Legion. During the two days of preparations, my Druid set up permanent Walls of Stone around the house and used the 6th level spell Move Earth to effectively dig a moat around the wall, while the party Fighter and Barbarian chopped down trees to fortify the walls further. However, when the first wave of enemies arrived, the DM narrated how they started their attack by chopping down trees (that were past the edge of the map) to use as bridges- trees that we had no idea were there, and that apparently hadn't been chopped down by the Fighter and Barbarian. I didn't say anything in the moment because I knew it was going to be a long encounter and I didn't want to kick things off with a debate, but in retrospect, I feel really miffed that my 6th level spell was bypassed by these invisible trees... especially since my Druid was killed in the encounter by the enemies who used the trees to cross the moat. Am I wrong to be upset about the assumption that we wouldn't take basic precautions to make the moat effective? Or is it my fault for trying to keep things from going too long? P.S. I'm sorry for complementing Jake up top, he just really looked like he could use a win.

To the illustrius wife worm, rat boy, and spill king respectively, and also the cake man himself, Jared. I bring to you the case "Could You Be a Pal-idin?" ​A group of friends that I already play dnd with decided to start another campaign based on a group chat where we talked about nepo-baby characters who end up at a reform summer camp together. We went to session zero with our character ideas ready to present. ​I described my Paladin: a finance-bro who, thinking he was joining an exclusive, elite network of decentralized money traders, accidentally pledged himself to a cult worshipping the arch-devil Bel and became a hell knight. ​I’d mentioned the idea in our chat a few weeks earlier, so I was surprised when the friend who introduced their character next started by saying she'd also been thinking about playing a Paladin, but that she could pivot to something else. I quickly scrolled back through our messages and realized she had actually suggested being Paladin a few hours before I mentioned my character idea. ​I chimed in immediately and apologized, offering to play another class, but she said it was cool. The DM also said we could both be Paladins and it wouldn't be a big deal. ​But Justices, and also, cake boy, is it maybe a little bit of a big deal? I feel bad that I not only Thomas Edison’d my friend's idea, but that I also Donald Trump’d all over it by ignoring that they had pitched it before me. I lay my dice humbly at your feet.

To the honorable judges and the bailiff who I feel a little bad for everytime someone is mean to him, I bring you the case of the Silent Railroad. I was invited to an online group of adventurers playing an old module that I was excited to play since I hadn't had much experience with DnD overall. Long story short, it wasn't great. Most players couldn't attend even half of the sessions we had and most sessions devolved into dealing with waves of squishy enemies like we were throwing goblins into a woodchipper while the DM would fill the awkward silences with occasional bong rips. All of this wasn't so bad until one parricular session that ended after the usual round of goblin slaughter. After entering a random cave, the DM began narrating a scene where an NPC we literally just met gave a special demonic gauntlet that whispered secrets to the only adventurer on our team who specifically took a vow of silence. This lead us to become completely stumped on how to pull said secrets out of him and causing us to ignore this plot point completely. I argued that this felt like railroading as we never had a chance to interact with the NPC, the gauntlet, or even the cave we entered while the DM said his hands were tied since the module required him to give the item to the only teammate with the correct alignment. Is the DM correct here? Was I right to be a little miffed that I had no chance to try literally anything different?

Honorable judges; dishonorable bailiff; I'll keep this brief. I play Pathfinder online with a group of seven players, and since half of us have had children and/or gotten busy with work in recent years, we just rotate in and out based on who's available any given week. Our current DM will send out a poll on Monday asking who's available each Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and we'll go from there. Here's the problem: he apparently doesn't know how to spell Tuesday (he leaves out the E, like "Tusday"). This has been going on for over a year now and I don't have it in me to correct him at this point, but the other players MUST have noticed. Have we failed in our duty as players? Should he know how to spell the days of the week? Does this shit matter at all? I humbly await your judgement.

Cleverest of Crit justices and the banal beefy bailiff Jake; I am in need of your impeccable council on my case of the clueless co-DM. I'm currently co-DMing a weekly online wild beyond the witchlight campaign with a group of college friends (we're all in our 30's now). I (she/her) originally was invited to the group by my co-DM (he/him) about 4 years back at the start of their/our Strahd campaign to help him run the roleplay & story side of things since I'm a fairly creative person with a degree in film. Our first campaign was fun and fairly collaborative with us working on alterations to the module together to better weave in character narratives and backstories. However, since starting this witchlight campaign my co-DM has become really hands off with the story side of things to the point he only reads the module one chapter at a time (sometimes not even the whole chapter) as the players enter that area and he's openly pretty unaware of the PCs backgrounds. Leaving me to be the only one whose read the whole module, do all of the narrative weaving, lost item creation, and pc background discussions with the players. This is still the table he started and runs as the main DM though, and thereby he sets the scenes, runs the VTT stuff, and conducts sessions. Which makes it hard for me to run the narrative elements when he's, well, clueless to them. When I try to bring them up and discuss them with him, it always goes one of three ways; either he just agrees to what I purpose with no collaboration (even when I'm asking for input), steers the conversation away from the topics till we have no more time to discuss it, or he puts it off citing a lack of energy. To be fair he's very appreciative of my work on the campaign and is quite chidding towards himself for not being more on it. But, we've been playing this campaign for over a year now and it's not gotten any better and I feel like the game and narrative are suffering from his disconnect. Justices, am I expecting too much of my co-DM, or should I be trying to help him more as his creative partner? Most ardently yours, A dream thing P.S. I've been thinking of making cliff notes on the module and characters for him, do you think this would be a good solution? If not how do I get my clueless co-DM to clue into the story we're trying to tell together? P.S.S. love you all and what you do!

Ladies and Gentle-Jakes, I bring you the case of the dungeon and dragon. Months ago, my group and I were transporting a sickly noble child and his butler through a swampy dungeon pass. Things were going well, we had solved several environmental puzzles and cleverly bypassed a combat encounter but we were still feeling stressed. The poisonous air was causing a save or d4 of damage every hour. The butler was keeping the child alive, but it was clear this wasn't sustainable. It was getting close, the kid probably couldn't make another hour, and then we found the exit. Which was blocked by an irate young green dragon. For 4 level 4s. It went poorly. After half of us died in the second round, we went from fight to flight. This upset the DM, who couldn't understand why we were trying to run away. The encounter ended 5 rounds later, after the Butler did ¿magic? to turn the dragon to stone and ressurect the dead PCs at the cost of his own life for some reason. Afterwards, the DM kept saying things like "You guys are smart, I thought you had this" and "If you didn't think you could beat him, why fight him?" Since the fight, things get tense when the topic of dragons comes up. Justices. Can 4 level 4's beat a young dragon if played optimally or was this crazy bananas? I await your fair and wise decision. P.S. If you rule against me, I'll know but the DM never will, as he hates Podcasts and says things like (and I quote) "Podcasters should leave their basements and get a real job." I'm not sure if this last part is important, but I thought I'd let you know.

To the Honorable Justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner, and the love of our lives Bailiff Jake: I present to you the case of the “Nit-picky Spouse.” I’ve been playing DnD with a small group of friends for about a year. Our DM is a peripheral friend from high school who I reunited with recently. They’re totally brilliant and we are really aligned in storytelling, gameplay, and overall having a great time. Their husband is also playing with us. This is his first campaign and he’s been very involved with building out the world with our DM. Things were going well, but over the past few months, I’ve started to get annoyed by the micro-aggressions and control that the husband is trying to assert over the DM. A few weeks ago, the party got separated and the husband spent an hour and a half of our session on a solo-journey into a cave. The rest of us sat patiently waiting to head in to support, but our DM never cut over to us. I was frustrated but didn’t say anything. At the next session, we were in initiative and it took maybe 15 minutes to cycle through to the husband’s turn. He shouted “FINALLY!” and made a huge deal about how annoyed he was that he had to wait. He also often complains to the DM in front of us and tries to sway the storytelling to suit his character’s strengths. I’m getting more and more frustrated that the husband keeps trying to insert himself in the plotting and doesn’t let the DM (and other players) just make our own decisions. Do you have any advice for navigating this situation? I love the party and our campaign and don’t want to jeopardize it, but I’m having a hard time dealing with the selfishness of this player. Please help me, oh wise ones (and Jake)!

Judges and Bailiff, I bring before the court a case of morbid role play. We were a few sessions into a cyberpunk style campaign I was DMing when our party infiltrated a military faction that had seized control of the city by force and overthrown the government. We added a player during this mission, and that player wanted to be a part of the military faction; a hostage to their bidding because his young son was being held as collateral in the city jail. A few sessions later, the party planned to storm the jail to free the son and seek out and kill a lieutenant of the faction. The new player approached me outside of the game and made a request. He wanted to fuel a revenge arc for his character and requested that the party find his son dead within the jail. I confirmed I would do this but told the player that this was pretty dark stuff so let’s try not to get too into the details. I crafted the narrative beat. After killing the lieutenant and failing to find the son, the party proceeded to the rear of the building and found a back field with dozens of freshly filled in graves. On one of the graves swung a locket that the character knew belonged to his son. The mood was sombre around the table. “I dig up the grave. I have to know for sure.” My stomach knots. Silence around the table. In as few words as possible I describe the character shifting the dirt aside and seeing the face of his son, confirming him dead. “I keep digging. I can’t leave him here.” “Holy fuck…” another player mutters. I pause the session. There is a discussion about the content, particularly relating to children, and everyone confirms they are comfortable but the mood is unsurprisingly dark. We continue. The player digs up the corpse of his son, carries it into the jail and later buries him on the outskirts of the city. Am I to blame for creating this morbid moment? I didn’t tell the player exactly what the plan was but I did ask to keep things vague. I am also known for taking small things players say or do and using them for character beats down the road. If I had not confirmed I would kill the son, I understand how my reputation might lead him to question if the son was really dead. I didn’t think of this until later and still don’t know if it’s a motivating factor. I await your judgement.

To the most distinguished judges whose rulings are invoked ubiquitously across all fantasied lands, and the jank bailiff - sorry, Bailiff Jank I present to you some dossiers on the case of the retconned raw meat. My good friends in real life and I were playing a Pathfinder 4-shot turned 24-shot. The GM was a new GM, but a long time player. Our party was level 2 and perpetually at low HP since the player who insistently wanted to be our one and only healer dropped out of the party by session 2. My rogue became responsible for stabilizing the other 4 PCs by using healer’s tools to Administer First Aid during encounters, despite having the smallest HP maximum. While this party set-up was less than ideal, this is only the context for the actual issue I bring to the honorable judges. One of our players centered his character creation around being a goblin wearing a onesie filled with raw meat. Why? I don’t know. The raw meat regularly came up during role play scenes but the GM never took the raw meat into account for any rolls or mechanics. At the beginning of one session about halfway through the campaign, this player mentions that the raw meat doesn’t seem to be as funny as it once was. They casually suggested wanting to “undo” previous role play to say this character never had raw meat in their onesie. During this same session, our party fled into the woods after another near-death encounter and suddenly came across a pack of wolves in our path. Another PC and I bring up that this character could throw their raw meat away from our party (therefore losing it for the rest of the campaign) with the hope that it would distract the wolves as we make our escape and/or healed. This player insisted that no, they did not have raw meat to throw, and actually they had never had raw meat. Our GM deferred to the player’s decision for their character. Judges - can a player simply retcon a bit after a real-life year (~12 sessions) of role play, if they have the GM’s blessing? Or is there a limit wherein they simply must commit to the bit? I graciously await your ruling. PS. Based on a few key critical hits, we did survive, but just barely.

To the once decided judges and the probably now grown-up bailiff Cake, I bring you the case of the ignorant lizard. I am running a short campaign for my fiancée, brother, and my parent’s tenant. We’ll call the tenant John. This is their first experience with D&D, and John insisted that he wanted to play a ‘Robinhood’-type character, deciding to play a lizardfolk artificer. My brother and fiancee got the hang of the game quite quickly, but John still cannot comprehend certain aspects of the game, despite the fact we have been playing for five months now. He always asks me what his class can do, and mocks me when I answer and tell him to confirm with the source material. Justices, John desperately claims he wants to play, but is often on his phone the majority of our sessions, and is often asking questions or for explanations on areas I just covered. John’s ‘robinhood’ character often steals from and attacks random NPC’s, often getting caught, and shutting down when he does. What’s worse, is that in our recent sessions, he simply will start playing his real life ukulele or sit on a call with his girlfriend while we play. My fiancée is close to giving up any commitment to D&D, and my brother doesn’t want to upset John, insisting us to ignore him, that there is ‘no fixing it’. Am I a bad DM for not memorizing his character sheet for him and telling him what to do in the game, or should John’s character finally kick the bucket? This campaign rests in your hands.

I humbly prostrate myself before Church of Dice Christ with a confession of the DM Who Peeked. I ask the Deacons of Dice and the tiny turdy alter boy Jakeypoo for forgiveness as I am the sinner in this story. I was playing with my sister and a couple old friends over discord. It was a Level 2 one shot with the simple goal of infiltrating a stronghold guarded by a bunch of lizardfolk. My friend Al (that's a lowercase L and not an I) was the DM for us and said he had ran this one shot many times before (he is a classic forever DM). For context, I am also a forever DM, but on this hallowed day I was on the other side of the screen as a player. What should have been an easy one shot turned into a TPK before we could even cross the drawbridge to the castle. As soon as we neared the gate, four lizardfolk charged us and we became embroiled in close quarters combat. It was a meat grinder, and we were the chuck roast. What followed was a long slog where players died one by one. This was the first time my friend Jean had played D&D, and she died first after taking only a couple of turns. As we were being massacred, I took note of the Lizardfolk fighting us and grew suspicious, and this is where I committed the gravest of sins. As a longtime DM, I was familiar with Lizardfolk stat blocks and had a feeling this fight was heavily imbalanced. With the wicked dice devil on my shoulder, I opened my Monster Manual and peeked at the Lizardfolk stats and calculated the challenge rating for this fight. Sure enough, this fight was beyond deadly with two lizardfolk (100 xp each) and two lizardfolk shamans (450 a pop) for a total adjusted difficulty rating of 2200 XP. (800 is the threshold for a deadly encounter with four level 2 PCs.) And did I keep this to myself? No fucking way. I immediately called out the DM and told him he needs to balance his encounters better. Al stood his ground that the fight was balanced, but started to narrate that one of the Lizardfolk shaman was actually very elderly and maybe even sickly, and it was quick to die after a couple more attacks. But ultimately the damage was done. Jean was our healer and had died first so the rest of us fell one by one. All in all it was still a fun night, but mostly because we were razzing Al about the unbalanced combat. I still mention it to him whenever we play but the guilt of looking up statblocks to undermine the DM has haunted me ever since. Praise be and all hail the salt. Your pal, Howling Salt Sam

To the honorable judges and the handsome bailiff in the corner, I think Joel was his name? I present the case of the overpowered sword that wrecked our party and campaign. I play in a group of four. Our DM has a loose worldbuilding style and often pulls ideas from media they like. Usually that’s fine, but lately the items have become increasingly overpowered. Recently, they read Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson. There’s apparently a sword in it that can instantly kill enemies, ignore armor, and cut through anything. I thought the whole concept was a bit dumb as he explained it. Our cleric found a weapon like that, and combat quickly became one-sided. I raised my concerns, but the DM shrugged and said, “It’s supposed to be that strong. There are only a few in the world, just wait and see.” After the second session with the sword, I did something I’m not proud of. While traveling along a mountain ridge with steep cliffs and rushing water below, I asked the cleric if I could try the sword in the next fight. Reluctantly, they agreed. As soon as I had it, my character threw it off the cliff and gave a half-hearted speech about how no one should have that much power. We argued briefly, then moved on. No one tried to recover it. The DM seemed annoyed. A few combats later, we faced a boss and to our surprise, the boss had one of those same overpowered swords. Apparently, we were meant to keep ours to stand a chance. The fight was swift and brutal. Two rounds, total party kill. Was I wrong to throw this dumb sword over a cliff or was my DM wrong to punish our party for my actions?

To the clean-smelling justices and the axe-drenched baliff Jork, I bring you the case of the dinosaur ice luge, In a campaign I have been DMing for going on three years now, I have a druid PC that for a time was addicted to shape water. From moving boats to crossing rivers to attempting to make ice shields to protect the party, this druid, and her decanter of endless water, seemed to be over-relying on this cantrip as a skeleton key for all the party's problems. When fleeing a stampede of dinosaurs by jumping off a waterfall, many party members came up with creative ways to negate the falling damage. The artificer jumped in a bag of holding. Several giant eagles were summoned to rescue other party members. The druid, however, decided to use shape water to attempt to create an ice luge out of the waterfall to slide her and the barbarian to safety. Following the precedent I had set previously that shape water cannot solve every problem, I narrated the PCs smashing into this ice luge at terminal velocity and taking the appropriate falling damage for the distance fallen. The players accepted this after brief debate (they're very good players) and we went on. However I have felt guilt at times for punishing what was a legitimately creative move. Was I in the wrong? I prostrate myself at the feet of the court. P.S. Love the Van Hammer brothers. You may be surrounded by philistines, Murph, but I appreciated the tribute.

Oh great deacons of Dice Christ, I fear I have let my players down. I'm a forever DM for my friends from middle school who became my college roommates. We started playing in college and it's been about 5 years of me DMing for them. We recently wrapped up our first campaign which went to level 20, and I worked for a while on a new setting for them to play in since I do homebrew for everything. We have had a few sessions but my life got crazy with some stuff from my ex (whom all of these people were friends with at the time) cutting me out of his life and my friends chose me in the breakup. Theres also general life stuff and work that's kept me from working on this campaign with people I love. I've been meaning to get the campaign going again but it's been 4 months of radio silence and I feel guilty even thinking about the game because I feel like I've already let them down. Deacons, how may I win them back? Win myself back? How can I get everyone back to the table without the guilt of letting the campaign slip for a few months? Thank you for your time and consideration in this matter.

To the honorable, esteemed, ethereal Judges Axford, Tanner, and Murphy, as well as the bailiff Jaquis, I bring to you a confession, asking Dice Christ for forgiveness. I made a homebrew campaign for my friends who had never played D&D before. During the campaign, which was focused on stopping a wicked witch from giving a vacation town diarrhea via mystery, I clearly allowed whimsical things to happen that would not normally fly in a proper campaign, all in the name of sparking their interest. We planned a four-hour one-shot, and it was going well… until we hit hour three. During that third hour, the steam of this whodunit had cooled. In a moment of weakness, I began to fudge the success thresholds for their rolls so we could bring the session to a close and grant them victory. As a result, the reveal and the BBEG fight were not as rewarding as they should have been, lacking the depth, tension, and earned triumph they deserved. The worst part is that we have never played again, so my sin was not even rewarded. Am I doomed to an eternity of poopy campaigns, or can I be forgiven for this ? I await the verdict.

To the brilliant archdicese (get it? arch DICE ese? like Archdiocese? But with dice?) and alter boy, Murph. Forgive me for I may have sinned. I'm playing in a time-travel based campaign that was starting just after the birth of my second child. In order to minimize my mechanical involvement I made a Human Champion Fighter named Jinn that even a big, dumb newbie could play without much thought. I spoke to my DM and we agreed that he would be more than fair game for death or other departure so that, once I had settled in a new routine and could dedicate more time to be thoughtful about my character mechanically and otherwise, I could play the character I actually wanted to build: a Tortle Artificer named Cidd who is a genius crackpot insisting against all evidence that time travel is possible. Unfortunately, Jinn ended up being very likable, bonding especially strongly with one of the characters, a little Hedgehog Druid who would ride on Jinn's back. The party even decided to name some discovered ruins after him. Once the campaign hook hit and the party was flung through time, Jinn was separated from the group and they met Cidd. Jinn's loss was clearly and acutely felt, especially by the Druid; the player seemed legitimately bummed. Cidd clicks okay with the group, and him being a genius has certainly been beneficial compared to my big dumb idiot fighter, but the party cohesion seemed better with Jinn. Jinn has been going on adventures in the background and has returned once to help the party out of a tight jam, so I could talk to the DM and maybe swap back if desired. That feels strange after 30ish sessions with Cidd, though. In the name of Dice Christ, I wish to be forgiven for playing what I considered a throw-away character to be so gregarious and personable. I believe I should've made it clear that he wasn't going to hang around. P.S. We nicknamed our party The Zoo Crew a week before y'all did the same with Zu Crew because, besides one half-orc, we have humanoid versions of a rabbit, a turtle, a bird, a dragon, and a hedgehog. Which I know Murph hates almost as much as he hates Anchorman.

Dear wise justices and the guy who just keeps showing up I guess I bring to you the case the of the missing mommy PC. We started a campaign with 4 PCs and the DM who was married to one of the PCs. The couple had a baby and we were excited to see the new bubba join our online gaming sessions. However, what has happened is that the mother has stopped playing in our campaigns. The game has continued without the DM ever addressing that we are essentially down a PC, however during the session the mother and baby will randomly appear to say hello while the PC remains noticeably absent. Am I right to be upset that we have moved from a 4 to a 3 PC party or should I embrace that parenthood has forever ripped our only tank from us.

Oh great justices of the court, oh gentle messengers of Dice Christ… I seek forgiveness for us all. I am a DM for a remote campaign played over discord. All in all, we span 3 continents and 16 hours of time zones. My players are enthusiastic and love our game, they routinely move mountains in their schedules so we can play nearly weekly. That said, one of my players is in GMT and because we also have someone in PST & someone in Southeast Asia… it’s 1:30am for him when we START playing, and typically almost 5am when we finish a session. He has apologized to ME several times if he seems quiet or unfocused, explaining it’s because it’s the middle of the night for him. To be clear- he’s wonderful. He roleplays well, as far as I’m concerned he’s engaged. He says our 3am sessions are fine for him because he doesn’t sleep anyway… I love our games, but I feel so bad about whatever hellish sleep schedule he’s subjecting himself to for the sake of our campaign. I humbly seek forgiveness for enabling this. Justices, I warn you that as our campaign is NADDPod/ Dimension20 inspired it’s possible you’re tangentially at fault as well- you’ve drawn him in like a gateway drug and now he’ll never sleep again. Thus, I’m even MORE sorry for sullying your good names… May we all prostrate ourselves in the name of Dice Christ now, Amen.

To the honorable and illustrious Justice Axford, the honorable and magnanimous Justice Tanner, the honorable and esteemed Justice Murphy, and Jarf; I present the Case of Stolen Whispers. I'm a player in a small adventure with just my Battlemaster/Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer, my buddy playing a Dragonborn Paladin, and our DM. My grievance occurred just after we fled a shrine occupied by an unfriendly dragon and returned to the cavern of some Kobolds we had tricked into thinking the paladin was a messenger of Tiamat. On our first time through the cave the paladin confronted the kobold Shamans while I hid and used Message to pretend to be Tiamat speaking into their minds. On our return the shamans welcomed the paladin back with open arms and using the same Message trick, we began to lie our way past them again. As the paladin spoke to the Shamans, a winged Kobold flew in claiming to carry a message from the dragon (whose treasure we had just looted). Worried that the messenger would ruin our deception, I used Message on the flying Kobold and told them that Tiamat's fury would smite them if they spoke ill of the paladin. I got a 22 on intimidation and my DM described the winged Kobold as looking visibly terrified. The kobold then turned and whispered to one of the Shamans. I immediately asked if instead of being heard by the shaman would the whisper instead only be heard by me? My reasoning was that the Message spell I had just used transmits the target's response only to the ears of the caster and a terrified little Kobold likely wouldn't realize it was the subject of a spell. My DM laughed and told me no which I accepted but was saddened by. I ask you Justices, was I robbed? Should I have been able to steal the whispered response from a puny Kobold uneducated in the ways of magic and terrified of Tiamat's gaze on them? I accept whatever verdict you choose to dispense.

To the ever-enigmatic Justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner, and the block and cube Baby Bailiff Jilk, I present the case of "The Druid and The Wall of Death" Towards the end of my last homebrew campaign, my three players, (two first timers and one veteran) found themselves surrounded inside an abandoned courthouse by hundreds of mind controlled commoners. My veteran player, a warlock, was planning on casting a 5th level fly on the party to escape out of a hole in the ceiling. However, unbeknownst to them, there was a creature who had been following the party that counterspelled the warlocks fly spell, so they would have to deal with the creature and a couple of waves of commoners before getting the chance to escape again. A round passes and 2 swarms of these controlled commoners gets into the building when one of my newer players, a Circle of the Stars druid, says she cast "Wall of Death" on the commoners. Judges, I was taken aback, I had never heard of this spell and had checked her spell list the week prior, but as I looked into her spell list sure enough there it was. The issue I had was that it was from a different sourcebook in dnd beyond, when at the start and over the course of the campaign I had mentioned that we'd be using the 2024 rules to keep things simple. In the end, I allowed it to keep the game moving, but still couldnt shake they added the spell in the moment to deal with the encounter. I ask, was it right of me to allow the first time player to continue with their impromptu spell casting or should I have called them out for disobeying our established rules and have them do something else. I humbly await your Judgment.

To the honorable absolute justices and the thrice removed justice bailiff, I bring you the case of the rushed ultimatum. I DM a series of one shots with a cast of rotating friends to accommodate our busy schedules. In this most recent one I had the players vivi the sorcerer, Bloodgurgle a barbar/paladin, basil the cleric and bemeow the fighter In the frozen North facing Off a against a cult of the buried Who worshiped an eldritch horror that fed off peoples fear of being buried alive, and after a very tough session which had already seen the death of bemeow. the final crusader had managed to knock down vivi and with his back to wall threatened to mutilate the corpse to basil and bloodgurgle if they didn’t let him walk away. The barbarian said to give them a minute to think about it. He said absolutely not you have a few seconds to decide. Bloodgurgle said “what? fuck you then” and just attacked allowing him to kill vivi. After the session I said crazy so bloodgurgles just a bad person, but he said the crusader is a bad negotiator in real life a person taking a hostage would want the most time possible to make sure they get out. Me and the cleric say this is a fantasy world and giving the players more time to think about it just means he’s less likely to escape and the bad guy would assume the party cares enough about each other it would be an obvious choice. We argued about this afterwards for a full 30 minutes. So supreme justices who’s correct Is my bad guy a horrible negotiator or is bloodgurgle a bad person I humbly await your verdict. P.s vivi is another’s friends first character who is learning to play dnd and we spent 3 hours the previous night making a character they’d be excited about and when asked they said they would have also tried some shenanigans to help the party member if the roles were flipped.

To the highly esteemed judges and also bailiff jorff, Please forgive me for a non-DND question, but I really need your specific advice: On Easter Sunday, I was in my car, driving to do some errands, when I passed a local park. Suddenly something green and extremely large and furry started jogging past my car. I looked over to see someone in an adult sized Grinch costume, or hell, maybe it was the real Grinch himself. This Easter Grinch jogged into the park, over to a volleyball court where a number of people were in the middle of a game, and joined the game. By this point I couldn't keep watching events unfold without crashing my car, so I had to chose between doing my time-sensitive errands or parking and going to investigate the Grinch. I'm ashamed to admit I chose to pick up my prescription before the pharmacy closed, and have no further idea why the hell a Grinch in a Santa suit was playing volleyball in my neighborhood on Easter Sunday. I should have parked the car and forgotten about the prescription, right? I'll take any punishment you feel is appropriate.

Dear judges. I bring a case, not of my own campaign but of someone elses. My friend is in a campaign run by his husband. The party consists of his husband's friends and things are getting dramatic. One player has been going online to reddit and writing up long rants about his GM (my friend's husband). Things about rail roading and unfair rulings but I know for certain that the gm is accommodating as I have play with him before. I know that he has allowed this player to change his character often (as they get bored playing the same one over and over), tries to plan weekly sessions, and paints minis for his players. The GM has caught the player on multiple occasions complaining about him online and is afraid to bring it up as they went to high school together. Is the DM being too much or do we have a whiny player?

To the honorable Justice Murphy, the vivacious Justice Axford and the puckish Justice Tanner; and we can't forget the mensch himself Bailiff Jack. I bring to you the case of The Uncomfortable Flirtation. Some years ago, I had joined a long-running party of my brother and a bunch of his coworkers. This was my second-ever campaign and I was playing a bard. Unfortunately, I fell victim to the memes of "bard seduces things" and in the depths of trying to fit in with a bunch of new people, I decided to give that a whirl with an NPC, figuring it would at least be funny. What I didn't expect was for the DM to then insist that I flirt with him the way my character would flirt with the NPC. I barely knew this guy and was immediately deeply uncomfortable. When I asked if I could just make a roll (since my bard with a 20 charisma would be a lot more comfortable than me), my proposal was soundly rejected by both the DM and the entire party. I was then informed that "We've all had to at some point, it's just for fun." At that point, I tried to walk the whole thing back, but was told that nope, this was happening and to make with the flirting. This weird dynamic (along with plain old drama) eventually lead to me leaving the group, but I ask you, Justices: was I wrong to feel that this whole thing was wildly out of pocket, or should I have just gone with it for the sake of their group dynamic? I await your wisdom. (PS, tell your pets I said hi.)

Deacons of Dice Christ: I have made offence with what I thought was a compliment. I DM a campaign for some friends, and at a session a couple months ago 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 low 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 7 NPCs fell to their death: peaking with a player rolling two Nat 1s with Advantage and a 3 on the table reroll. All different dice. One player said, "This isn't fun..." In the sessions since, there seems to be some lingering negative juju whenever a low AC or DC is present. Oh wise Council of Dice Christ Cardinals, please help me atone

Can we submit the case of Megan Thee Stallion and Klay Thompson? It's a pretty clear case of a bad player

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?

Justices Emily, Brian, and Caldwell, and the Bailiff Hurwitz, I present the case of Hag-Wooing Bard. Our Party was playing a One-Shot, wherein the gang needed to investigate an old and neglected Druidic shrine in the woods nearby a village after the villagers had complaints of terrifying dreams and the disappearance of pets and livestock. The party ventured into the woods and came upon a wolf worrying at something on the ground that ended up bearing a collar and name plate. While three of the party responded to the dogged hostility that the wolf exhibited in a defensive yet appropriate matter, the Bard spent each turn trying to feed the wolf snacks and make it her friend, even after receiving damage from it. Loud and dismayed protests were made once the beast was slain, and while I admit I should have taken a cue from this and altered the plans down the line, the large presence of wolf tracks in the story so far would have made for an odd shift to another group of foes. The party reached the shrine and found a pack of wolves surrounding it amidst a massive pile of bones, and, upon hearing cries of a human clinging to the top of the shrine, they approached with armed caution. Again, three of the party met the advance of the clearly aggressive wolves head on, while the Bard intentionally blocked for the wolves and slowed the fight down significantly. The trapped human eventually dropped their glamour and was revealed to be a Hag with some control over the wolves and a vocalized desire to kill the party and eat them. Naturally, the Bard spent multiple turns attempting to romantically charm the Hag with only her words, to no effect. I had the Bard roll a Wisdom Save to cheat in some above-table insight and informed them that they saw nothing but murderous malice in the eyes of the Hag and that this was a fight to the death. The Bard was finally persuaded to use an offensive spell and the party did emerge victorious. A nasty bag of dreams was found, and the Bard decided to treat it like a baby to be protected rather than a dark artifact to be destroyed, leading another member to have to burn the bag while the Bard held it in their arms, protesting loudly the whole time. While I love letting players do as they will, this experience was a struggle for me from RP and game mechanics aspects, and I did talk with the player about it tactfully and respectfully before the next session. I ask which is the worse crime: the Bard's unwillingness to engage with any of the combatants, or my flub of not changing creatures on the fly? I await Jake's 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?

Hello esteemed justices Murphy, Axford, and Tanner, and a hearty wassup to my lowly homie, Jork. I bring to you the case of The Falling Plot. This case begins with a member of our party dangling from an airship, needing rescue, while the rest of us were on the ground. The party determined who could fly up to help. One of the player characters who had flight, refused to carry anyone, stating “it’s not what my character would do.” Notably, this player had only joined a few sessions prior and had been disguised as a dragon until the previous session, when that secret was revealed. Because of this refusal, my wife and I were forced to remain on the ground, too far away to assist, while the other four party members flew up to rescue our ally and confront an NPC who later proved to be a major villain. During this encounter, one of the characters on the airship threw a corpse overboard. Because of this, the DM instructed me to roll a Dexterity saving throw. When I asked why, I was told I had been struck by the falling corpse and, due to the height, would take maximum falling damage. Despite objections that the airship was actively moving away from our position, the ruling stood. I failed the save and took the damage. This resulted in my character going down for the first time in the campaign, and the incident continues to be brought up as a joke at my expense. I ask the court: am I wrong for being upset by how this was handled, or should I be more open to the humor of the situation? I humbly await your judgement.

May it please the Supreme Crit Justices and displease that guy standing in the corner. This is a case about an ignored disease. I’ve been DM’ing this campaign for my friends for 3 years. Around session 15, my players were fighting a werewolf. The werewolf bit one of the players and I made him roll a constitution saving throw. He rolled a Nat 1. In the moment he remarked “I bet I just contracted lycanthropy.” I neither confirmed nor denied this and moved on with the combat. The next session I described that the moon was nearing full when I was setting the scene but I tried not to bring attention to it. The players said nothing. They then proceeded to go into the dwarven tunnels that were under the mountains and didn’t emerge for about a week. I diligently was tracking the moon cycle and about 15 sessions later and 6 real life months later, the full moon was coming up in just a few days. I once again, described the almost full moon when I was setting the scene but tried not to make it obvious. The players said nothing. On the night of the full moon, the player transformed into a werewolf and killed 2 NPC’s and almost killed a party member. He was pissed that I hadn’t told him that he was a werewolf but I maintain that it was his responsibility to remember things that happen to his character. So I ask this Court, was I wrong to not explicitly call out the fact that he was a werewolf? They had access to remove curse and I didn’t want them to escape consequences so easily.

To the honorable crit justices and the baliff......Bob? Pretty sure it's Bob. I present what my group calls The Iron Flask incident. When i was a new GM in the early days of 5e I decided to let each character start with a cursed magic item (Berserker Axe, a Driftglobe that can never turn off, etc). Due to a large number of character deaths I was running low on cursed item ideas and gave one character a filled Iron Flask that contained a being so powerful it was starting to degrade the magic of the flask (assuming he wouldn't open it for a while if ever). The entire party told him not to open it except in an emergency both in game and above the table. I warned him that opening it was probably a bad idea. End of the session he recieved the Flask the player takes me aside and says his character opens the Flask. The end result was the session extending two hours, a destroyed city, an unleashed demon prince, and two characters retired. Was I right to give my player an Iron Flask assuming it woule be an open in emergency button? P.s context if desired but skip if not needed. The large number of Character deaths were due to me misreading encounter building guidlines and fully my fault. The two retired characters belonged to the player who opened the Flask who turned in his character willingly and another player who had his character turned into a gnome, infused with demon blood, and put into the recently emptied flask. I didn't know what was in the Fask when I gave it out. I planned on coming up with something as the campaign went on. When put on the spot I had a Balor come out who later I turned into a demon prince. This was early 5e. As in the campaign started before all 3 of the main books were out.

Dear venerated justices of the court, and to the slightly-less-venerated bailiff, I am calling on your Precog division for help ruling on a future crime. I am running an official module for a TTRPG (not D&D)—a murder mystery set in the early 1920s. In the intro of this module, the players arrive to the city by train, and are picked up from the station by a cab driver who was hired to chauffeur them around town. One of my players (who is also my sister) was immediately suspicious of the cab driver, and has gone out of her way to spy on him, deceive him, and separate him from the party ever since. Justices, in the official module, the driver is completely innocent. However, my sister has developed such an obsession with “smoking out” the cab driver that I’m tempted to change the module. I wrote out a twist for the final session, where it’s revealed that the driver was a minion of the BBEG all along. The issue is that I mentioned this plan to a friend of mine, and they said they would be disappointed if they found out a GM had changed the agreed-upon module so drastically on a whim. Oh mighty Justices, should I adjust the module to accommodate my sister’s vendetta against the suspicious cab driver, or should I stick to the pre-written story? I humbly await your wise judgement.

To the juicy justices and bodacious bailiff Blake I bring before the court the case of the vengeance paladin who got no vengeance A few years back in an online game Vulfgang my halfling Vengeance Paladin got his one and only chance to take down the Archmage that had his friend killed In the final battle of the campaign against her Vulfgang got the final blow and since she was winter themed I described her bursting away in a puff of snow The DM described it happen and revealed it to be a simulacrum, this is fine but leads to my two issues 1. He said that he decided to make her a simulacrum after I described her death since they're created from snow This upset me because he's usually VERY rules as written and a simulacrum has half the hp of the original 2. There would be no rematch or second chance to take her down, this was our only chance and it was taken away due to flavour Am I right to find this disappointing or is my DM right to be so mean to me :( P.s. this was with 2014 rules

You should allow submissions to enter an email address and you do a “You’ve been served” email to them lol

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? Ps During the next battle we ended up absolutely wamping the BBEG, my barb succeeded on his relentless rage roles 4 times in a row. It was one of the most exciting battles we've had.

The Case Of Paying To Not Play I seek the judgment of the most beautiful and sageous justices, and their little dog too. I was once paid by a game store to DM Adventurers League sessions for customers. On my very first night, I had three players, all strangers to me and each other. There were two dads, both absolute delights: One dad who had played D&D decades ago and wanted to revisit it. Another dad who was learning the game to bond with his daughter. They were engaged, excited, and earnest. The third player, however, introduced himself as a “forever DM” with years of experience. He was a college student skipping part of a family event to be there, which he mentioned multiple times. From the jump, he began trying to “fix” the other players’ premade characters and telling them how to optimize character advancement. The adventure hook was a group of nuns needed a rare magical herb to cure a plague. The Problem Player, a cleric, INSISTED he would simply stay behind and repeatedly cast Spare the Dying, insisting there was no need for anyone to go on the adventure. He joked, more than once, that the others could just go home. Nothing and no-one could convince him not to do this. The two dads, thankfully, ignored this and went off to find the herb and actually play the game. Trying to be fair (and because he was also a paying customer), I kept cutting back to give Problem Player scenes with the nuns. Every time, his response was essentially: “I'm doing my job. Leave me alone. You're welcome.” Meanwhile, he constantly interrupted gameplay to: Explain monster weaknesses to the dads, backseat-DM the encounters, and loudly complain about the module as if I had personally written it. Eventually, the dads hit a puzzle in a tomb and got stuck. One of them cast Speak With Animals, so I introduced a rat who lived in the tomb to give them a nudge. They loved the rat. They befriended him. They shared their adventure with him. At this point, the problem player audibly sighed, and said “oh brother” out loud (to a passing waitress, because all of this took place in a crowded bar where no-one else was playing DnD). So… I may have then had the rat say "your cleric sounds like a coward". The player got upset, packed up his stuff saying he had somewhere to be in the morning, and went home. But not before making direct eye contact with the dads and saying, “Good luck without me.” The dads seemed to have fun and said they would continue to play DnD but never came back to any of these sessions. This has weighed on me for the past seven years, I think I was right but also he was a paying customer and I sometimes feel like the chef who pissed in the soup. Was I wrong to have the rat call him a coward? Should the nuns have said it earlier? Or was I unprofessional and wasted the time and money of all involved? Signed, A rude little rat man

Dearest Supreme Crit Justices and Jarl, I bring to you the case of Fog Cloud vs. Cloudkill. During a long running homebrew game, my players had recently descended into the underdark and had taken the bait to investigate a clearly destroyed and haunted temple of Lathander (aka Lythander in our game because my group's cleric could never remember his actual name). While retrieving a holy relic, they were set upon by a group of drow ambushers, one of whom cast cloudkill around the relic during a surprise round. The group's ranger then cast fog cloud, arguing that the fog would displace the poisoned air of the previous spell. Unsure of how anything regarding the flow of air works in real life, I said no, it doesn't. My Naddpod-loving players immediately threatened to bring me to court. Supreme Justices, I beg you. Please tell my players they are wrong and that any DM worth their salt cannot let a 1st level spell counter a 5th level spell, no matter how creative and thoughtful a player is being.

To the honest Clergy of Dice Christ and the deceitful Altar Boy, a confession. It was my first time DM-ing. I was running the Lost Mine of Phandelver, which starts with a goblin encounter. My kind and beautiful wife (a druid) wanted to avoid violence and talk things out with the goblins. I panicked; peace was not on the railroad. She roleplayed the situation well, rolled well, and her character even spoke Goblin. However, I said goblins are Neutral Evil, and evil beings are just gonna want to fight. The goblins hesitated a bit and gave some information, but attacked anyway. Justices, that was stupid (obviously). Since then I have tried to have goblin characters that are nicer, but she is always wary of them. Did I inspire fantasy racism in my wife?

To the honorable justices and I think his name was Jeff maybe? Anyways, I bring you the case of The Flying Tiger Man. Back when I was just starting to learn D&D I joined a group with some high school friends. We were investigating a Colosseum when we came across some tigers in cages that were kept for gladiatorial combat (problematic for my animal loving ranger) after | picked the lock and opened the cage I used speak with animals to get the tigers vibe. After talking for a minute it turned out not to be a tiger at all but a rakshasa and combat began. After it was clear the rakshasa was going to loose the DM had it cast fly on itself and began fleeing out of the narrow hallway. For some context the DM had done this with almost every encounter we've had so far and to combat this out gunslinger fighter had taken the "winging shot" trick shot. As the rakshasa was flying away to safety he shot it and knocked it prone. Which he thought would give us another round to finally finish a monster as it could no longer escape with only half movement, if it were to get up. However, the DM simply had it fly with the dash action and escape the next turn, as if it had never been knocked prone. This sparked an argument amongst the group, whether or not the fly spell allows, you to move without getting up and using half of your movement. Justices, it has been six years and this debate still gets brought up at the table every now and then with no clear answer. Should the Tiger Man (TM) have only gotten half movement allowing us to attack it for the final round or does the flight spell allow you to fly even if you are in the prone condition where "a creature's only movement option is to crawi, unless it stands up and thereby ends the condition." I humbly await your 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”. In the pseudodragon stat block it says that it “understands common and draconic but 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.

Omnipotent Judges and ostracized Bailiff, I bring you the case of my stolen squire. I'm in a campaign with all fairly new players, so I play a paladin to balance between healing and fighting. Our DM (also new) gave a me a squire about 2 session in named Dua. He's a teen, and has been with us for about 6 sessions now. My character begrudgingly grew attached to him and has fought many people to keep him safe. In our most recent battle, the big bad pulled out a gem and cast some ritual which drained his life force and the session ended for the day. As we're packing up, my DM says, 'OH, by the way, Dua is gone.' With a shit eating grin on his face. Our final session is next week, and he's adamant that there's no way to save Dua. Am I wrong for being shitty that I didn't have a chance to save him in the first place or does my DM have the right to taketh and giveth away NPCs. I await your judgements.

To the honorable judges and that dastardly bailiff Jankins I ask you a simple and perfectly non-leading question; do all dnd battles take place in demiplanes that begin and end with the battle map? During my long running curse of Strahd campaign my party had made their way to the mountains on a side quest and had just crossed over a frozen lake where we were assailed by a horde of evil goat-men. During this (fairly difficult) encounter my bard cast a 3rd level spell that had the effect of causing a fear that would make any creature who failed run as far away from the point I designated as possible. Three of the goatmen failed their saves and began running away from the source of their fear and toward my party, which I thought would be perfectly safe since as long as they didn’t pass their saving throws they would continue running past us back onto the frozen lake we had just crossed, however to my horror the 3 heavily armed goat warriors stopped at the edge of the battle map only a few feet away from my parties very squishy backline, when I asked my dm if they wanted me to track how far away the goats would be at the end of each turn they simply said “No they’ll just stop there because that’s the edge of the battle map”. Which resulted in 3 extra minions rejoining an already difficult encounter. I am not upset; however this ruling has haunted my thoughts for the past few months now and so I come before the court asking for a completely unbiased positive ruling in my favor.

Dear Justices and that other guy (Jim? Jimmy?), I come with a simple question: should my players know how their characters work? We've been playing online using Roll20, and constantly reminding them of core mechanics of their class and spellcasting rules is a drain for me. On their side, they say they're overwhelmed with choices and it feels condescending when I remind them what they can and cannot do on a turn. For additional context: the characters are 11th level, we play every two weeks, and campaign is nearing its hundredth session, and we're having a Session 0.5 to recalibrate.

Jubilations, Joyous Judges, Jurors, and Jacobs. I bring to you a case of a DM most unjoyous. Several years ago, we fixed a (now dead) wizards illusion-made-real machine, which allowed his simulacrum to become a real boy. Our wizard and artificer were successful with great rolls, and we tested it on an illusion of roughly 1 million gp worth of platinum bars. Didn’t want to test it on the guy, you know? Anyway, it worked, on both money and person. So on our way to launder it, we were told the money, not the guy, was disappearing slowly. So we book it to the bank, where a little demon popped out of nowhere and locked it, the money, and the bank teller who agreed to launder the money, into the vault portal. And now, years later, it’s still out of reach! We play in the same world, often same characters (or create written stories of them). Please guide us on how much further we can bemoan our otherwise great, though still sometimes petty, DM

Dear judges and their +1, I come to you with a case that happened years ago. I was starting a new game for Pathfinder First edition and was excited to DM for my Fiance's first TTRPG. I also invited our friend, let's call him Nigel, to play and he asked if he could have his girlfriend, let's call her Lois, play with us. I was hesitant since I didn't like her, for reasons I don't completely remember, but agreed knowing it would make him happy. Cut to the first session starting right around the corner and my fiance tells me of an argument Nigel and Lois had about the game. She wanted to be a Catfolk who could fly but Nigel told her it was impossible because none of the playable races had both wings and cat features. Judges, I knew how to help with this issue. In Pathfinder First edition they have a whole book on how to make your own custom race and keep it balanced with the already existing races, so I could've helped her make a cat race with wings but I didn't. Was I a coward for not sticking up for one of my players, was I right to avoid having someone able to fly at level 1, was it ok to stay out of a lover's quarell? These are the questions I deem I should be judged on. PS That campaign only lasted 1 session because I believe the 2 of them broke up shortly after, I was able to restart the campaign with Nigel, my Fiance and 3 other friends and it was a blast for 6 months. Nigel and Lois would continue to be on again off again in their relationship for almost 2 years 

Oh holy ones of Dice Christ, I must confess a shameful secret... For more years than I care to count I thought that the "Role" in RPG referred to the dice, not the players' performance. Worse, part of me still clings to this belief. Can the Church forgive and absolve this RNJesus heretic?

To the magnificent justices Axford, Murphy, and Caldwell, and the stinky no good butt baby bailiff Snake Stinkawitz, i submit the case of the Dead Husband 'resurrection'. I have been playing weekly DND with some friends for coming up on three years now, and for the most part it has been amazing. At first this was me running weekly sessions but, as my friends became more used to DND and I became busier, it was decided that one of the players would DM every other week. This has been a success for the most part. The world is fascinating, where Earth is forcibly mixed with a fantasy world to create a great mix. I have loved playing again and created a Chronurgy wizard whose only goal is to become powerful to reverse time and save his husband who was killed on the day of the world's colliding. Early on in the game (roughly 5 sessions in) the DM had us interact with a store owner who turned out to be Death, who made us all interact with previous loved ones. My character was forced to interact with his dead husband and I freaked out a bit as I had always envisioned it as something much further down the line. I obviously just played along because I didn't want to tell them how to run the story, but my thinking was that his unprocessed grief was a big character point, and one that had to be earned. I spoke to the DM and explained my thought process and he agreed, and stated this would be saved for bigger plot points down the line. In a session a short while ago (roughly 6 months on from the last incident) we were captured in a fight where we were blatantly outmatched and were taken down in one round despite rolling well and coming up with a good plan. After being captured we came face to face with the BBEG, who we knew to be a lich of some kind - only for my character to come face to face with his dead husband, Hector, who the lich took to use his own body. The silence on the call as the session ended was clearly not what the DM expected. After the fact, I told him I wasn't sure how I felt about the BBEG puppeteering my husband's dead husband. We ended up going on a side quest after escaping and he has left it with me to decide what we should do. I don't want to tell a DM how to run a game but he has, on occasion, been a bit of a railroady DM - and it feels as if i was railroaded into a character moment that didn't feel earned. I humbly ask the Justices (and I guess the butt baby if he wants to chime in) how much the players should have an input, and therefore, whether it should be fair for me to say I don't like this plot twist. PS i do feel it is relevant to say I have become incredibly attached to my character and his backstory, so recognise I may be overreacting and may need to trust the DM! Love, Otter

Dear Justices & my favorite Baliff, Jake, I kneel before the mercy of Dice Christ to confess years of DM transgressions committed by yours truly. For the first 6 years as a DM across multiple tables and campaigns, I would run combat encounters without using any stat blocks for my enemies. I would write in my notes their HP, their AC, and gave them a basic modifier for rolls. I would bend the encounter in favor of the story my players were telling, but I feel as though I failed my tables by just winging it for so long. I no longer do this as I’ve seen the error of my ways, but still, I ask for forgiveness and submit to the mercy of the church.

To the undefinable Supreme Crit Justices and Jeb; the guy 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 villain who died before he did anything wrong. 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 was lightly razzed 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 door was opened, the party fighter attacked the wispling, followed immediately by the party sorcerer plane-shifting the wispling to a chaotic-good 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?

To the noble justices Axford, “Murphy”, and Caldwell. If the bailiff reads this, him too I guess. I submit to the court the case of the Evil Teen vs the Stressed DM. I DM on occasion for my local game cafe and am somewhat new to DMing for strangers. A couple of weeks ago, I was DMing for a group and had a younger guy at my table. He’s such an issue that most other DMs won’t let him play with them but I’ve been hoping for a redemption arc. He played a tiefling who asked for a drink that was “made from the screams of a soul that’s been tortured for 100 years”. Personally, I prefer heroes so I shot down the idea of the drink with an NPC and established that this NPC was not approving of such evil aligned ideas. Later, he again mentioned torturing souls and I, on the spot, made a cantrip to make him take psychic damage from the NPC I’d established was against evil inclinations. However, I’ve been worrying that this might have been wrong. Justices, I ask, is it okay for me to damage this evil character in a game clearly made for heroes or have I simply dug my own hellish grave? I await your judgement.

May it please the beloved justices and bailiff Andrew, I would like to challenge a precedent of this court Recently, there was a case involving two players arguing about morality for over an hour of dnd before the bystander and court petitioner cast fireball, ending the argument. You wisely ruled against the arguing players. I have a similar case, but with a twist ;) We had been hired to route some slime poachers. The poachers were established as desperately poor and slimes are canonically evil. My party killed most of the poachers, but I let one escape. The other players at the table were irritated with me, so reluctantly I joined them in tracking the escaped poacher. I have an established boundary in all dnd games I play--no dead kids. The people I play with all know this. We tracked the man to a house in a poor village where a child opened the door. Here's where it gets spicy. One of my coplayers--a former friend (though this isn't the reason I no longer consider him a friend) said he backhanded the kid. Our dm made it extremely clear that if he did so, the kid would die. I said if this player hit the child, my character would attack his. The player protested, saying he only wanted to hurt the kid and not kill him. My DM explained that because the kid had low hp, he'd die no matter what. We argued for at least an hour. The thirst player at the table eventually left the discord call. The session ended unresolved. My DM admits that he should have ended the session. I concede that perhaps I shouldn't have threatened pvp. But judges--this other player attempted to violate the one and only boundary I have. Who bears the lions share of the blame?

To the honorable Crit, and the fella who thinks he's helpin' I have a confusing case. Here are the facts. I started an online campaign a number of months ago. It went well for several sessions until life got busy for some of us and the table disbanded. Recently, one of the past-players reached out to me and asked if I would DM for them and their new group of D&D friends. I excitedly said yes; and asked what kind of world and themes they would like to play. The past-player asked if I would DM in a world and scenario that they had constructed and themselves had already DM'd for this group in a one-shot. Additionally, the campaign had some contemporary figures as essential to the plot that I wasn't comfortable with using/playing. I expressed this to the player and offered a compromise: create a new world that followed many of the same premises and even allowed the players to continue using their already created characters. I shared this idea, and said I could also meet with the players and we could all work on it so it was an easy and collaborative transition. The past-player told me that the others were specifically excited for their campaign only and they would continue DM'ing it themselves. Court, is this against decorum? Is this rude? Am I rude for refusing to DM in someone else's pre-constructed and pre-run world? I am prepared to face thy judgement.

I hope this case finds my beloved justiciars well and finds the fetid bailiff cold and damp and afraid, I present the case of the giggle puss and the GIFs. Simply put in the campaign I play in (that was originally meant to be a pirate themed module but now is a homebrew campaign mainly about a civil war which now my haunted sailor has to find a place in that doesn't feel like a cowboy in a space campaign), overall I'm having fun but my main issue is thus: my DM is a chronic giggle puss. This is of course not an issue in and of itself but my DM has a habit of bursting out laughing in any scene in which someone is attempting to be serious or bought in, in our last session i attempted to have a serious scene interrogating one of the other players about our nightmares we were all having where she was lying about her dreams and my character had been becoming more paranoid for the last few sessions. justices, mt DM was laughing the entire time and even posted a danganronpa GIF in our discord and was non verbal with laughter for at least half the duration of the scene and a while after. Wise justices and the bailiff am I being unreasonable for wanting a little in character tension (me the DM and the players all enjoyed it) without someone seeing it as a yuck em up, or do i just need to roll with the hahas

Greetings most honorable, magnificent justices of the supreme crit. Hi bailiff Jonk. I previously submitted a case regarding my DM playing a sad trombone sound on the discord soundboard after a heartfelt moment from a PC in our pathfinder game, Nightingale, that robbed Nightingale of his character moment. Our DM had made it up to Nightingale over the course of the campaign through a mixture of more heartfelt backstory moments, touching and powerful interactions with NPC’s, and fun homebrew power ups. This case is not about Nightingale or even our DM but unfortunately the accursed discord soundboard is semi involved. I play a strong willed snow lynx beastkin ranger named Tanja who has a very well defined moral code that she follows both in and out of combat. Some examples of this include being honest to a fault, believing wholeheartedly that she can overcome any obstacle by taking it head on, never attacking an enemy from behind, and ensuring that anybody who she kills in battle receives a quick, honorable death. While our party was exploring a floating wizard’s tower, Tanja stumbled upon a room with nothing but a mirror and signs of a struggle on the floor and walls. I was taken to a separate one on one call with our DM, and Tanja’s reflection started talking to her combatively. Tanja was then possessed by the evil spirit in the mirror who wiped her memory of the interaction before we rejoined the call with the rest of the party. Mechanically, Tanja now acts as the host for this spirit and on specific story beats Tanja shifts between her normal self and this separate entity who my DM and I are referring to as “Evil Tanja”. While Evil Tanja is in the driver’s seat I have to act in direct opposition to Tanja’s moral code and when she shifts back to normal Tanja has a foggy memory of what happened while she was shifted. This happened almost a year ago and none of the other players have caught on whatsoever. In an entire year’s worth of sessions since, nobody in the party has picked up on the fact that for certain stretches of time I will take actions that directly oppose Tanja’s extremely defined code. My DM and I have even made jokes about how actions like flanking an enemy to attack from behind, giving an enemy a slow and torturous death, or coming up with a deceitful plan are extremely in character for Tanja and things she would always do. As Evil Tanja I have suggested the party take measures that would directly oppose Tanja’s primary goal in the campaign. We have even commissioned separate character art for Evil Tanja to use for Tanja’s token while she is possessed. To tie things back to the sad trombone, the way my DM signals to switch between Tanja and Evil Tanja is by playing a foreboding piano riff on the accursed discord soundboard. This sound is only ever used to signal the shift, yet nobody has questioned it. It has gotten to the point where I will purposely be as on the nose as possible about playing out of character because it is truly funny how nobody notices. Am I being to harsh on my fellow players and do we need to be more explicit to help the party catch on to a PC being possessed by an evil spirit or is the rest of the table being truly inattentive? Is it possible or even likely that the other players have noticed, but just think that it would be a faux pas to call me out on playing my character “incorrectly”? I humbly await your verdict and am ready to accept or issue any punishment that the supreme crit hands out.

Dear infallible justices and the irreverent bailiff Cronk. I come to you with the case of the Four Hour Battle. I’m running Strahd for a group of 5 of my friends who were at level 4 at the time. Slight spoilers for Vallaki, I guess. They had went to the coffin maker’s shop in Vallaki to retrieve some bones for a priest. In the attic was a nest of 6 vampire spawn as per the book. They got the bones with ease but couldn’t help themselves to look into the crates the spawns were hiding in. And thus, a slog of a fight commenced. For four hours these guys fought, went down, got healed, and fought again. Only twice did running away come up and only 2 out of 5 people thought it was a good idea. Justices, they did not run. Miraculously, not a single one of them died by the end and all of the spawns were defeated. My players then proceeded to complain how much of a slog that fight was and said I made it too hard for them. They still razz me about it at least once a session and at least twice when we’re hanging out not doing DnD. Justices, I ask, am I in the wrong here? I only ever imagined they would run once the first person went down, or even as soon as they had the bones. Should I have made it easier for them once I realized they weren’t going to retreat, or let them (and me) suffer a four fight? I await your perfect judgment. Thank you.

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. The party completed their first mission of finding the culprit stealing valuables from villagers. At this point the PCs had spent plenty of time together but constantly 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 gifts including stuff the thief left behind in their lair. This 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 illustrious Justice Axford and the white guys three, this is mostly me asking for advice so you’re probably not going to read this but I have to get it out anyway. I really want to play DnD but every time try my plans fall through. The first time I got COVID, the second time I was at a film camp and busy with other things, and so and so on. I even considered joining an online group but I’m in high school (about to graduate) and I would feel weird about holding a bunch of adults to my school schedule. I need help, man. How do I finally make my DnD game dreams come true. PS: I’ve also been paying for DnD beyond subscription for a couple years now, so I really need to play or else I wasted my money.

Dear juicy judges and the bone-dry bailiff, I present the case of: Dad DM and the Elsa Defense. My first campaign began after years of begging my Dad to play. He surprised me one evening, and the campaign has been going good for a year! One situation weighs on my mind… We were playing from an official DND book, using my Druid and an NPC paladin (I control during combat). We entered an abandoned castle, and after a few battles we made our way to the second floor. Important note: we were about fourth level. We get ambushed by NO LESS than 9 stirges. As a low level druid, I had no wild shapes left. As a low level paladin, he had few spell slots. It became very dangerous, very quickly. Three stirges attach to me. As a Druid, I have one attack. I opted for asking to cast thunderwave. I believed that thunderwave should hit the stirges attached to me. I even offered to take the full damage of the spell myself! Judges, this is where Elsa appears. After disputing the rules for an embarrassingly long time, I gave in to his “Elsa Defense”. He ruled that thunderwave works like Elsa’s blast, shooting out from her. That there is no possible way I could’ve targeted myself. Is my DMDad in the right? Should I have conceded earlier? I prostrate myself before your holiness. Ps- I must take credit for the naming of the Elsa Defense, for at the time, he had no idea what I was talking about.

Honoured justices of the court and Jake, [insert positive or negative descriptor as appropriate], I bring to you the case of the rotisserie razzing. My group has a long tradition of hosting each other for sessions, including home cooked meals and extensive snack options. We also rotate GMs so no one gets stuck doing it forever. Recently, during session zero for a new campaign of masks (a superhero game), I tried to raise the bar, using my new home rotisserie machine to cook a full chicken alongside an extensive charcuterie and cheese board, a quiche, crisps, dips, snacks, and fruit selections. All of the above was immediately discarded by the rest of the group, who settled in to make fun of the rotisserie chicken as it cooked in front of them. They called it "the stripper", made fun of me "glazing the baby" when I regularly applied the maple and soy baste to crisp the skin, and told me she was "my slutty favourite", among many other charming epithets. The session zero went well and the spread was happily consumed, including the chicken, but Justices - I feel wronged. Did my group go too far? Or is the inherent comedy of a rotisserie chicken too much for them to pass up?

To the licentious justices and the big baby butthead Paul. I submit the case of The Embarrassed Wife which includes some of the justices as part of the case. We recently had an incredible time witnessing Dimension 20 at the MGM Grand in Vegas. My wife and I stayed at the Grand ourselves and got lucky running into half the cast (including Murph and Emily) at the elevators going up. We were both ecstatic to see you and gave some words of excitement about the show. I said something to the effect of "We're so excited to see your show", to which my wife added "Yeah, we hate Vegas". And we continued on talking until the elevator came (too full for all of us). Justices, her words have haunted her since, as she feels she put a lot of pressure on you. I have assured her that more than likely you guys don't remember the encounter and if you do, you're more likely to remember our outfits in a positive way than anything we said (my wife was dressed as an Elizabethan woman and I as a wizard, our D&D characters for Halloween). While her intention was to indicate that we came for D20 despite our distaste for the capitalist sore that is Vegas, she fears she came on too strong. So justices, I ask you, was my wife the embarrassing wife worm she thinks she was, or can she relieve herself of her embarrassment since you probably have forgotten the encounter entirely? Please free her. Some context, my wife and I had just come from the show a tournament of kings which ended in an unexpected pyrotechnics show that had her in a full panic attack, so I ask for your leniency in your judgement as she was still recovering.

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 Wizard in the other group--who was also the DM's husband--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!

To the benevolent justices and however they feel about Jake today, Recently, my players were doing battle against an evil wizard, and during the clerics turn, he announced he was using an action to take out a rope and run in circles around the wizard to tie her up and thus prevent her from casting spells. Despite this making absolutely no sense, my players argued so strongly for it I relented and said on a DC 25 Athletics check he could succeed. I even let him roll flat, instead of with disadvantage, because he had Haste. My maniac players then protested that 25 was too high, and said the wizard shouldn't even be able to avoid being tied up because she "couldn't move when it wasn't her turn". I remained firm, and they eventually just gave up and decided to attack her normally, but Justices, I ask you, what the fuck? These are all experienced players who should know better, but they still seem convinced that I was in the wrong for not allowing this looney tunes move to auto-succeed. I beg of you, please give us an official legal ruling on whether or not this should be allowed.

wonderful justices and that one guy that I can't think of anything for. This is the case of the Crappy Chronurgy. A friend wanted a DM Princes of the Apocalypse And I had never played that module or any module for that matter and so that made me interested, we got to the first town and immediately went to the first objective which was to talk to some dragonborn at a tavern, the person at the tavern told us to head north to rescue a lost group of travelers, it seemed to be a time sensitive matter so we immediately headed north. we traveled for a full days time and then at the end of the session we were teleported back into town to our confusion. next session we walked around the town and talked to the dragonborn and he just said "Oh yeah that's a temporal rift that happens sometimes I guess you guys can't go that way, I guess you could explore the town a little bit more before heading off". I tried to keep my heat cool but just felt completely annoyed that an entire session went out the window but me not knowing much about Prince's of the Apocalypse maybe assumed it was all planned out that that was something that we needed to fix before we were able to do it come to find out that's not the case, The DM admitted at the end of the second session that he made it up because he wanted us to explore the town more. I know most modules don't really have a time critical element to it but it's just kind of frustrating that our actions in that first session were completely undermined by the DM wanting to change the narrative, am I wrong for sulking the second session or should I have been more receptible to gleaning new information?

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.

Honored justices and the good bailiff Jake, I bring you the case of the dinner flip. My boyfriend and I were recently trying to decide where to get dinner and were stuck between 2 options. I suggested we flip for it and made for our dvds when he said, “I got it” and pulled out a Slim Jim. Justices I ask, in an apartment full of dvds and dice, is this a crime? Should we have trusted the Slim Jim flip? I await your judgement. P.S. we ended up getting teriyaki for dinner

To the judges I don't respect and the baliff I don't respect. I bring a case from days gone by. I bring a case of betrayal and tradegy. 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, was a monkey who gained his 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 a little shit, 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 my anarchy at arachnid attacks actually alright? (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 honored Justices of the Crit Court, and the Babbling Buffoon of a Bailliff, I indeed need counsil on a matter of most aggravation. You see I had been playing in a Campaign as a player for once, normally I am stuck in the roll of DM for new players, and discovered myself getting increasingly more and more frustrated with the DM, we shall refer to him from hence forth as Flaky. It started small, point blank refusal to use maps or any visual aid due to the idea that it made the game "too crunchy". I thought, Ok theatre of the mind that's fine and brushed it off. Next, combat also became "too crunchy." Ok fine, I still like a role play aspect. After that Flaky started to call the store we played at to let them know he would not be able to make it, 2hrs before the session, not any of the players knew until the store sent us a message. He did that one week and then the next didn't even do that. So here we are, five people coming to a game store to play D&D with no DM. The store owner asked if we knew anyone who could DM as this was a weekly game. I stepped in, same day created a whole world in 15 minutes and sat everyone down and we had a session 0, decided to make it biweekly instead of a weekly game and we thought all was good. Low and behold who shows up next week at the end of session, Flaky. To run his game, a few of us stay and play, feeling like we owed it to him, to then have him try to add together all of character levels to give him "the accurate challenge rating", after we told him that a challenge rating 15 is not good for a 3rd level party, Flaky was annoyed. We set up a trap for the bad guy and he then narrates how when our monk missed the bad guy now had his sword. No roll, nothing. Then he later after gets annoyed with me for "taking all his players." I told him how he kept not showing up and the owner asked. He didn't care. So here I ask am I in the wrong? Should I have let the rest of the group struggle, most who this was their first experiance with d&d? I shall accept any and all judgments with dignity and grace. Also, those of us in the new group are having a great time, using digital maps with lots of combat and rolling saves. Flaky has indefinitely had his game removed from store after no one showed to his group for 2 weeks.

Honorable judges and Bailiff Jonk, I bring the case of the useless monk. I’m playing in a war-torn western plains campaign as a Monk warrior of the open hand. For most of the campaign, all our combat has felt as if it’s written to be impossible for me to participate. Grungs with poison skin, poison butterfly swarms, stirges, long ranged gun fights, fire elementals… not to mention a lot of charisma- and intelligence- based challenges (my character’s dump stats) and political intrigue (he’s also an illiterate farm boy with amnesia). I try to get creative with object interactions and lots of non-combat turns, but combat is my favorite part of the game. Did I pigeon-hole myself with this character? Am I just not being creative enough with my character? I feel like the party doesn’t even need me to continue. How should I talk to the dm— should I just make a new character altogether? Ps, the dm is my older brother…

All hail the holy justices! I bring to you the case of the railroaded cannibal backstory. I was playing in a long term online game with people I found on reddit. It was a gritty ASOIAF inspired game, and I played Casamir, a veteran of a crusade who returned home and struggled redjusting to society. I established that my character was cursed by an enemy after he defeated a city, but left the details vague. Generally I enjoyed it, in part because I hadn't played in any other game for so long. My GM offered to run a one on one flashback episode to my character. I agreed, thinking it would be fun. He proceeded for the next two hours to describe, with little rolling on my part, as the result was more or less already established, how I was captured and cursed... to become a cannibal. He said that I lost control and ate people, including children. I wasn't sure how to respond, so I just nodded and said, "Alright then." Justices, I wanted my character to be haunted, but I did not envision him, nor was I playing him for the past year, as a cannibal. I then had to pivot to incorporate this surprise fact that I had, and might in the future, eat people because of a curse. If it was part of normal gameplay I'd still not be thrilled, but I was especially not happy due to the GM's railroading. I have since left the campaign due to the GM's abhorent political real life views. So don't worry Murph, I already got new friends. So I ask you is it ok to railroad a PC into being a cannibal in a flashback without consulting them? I suspect it isn't, so please punish this guy with something fitting. And under what circumstances is it ok to make someone turn into a cannibal? Thank you all for your time, and may Dice Christ bless you.

Dear Hydrated Justices (and that one guy who I assume has an emotional support water bottle), I am a biological disaster who treats a glass of water like a Mimic. In an act of "tough love," my party has begun taxing my garbage rolls with mandatory "Healing Potions" (8oz of water). Thanks to Dice Christ’s sense of humor, I was "punished" with two liters of hydration in a single session—I have never been more healthy or more offended. My party is now asking for "Expansion Content." What other ways can they weaponize my failures to keep me from becoming a Salt Mephit? Is drinking every time I stall with a "Wait, hold up" too cruel, or is a "Chug-on-a-Nat-1" policy the only justice I deserve? Help them keep me hydrated. Yours in Dehydration, The Bardic Raisin

To the Justices of the Crit, I would say may it please the court but I hope it pisses you off actually because I’m Murph levels of aggro right now. Been running a table for 5 years with IRL friends, one of whom has given me a break every year by running a mini campaign that is rife with DM shenanigans but ultimately still fun. We had our first session of the newest iteration this week, and oh boy. My aberrant mind sorcerer rolled what I was told was a successful insight check on an NPC that seemed suspicious. I additionally used detect thoughts to probe deeper and after the NPC failed the save I was told that he wasn’t suspicious and there was nothing important on his mind to worry about. Additionally, I was traveling with an NPC holding an important magic item in a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist. I asked both in character and above the table if the NPC and item would be safe in my absence (attending a garden party) or if I should take more precautions and was again explicitly told not to worry about it. Lo and behold, at the party the “not suspicious” person betrayed his queen (our werewolf barbarian) using the important magical item to suck her subclass out with no save. Afterwards all of the players felt like we had spent a few hours in a cutscene, railroaded “for the plot.” Are we right to feel betrayed and lied to? I know we are but need you to validate me and punish our scripting DM. PS The barbarian has submitted her own case as well, we both hate the show.

Greeting my renegade Cyberpunk judges, and the steampunk bailiff Jake. In my recent game of Cyberpunk Red, my Medtech witnessed our fixer get exploded in a fiery inferno. The referee determined that because we were friends I lost 1d10 of humanity. As a result I went into a depressive state of cyberpsychois. This kind of thing happens in Cyberpunk. I just think a d6 would have been more appropriate. I liked my Medtech.

To the highest clergy of dice christ and Jake, to whom i have the most to apologize for, I bring you the case of the nearly dead Tread To make a long story short, through a mess of ticketmaster fuckery and excitement fueled delirium I ended up with 3 front row tickets to the radio critty show when I only ad need of two. Now this was no big deal-- I have a friend who does not listen to the pod but loves, in her words, "going places and doing things" and was down to go with me and another friend to this liveshow she had no context for. This friend is a casual dnd player at best, she's had experience with a few short campaigns that fizzled early and has not touched a die in years and, crucially to this story, is not a follower of the church of dice christ. Again, no big deal... or so I thought. You see, deacons, it is this friend who rolled the 9 for Tread's death save at the liveshow. I cannot help but feel bad for her, and for the audience, that I brought a nonbeliever to the show only for her to fail so crucially without the guidance of dice christ. My question now, is this, how do I repent for the both of us and bring her to the light?

To the sweet, and freshly baked pain au chocolat justices, and the day-old cronut bailiff, I present to you the case of the obviously cursed gold. I am a forever DM representing myself pro se in this case, and have been running a homebrew campaign for my party of 7 for almost 2 years. We don't meet very often, but I digress. A few sessions ago, they were tasked with finding a lost shipment of goods, which led them into a cave where a very obviously cursed, evil-looking red dragon was guarding the shipment atop a pile of gold. I say 'obviously cursed' because he was covered in runic symbols that, in my homebrew, were the symbols of a long-forgotten god of the void, Tharizdun. The party defeated the dragon, with the only casualty being a one-off DMPC that had been sent to help, and upon its death, two players rolled a high enough perception roll to witness a transparent green specter leave the dragon's corpse and fly towards the town. I described it as a green horseman atop his horse, who appeared sickly (pestilence). The cleric witnessed this, said huh, and entered the cave with the rogue without the party noticing. They then opened their bag of holding and swept up everything not bolted to the ground, including some 18,000 gold coins. No checks were made; they did not think to ask anything about the suspiciously large pile of gold. They were surprised that wherever they went, everyone seemed to get sick. They were then surprised to find out that they had not only brought pestilence to them by causing a plague, but had made him stronger. They argued that I should've made them roll a check to see if the coins were cursed, and that giving them an item so cursed as to cause a plague is unfair, I argued that had they not been blinded by the mountain of gold, the cleric who just saw what his charachter believes to be an omen of the end times would be a little more concerned about what they found. I seek your fair, fluffly, and flaky judgment. PS: A good number of NPCs died from the plague, but no PCs. The party's paladin kept everyone healthy with lay on hands and cure disease, but was afraid to treat the citizens and risk catching the plague himself.

To the honorable high court justices and the benign bailiff jimmy john. I come to you with a case concerning pc betrayal. I was playing a gnomes rogue and the main motivation for my pc was to find the people who kidnapped my family. I had a hate of the rich and would rob them at any opportunity since an early age. Another Pc in the party disagreed with my methods but the issue lies in what he did coming into a town. This pc, who was a slime cleric, said that he would voluntarily turn me in to the police and have me jailed. As he said this, I got a bit annoyed irl. I would lightly sabotage his own missions, but nothing egregious or game breaking He would eventually tell a npc that we just met some of my deepest secrets and I eventually had the pc leave the party due to the fact he couldn’t trust him and I rolled a new pc The question here is that did I overreact? Or was my annoyance justified? I await the decision by the court.

Intro switch 2026? To our honorable judges and Balif Jalapeño Business- I present the case: Hidden Mimics vs Reliable Talents- Ruling Request and Table Drama Edition! My party and I were in a tournament where we got sent to an extra-planar, haunted-ish house to search for treasures and complete the task: kill all the mimics in the house. I, a level 15 swashbuckler rogue pirate, was searching the attic and was told to roll a perception check, which I had proficiency and expertise in. I rolled a nat 1, but luckily I had reliable talent. Or, at least I thought I was lucky. Judges and Bailiff Jaques, my DM told me that a nat 1 was a nat 1 so I was not able to rely on my Reliable Talent for this check, and I not only failed the check but was then surprised by a mimic even though I would have been keeping an eye out for them specifically, and he treated my failed perception check as a critical hit for the mimic even though he didn't do anything attack roll. The definition of the ability doesn't say anything about rolling a nat 1 (just a roll ≤9 is treated as a 10), and doesn't say if it's at the discretion of the dm whether it works or not. I wouldn't have minded if it was still a failure, but a crit??? On an attack he didn't even roll for??? I will say- this session was played shortly after politely rejecting the dm's advances on me, as I did not reciprocate his feelings. So... Do with that what you will. I humbly and lovingly await your judgement. Annie

To the wise Crit Court, and the material component Jake. I bring you the case of the Quiet Cousin Love Triangle. I DM’d a session for my cousin and his partner. Two days before the game, my cousin asked if a girl from work could join. Fine by me. The problem was that when she arrived, he proceeded to ignore his actual girlfriend and heavily flirt with the work friend both in and out of character. To make matters worse, we had all agreed to dress as our characters. His girlfriend, clearly sensing danger in the initiative order, came dressed as a tiefling in what can only be described as lingerie. Despite this heroic commitment to the bit, she was still completely ignored. After an hour and 45 minutes of pure table-side emotional damage, she pulled me aside and asked if we could stop playing. I understood, made an excuse, and ended the session early. I assumed that cursed campaign had been sealed away forever, but my cousin has since asked multiple times when the next session is. Judges, how do I avoid DMing another devastating episode of Dungeons & Dating? Bonus twist: my cousin and his partner are now engaged. To mark the occasion, they bought commemorative D&D dice engraved with the date. Judges, I know for a fact that my session was the only time they have ever played Dungeons & Dragons. So I ask: Should I confront my Quiet Cousin or is there a very different type of roleplaying going on here?

To the Supreme Crit Juststices and the Prepubescent Baliff Jake. I bring you the "Too Cool for Rules?" case. I played a warforged artificer named Clunkee in a tyranny of Dragons campaign. He was the first warforged created by a new artificer and deemed "too clunky" to be sent out. He was relegated to the back of the shop where he would clean, read adventure stories, and tinker with old artifiacts. When it came time for his own adventure, Clunkee would, at times, forget he's not in one of his adventure book and say things to people he shouldn't, or attempt things he had no business attempting. I was fully prepared to roll for these actions, and more than likely fail, but each time the DM would laugh, say "that's awesome", and let it succeed. Judges, am I wrong in wanting the chance to roll, and possibly (probably) fail, so i can then RP that success/failure or should I consider myself lucky to succeed as often as I am? I humbly accept your ruling.

Honorable Crit Justices & Crit Justice Adjacents, I bring to you today A Real Dick Move. At our last session, my character inherited a weapon my DM had been referring to as "The Lionheart Blade." Naturally, while we were in the process of acquiring the sword, I kept making King Richard jokes. Upon the actual receiving of the weapon, I was informed that it's current form was because of what the previous owner needed, but it would change to the weapon of my choice. Since I play a woodelf rogue, I chose for it to be a long bow. After the decision was made, though, my DM informed me that the weapon was jealous and destroyed ALL of my other bows, regardless of whether they were long, short, or crossbow. This included some special homebrew weapons that my character had sacrificed deeply for. When he asked what I would choose to call it, I told him "Dick." 1) because of King Richard the Lionheart & 2) because destroying my weapons was a real dick move. I ask you all now, should my DM had made me aware of the consequences of accepting the weapon, or am I being a little too petty in the naming of a new cool weapon he gave me?

To the kind but fair Justices and the kinda bailiff Jake I present to you a dilemma stemming from frustration. I play in an online game that meets (more or less) once a week and have been playing for over 5 years this way. About 8 months ago we started a new campaign with a different DM. I have played in campaigns of his before and had fun but I am realizing something of his play style that in the past I didn’t really notice: He does not know how to balance encounters. I first noticed it during a one shot (turned 4 shot) holiday adventure where he said would be moderately cannon- that resulted in 3 characters dying (he walked back that the one shot was cannon when that happened) no big deal- it was creative and fun. Sometimes cool monsters are stronger than you think. But the last 2 encounters have been muliti-session slogs that even the most battle loving player in our group said was a little long. I ask for your kind and supportive advice in how to bring this up without sounding ungrateful, as I know how much work DMing is. I don’t want to be mean, but I don’t know how many more encounters I can take this way. Sincerely, A 4th level rogue just trying to make it to level 5. (PS- to keep it short I left out all of the homebrew stuff that also has its problems but I am less concerned about that)

To the ethereal bishops of Dice Christ and the slimy altar boy standing in the corner over there… forgive me for I have sinned. I am a fairly new dm and run a game with my college friends as a way to stay in touch post graduation. They are all new players, and, since we’re remote, I play it fast and loose with the rules. We don’t really do opportunity attacks or keep track of spell slots since I’m usually lucky if they remember that they have spells at all. On top of that, I often will ignore my dice rolls in favor of my squishy players. I’ll demote crits into normal hits, subtract from enemy damage, and forego multiple attacks. The game is still fun and the players seem to be enjoying themselves, but I feel like I’m poisoning their first dnd experience with my cowardly ways. I just like seeing my friends win. I accept any penance you send forth, as long as it doesn’t make the game too crunchy, we were all communication majors.

The Case of Vigilante Justice Glorious Justices and The Pinch I seek judgment. In college I began a campaign on my dorm floor with a DM named John. John demanded 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 John fudged rolls, changed stats and increased DCs after rolls to fit his “vision”. Letting go was hard. I was the main character, a paladin whose oath was to spread free love. I was slangin ropes all over Faerun and it was cash. The final straw occurred one evening when I was brushing my teeth, John walked into the dorm bathroom stall barefoot. For several minutes John loudly farted, grunted and shitted, he then left without washing his hands. Horrified, I knew I had to install myself as DM; to avoid the awkward conversation of kicking out John I spread vicious rumors to faculty that forced them to remove John from the dorms. Watching John friendlessly loading up a U-Haul was very satisfying. I humbly ask you justices and the crab claw bailiff: was I right to take justice into my own hands? P.S. My players have been happily playing ever since the joi we share is the real magic if you ask me.

To the Venerated Dice Elders, I present my confession, which stems from a moment where we *had* to take a Dragon down to prevent it from aiding the bad guys in the final battle. We were well spaced out to avoid breath attacks and got it to the brink.  However, the Dragon knocked the Fighter prone as a Legendary action, and then used its full turn to dash-fly away, realizing it was about to lose, leaving it 200 feet away from us, and on a path to show back up in the final fight. We had no attacks that could hit in that range. The Fighter was sure she could finish the fight if it had stayed in her face, but there was no chance of that now.  Fortunately, I was playing a Trickster Cleric / Rogue Mastermind multiclass, and was exactly 60 feet away from the fighter! I bonus-action dashed to put a hand on her.  Then, with a Jens Lyndelle-worthy flourish, Dimension Door'd both of us onto the back of the escaping Dragon!  I immediately got yeeted off by the Dragon's Legendary Action to a significant but non-lethal amount of damage, but the Fighter stood strong, got their turn, and took the Dragon down with the last possible attack. I can still hear the roars of the table when it happened. ...But here's the confession: Forgive me, Dice Elders, but I was *65* feet away from the Fighter.  I had enough turns to sit there, plot out this epic plan, and realize I couldn't make it far enough.  Nevertheless, when it was my turn, I went with it anyway, sliding my mini across the board to the Fighter.  Normally our DM watches move distance with diligence, but I think the fact I only needed to move in a straight line concealed the slight of hand on my part.  No one else at the table was any the wiser. It was a huge moment at the table, but I acknowledge that memory comes with an asterisk, and that it looms in my brain enough that I think about it every time a Dice Christ comes up, so I figured it was time to atone.  I humbly await your whomping.  

Dear Inimitable Justice Murphy, Luminous Justice Axford, and Exceptional Justice Tanner and Incredible or Unfortunate (depending on if Murph is praising/razzing Jake today) Bailiff Jake: I'm in an online campaign with 5 fellow D20 fans set in the Neverafter. There's one player who has become... a problem. Since the bailiff has begged for briefness, here's a bullet point list: - He zones out if he's not in the scene or at least the main focus. Sometimes he wanders away from the computer, sometimes, puts his head down and it seems like he's dozing? To the point where if the DM asks him for a roll, we sometimes to yell several times before he responds. - If he is paying attention, he interrupts other people constantly. - He's playing a child character and has taken it way to literally. Like, he constantly derails social scenes because "that's how a 6 year old would act". As someone with 3 nephews, no, no it isn't. - Insists on being at the centre of everything when having dialogue scenes, but then playing dumb when it matters. Like, if you aren't going to do anything with the information, why are you so insistent on getting it? - Constantly rules lawyers us on the use of spells and abilities, even if the person doing the action has just read out the effects from the official source. - Will randomly tell the DM "I'm going to make a roll now" without being asked or even specifying what for. - maybe not as important, but in our pre-game catching up, he always seems to take an antagonistic view of anything we're discussing. Eg. Me: "My bff and I bought a theatre's worth of Star Wars tickets to throw an event for our friends" Him: "Let me tell you why I hate all the new Star Wars movies" or if the other Americans are complaining about the US and asking the other Canadian and I how it works here, he immediately starts telling us how Canada actually sucks. Also, tried to explain to our DM how she should be dealing with her own heritage. It's wild. It may not seem that bad written out, but we play once a week and it's really starting to grate on all of our nerves, especially the interrupting and not paying attention (which I personally feel is rude as hell when the DM has spent her time prepping what have so far been awesome sessions each week). I have spoken to the DM and she's apparently already tried talking to him. So far, it's had minimal effect. Judges, how do we deal with an oblivious attention hog with the attention span of a goldfish? The DM is a teacher and is trying to help him rather that just kick him out as she feels (and I agree) this isn't malicious, it's just obliviousness. P.S. (Please read this note after verdict has been rendered as this is not meant to sway the judges, I'm just genuinely grateful.) I work with cats (groomer and trainer) and I must shout out Murph and Emily for their constant and vehement support of felines. You two are truly the real life heroes cats need.

Judges, Members of the Jury, and Bailiff Bake, I come before this Court seeking wisdom regarding a player we love SO much that we are considering quitting D&D because of them... Our group has played together for over ten years under a brilliant DM, forging deep bonds across four campaigns. But one among us, a cherished friend, has always been an energy vampire at the table, and has grown bolder and louder as years have gone by This chaos goblin has been disruptively loud, spotlight-hogging, chronically unprepared, and recently afflicted with "it's what my character would do" syndrome after discovering the "joys" of "playing evil". Sessions end with the rest of us exhausted and irritated. Here is where it gets dire, Your Honours: they had to miss a few sessions, and we had... fun. Great fun. Our best sessions in recent memory. We felt guilty. We felt relieved. We felt guilty about feeling relieved. Now they are returning and my bestie and I are dreading the return to the table. We love this person. We love our DM's world. We love our table. We just cannot survive another monologue about a character's inner turmoil delivered at maximum volume. The Court's questions for deliberation: 1. Do we speak to our DM, and if so, how? 2. How do we continue playing with someone we adore who becomes a different creature entirely once the dice hit the table? We await your ruling with desperate hope.

Dearest Honorable Crits, and the balif who may be lowly yet higher than I (tbd): 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 stylish justices and will somebody get that stinky man out of here thank you. 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. Your honours, I am uncomfortable with this, but as far as I know they have not brought any of this to the table. Are they in the wrong for what they do in the private of their home or should I just get on with it and try not to think about their (hopefully) non-canonical private sessions. I leave the judgement up to you.

To the supreme crit justices and lovely Jake! My DM does not believe in battle round rules, he says each round takes 1 minute and we cannot know what each of will do, so in 6 second round there is no way we can do what we want. I tried to argue and show what I can do it 6 seconds (including running). I hopefully and tiredly wait for your thoughts while lying on floor exhausted. P.S. we also have a weird love 6 angle with one of the players who wants to fuck everyone. But this story is for another time. Thank you!

To the magnificent judges -- oh hey bailiff can you back up please? I'm trying to talk to the judges -- I present to you a civil dispute I'm having with myself: Am I crazy for being annoyed that I keep ending up at tables with undisclosed children as players?? Justices, I love when children play D&D, I do. I wish I had had the opportunity given to me as a child for this kind of creative outlet. But not once, not twice, but THREE TIMES NOW, I've tried joining in-person tables via Meetup, and when I arrive one of the players is a literal grade-to-middle school aged child. I'm not crazy for being dismayed and annoyed at this, right? At all of these games, even if the child is super well behaved, the game needs to now be largely about making sure the child feels included and seen. This just seems suboptimal for everyone involved. Justices, there should be tables for children to experience d&d with trusted adults. Random Meetup groups are not that, right? I just want a mature game of d&d, please! If I'm being a major Grinch here, I accept whatever punishment you deem fit.

To the honorable and estimable judges and that other guy who seems to hang around, I offer up the case of the outlawed magic school. Several years ago (around 2019) while in grad school, I was visiting a friend and invited to join her and her friends for a one-shot in their homebrewed world and system. They had been working on creating a new TTRPG for a few years and wanted to test run it. I was informed that there were three classes (a class to summon your soul as a weapon, a class to summon your soul as an animal companion, and a catch-all magic user). I decided to go with the magic-user (spare brain cells to learn a new system were hard to come by in grad school), and *SPECIFICALLY* asked if there was anything I needed to know before choosing my two specialized schools of magic, including if there were any schools that were off limits for any reason. She said no. For context, their magic system involved twelve different schools (including "light" and "dark" magic), but there were no spells. Instead, players were expected to describe the magical effect (which must believably stem from one of those two schools of magic) they wanted and then the DM would set a DC which the player had to meet or beat to have their spell succeed. Any attempts to describe spells conceivably outside of your chosen specialties automatically failed and caused some kind of damage/strain to the character. I decided to choose Divination as my primary specialty and Enchantment as my secondary specialty. We start the session and soon come into conflict with an angry sentient tree. The only other player in the scene is quickly restrained by its roots. When my turn came around, I attempted to "divine" its language in hopes of communicating with the tree and getting it to release the other character. Imagine my surprise when my friend, the DM, turns to the restrained player and tells them, "you see [my character] casting divinatory magic, which is outlawed in this part of the world. What do you do?" The rest of the session dissolved into the other players regarding my character with suspicion on account of my divination magic and me having to talk them down from attacking my character. I declined from ever playing in that TTRPG again. Judges, I ask you, do I have a right to still be salty after seven years about being lied to by my DM when I specifically asked if there were any off-limits magic schools? I await the wise judgment of the court.

To the mighty and fair justices, whose wisdom knows no bounds, and I guess Drake, I present to you the case of the Was-wolf. My group just started a new chapter of an ongoing campaign, in which my werewolf path of the beast barbarian has become the ruler of a nation and was tasked with housing peace talks to end a war (that our fighter accidentally started). This culminated in a solo battle (the DM had forced a party split to isolate my character) where my character had to fight the villains of this campaign, including her usurper mother. It was going alright, until an NPC cast Command and I had to make a wisdom save (every barbarian's worst nightmare). I was relieved when I got an 18 - only to be told that that wasn't enough to save, which felt kind of ridiculous, but I relented. After this, the DM immediately used a magical book to rip my character's werewolf abilities from her, with no save. I was shocked. When I asked my DM what I would do, since my bestial abilities make up my subclass and weapons, he told me I could do regular barbarian stuff without subclass abilities - effectively nerfing my level 10 character without giving me a chance to save. When I asked him why he didn't plan this out with me, he said he wanted it to be a surprise and was giddy leading up to it. My character was rescued from the encounter, but she is now a shell of what she once was. Judges, am I right to be peeved about getting nerfed without a save in a glorified cut scene? Or is my DM fastening buttons I didn't even consider? I await your judgment with a pitiful "awoo" (PS next session, he actually admitted that I had passed the save, but he accidentally miscalculated the save DC)

Hello my precocious pre-cogs, and the guy who can't see the future Jimmy. today have a case of Pre-Crime for you. Can I off screen kill off a player character? My friends an I have been playing for 4 years in a homebrew world of my making. My friend said he wants to retire his character, and roll a new one. I don't have a problem with this. I've always seen him having an arc similar to Campaign 3 Hardwon. Here's the thing. His characters FATHER is an anti-hero lich. And his plan was always to have him take the players soul, to "save the world" This is a major part of my story, and something I've been teasing for a LONG time. Would you be unsatisfied in a DM killing your character in a story moment, if you asked for them to be retired? Should I just let him go off into his rural farmer dreams? PS. I would let the player in question alone see and hear what happens. But not the other players. And when they finally beat the lich. I am willing to revive the character. PPS he said he is willing to have his character die, he just said "in a dramatic sacrifice" Thank you for your future insights. I will take my question off the air.

To the ever-moisturized justices and the very-chapped baliff, I bring you the case of rampant AI. I have been playing in an online 5.5e campaign with 5 other players and a dm for over 7 months now, running weekly. The rp and combat was rocky at first as we were all strangers prior to this, and I havent played dnd before, but gradually got more comfortable over time. My issue lies with the rampant usage of generative A.I. from everyone at the table, excluding me. Every session, at least one person is using AI to generate images of scenes, pcs, npcs, and more. The dm is our biggest offender of this, often ruining a scene for me that takes forever to get back into. I loathe any and all usage of generative AI, but I am worried that if I bring up my concerns I will be ostracized and/or kicked. Justices, should I leave the table with some excuse or deal with it and try to finish my first ever campaign? I humbly await your judgement.

To the indispustable justices and the dubitable at best bailiff I present the case of the twin brother monk. This was my first campaign I ever played curse of strahd. My original character a UA alchemist had died and being underpowered as a UA I was fine with that, so I reroll a monk character Andarisk. First session with Andarisk we were in a dungeon with. The door was open and inside the small cell was described a 10 motionless bodies leaning against the walls and a pillar atop sat an artifact of a holy symbol. Andarisk went in and before he even touched the symbol, the door slammed shut and all the bodies animated and attacked him. The dm said he was dead. I said don’t I get to try and escape or fight them. The dm said action economy wise you will still die. He then described a man walking down the corridor into view and described what my character had looked like. Said he was here looking for his twin brother. The dm said this was my new character and to pick a name. I picked Skiradan an anagram for Andarisk and we proceeded with the rest of the campaign which was exceedingly fun. My qualm is whether I should have been given the chance to escape, whether the party could have saved me in a single round I doubt but it felt very unceremonious a way to die. Or should I have known better. Our wizard had done an arcana check (hidden result) and hadn’t sensed anything magical about the room before entering. Ps I continued to use anagrams for Andarisk in every campaign to which they always rolled their eyes at but accepted

I bring the case of the sleep addicted siblings To the judges who look like they've been hitting the gym a lot lately and the bailiff who could have at least worn a tie I DM a game for my two younger siblings and their significant others. Its the first time any of them have played and it was very touching when they asked me to run a game for them. The game over the last two years has been a delight. We're a very close family all with similar tastes in media and sense of humor. They finished a short campaign to level 10 and we've started a second one recently. Here's the problem. They love taking long rests. I find it very difficult to pressure their resources and spell slots because they will take incredible pains to get 8 hours of sleep between every single fight. Often leaving dungeons or once even the lair of a miniboss to go back to camp. I don't think they've ever done two combats in one calendar day. When I explained to them that Rules as Written they can only take one long rest per in game 24 hours my brother said "that's fine, we'll just wait the other 16 hours." I've tried doing things like kidnapping an NPC they made friends with and having the BBG say they would sacrifice him that night and even sending a zombie horde at their favorite town. It has little effect, they are more afraid of running out of spells than letting me kill every named character in the game. I've ambushed them in their sleep too, they just fight the fight and go back to bed. Should my players learn that it's not very adventurous to sleep your life away? Or should I let the siblings and significant others snooze? PS I haven't pushed too hard on this because out of the family I am the Murph so I worry that if they find out this is bugging me it will become a bit and they will sleep even more

Honorable justices and the human equivalent of soggy leftover French fries, Jake. I present the case that needs clarification on if it falls under the Murphy Precedent of "you need new friends" I've been running a campaign with my friends since the beginning of the campaign and have been running monthly sessions for 5 years strong with my best friends from high school (were in our 30s). Last summer between the four of us there was a new job, an engagement a pregnancy, and general burnout from me the DM, so we decided to take a hiatus. After months later I'm finally getting back into my creative groove and ready to start playing again but over the course of the winter I found out that these friends have been having weekly watch parties of rupauls drag race without me. Now I usually watch RPDR at my local gay bar so that might be their reasoning, but I still would've at least liked an invite and to hang out with them. My feelings are hurt and I'm not particularly keen on restarting the campaign with them. So judges should I try and work through this for the sake of the campaign? Or should I quote "find new friends"

If it would please the court, to the esteemed cutie patootie judges and the (adjective) Bailiff [Name]. I present to you my case. This is currently ongoing, and I seek your judgment and perhaps your guidance. I've been playing D&D at a local game shop for about a year. It's been mostly the same group, with a few people coming and going as they can. About 6 months ago, a new girl joined. She was fine at first, but then there were just little minor tricklings of annoyances that popped up, like constantly being on her phone, or talking across the table to somebody else during other people's turns, or playing in a one-shot I was DMing where they knew ahead of time that their characters were going to die no matter what and during the adventure when the BBEG was asking for entertainment, she refused to participate because "I'm just going to die anyway". It all came to a head recently, where it moved past minor annoyance. We were sitting down to play, and I was going to tell them about randomly bumping into Anjali Bhimani at the airport, and I said, "Guess who I ran into at the airport?", to which she shouted, "Your mom!" My mom died when I was younger, and I didn't expect her to know this, so I said, "My mom is dead!" and she laughed out loud at that. A loud belly laugh. I don't know if she thought I was joking or what, but I was so stunned that I packed my things and quietly left the session. I might have reacted differently if my dad hadn't recently had a stroke and gone into a nursing home, but I was so upset that I just left, rather than make a scene. I messaged the DM and told him the situation, and that I didn't want to play with her anymore after that, but I wasn't going to ask him to remove her from the table. It's been 2 weeks. None of the other players has reached out to me since then, so I have no idea if they even know what was wrong. So I just haven't gone back. Judges, I ask, was this the right decision? Just quietly leave the table, or should I try to reach out to patch this up? I humbly await your verdict and guidance.

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.

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

Dear Honorable Justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner as well as the questionable but endearing court baliff Jake. I bring to you the case of Unexpected Civilian Casualties. 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 a full 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 even my own party 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 at the time and still maintain that they are in the right and continue to razz me to this day. 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? and do they still have razzing rights? I leave this up to the court and will abide by your rulling

To the highest court in the land and the guy who brings shame to my brother's name (just kidding Jake you are alright) Your Honors i submit to you the case of a Christmas Grinching and the snacking DM. Several years ago at Christmas it was suggested that my family play a DnD one shot on Christmas eve. I volunteered to DM the event. I had five players (3 with prior experience and 2 newbies). One of my experienced players is an IRL grinch. You know the type to open presents then instantly start taking the decorations down. Let's call him Jay. I messaged Jay on the sly and asked if he wanted to be the secret bad guy for the session. He said yes. His character was a rogue that was secretly an adult green dragon named Jayrinch. It wasn't subtle. The problem arises after our Christmas crusaders had successfully defended whoville and defeated Ebenezer scrooge who was a lich. I looked at Jay and asked if he still wanted to. He said yes so I slide him the monster manual and DM screen while I excused myself to get some chex mix. When I returned I found that the players had hidden in the who's houses and were ranging Jay/the grinch to death. This left Jay annoyed that he didn't get to fight and the other players annoyed at the betrayal. Judges I ask you who is to blame? Is it Jay for being a grinch, my players for being cowards or me loving chex mix so much? The movant rest and awaits your verdict

To the Honourable Crit Justices, and that one other guy jerf, I present the case of a good deed gone horribly wrong. My party’s DM brought us to a desert city ruled by a genie. Not long after arriving, we discovered that all the water in the city was controlled by the ruling class. In this harsh environment, the poor were forced to scrape together whatever coin they could in order to afford water. At level 6, we weren’t exactly equipped to defeat the scourge of capitalism, so my kind-hearted Divine Soul Sorcerer decided to do what little she could. She ventured into the poorest part of the city and began using Create or Destroy Water to hand out free water to anyone in need. Judges, I thought this would be a small, wholesome side moment while my two fellow party members had a heartfelt conversation back at the tavern. I was wrong. After I set up my humble “water booth” and helped a few grateful citizens, my DM described a gang of rough-looking men approaching. They demanded that I hand over all the water. Being a high charisma character, I attempted to intimidate them into backing off, I rolled a 5. The leader, thoroughly unimpressed, grabbed my poor sorcerer and initiated combat. Not wanting to kill anyone, I asked my DM if I could deal non-lethal damage with my cantrips, My DM smiled and informed me that these were just random dudes who likely had low hit-points, and that magic does not do non-lethal damage, so any spell I hit them with had the potential to kill them. Stuck, and with a pathetic strength score, my pacifist-leaning sorcerer not wanting to kill anyone had no choice but to pull out a knife (so I could do non-lethal damage) to fight these goons and try to get away. My DM then gleefully and vividly described how my sweet, gentle sorcerer stabbed a man in the stomach, leaving him bleeding in the dirt as she fled back to her party in shame. So, Judges: was I wrong for trying to do a simple good deed? Or was my DM justified in forcing my poor pacifist’s hand and blade? P.S. I married the GM in January so clearly I wasn’t that upset haha

To those with the final say and the one who has no say at all, I bring a case of the split household. It was session 1. Brand new campaign. New characters. New(ish) DM. I, the DM, had planned out the major arcs of the campaign that was set in Ebberon. I had four players: - A dragonborn Paladin knight of the Silver Flame (my real ly husband) - an Air Genasi Warlock of the Djinn (my real life friend who lives in the spare bedroom) - a human fighter (another real life friend) - and a gnome druid (husband's real life cousin/my real life friend) After an explosion during a parade rocked a of Stormreach, the Warlock, fighter, and druid followed a clocked figure they had seen fleeing a tower while the paladin stayed to find his master (the Silver Flame float was bombed). The paladin found his master, cared for him, and then made his way to follow the others. He caught up to them just as the three had finished up an impromptu battle with a Goliath Barbaian (bunch of murder hobos). The paladin being a paladin, ordered them to stop. The fighter and druid stayed put, but the Warlock took off running after the cloaked figure that the paladin had not seen yet. The paladin gave a rope to the fighter and druid and asked them to tie themselves up and stay put while he "chased down the other perpetrator". This led to a touch of PvP where the Warlock shot (and missed) two Eldritch blasts at the paladin. Eventually, the paladin pinned the Warlock to an iron door frame which opened to the waterworks. Session ended. Well, the warlock (housemate) then proceeded to yell at the paladin (husband) that his character wouldnt have chased him but rather taken care of the other two people first. The paladin argued that he did that to try and help the story to continue. It turned into a yelling match and the warlock not leaving his room for the rest of the night. The warlock fully blames the paladin stating it isnt what his character would have done. I got to work the next morning and recieved a text from the warlock saying he will no longer play the warlock because he doesn't see how they can go on. Judges, I created a full arc for this warlock to understand his bloodline and lineage and even 3d printed and hand painted a Djinn. I dont want to DM for them anymore. They're butt heads. But I lay this issue at your feet. Who is to blame and how shall they be punished?

To the croissantly justices and bailiff Cake Horwitz, I bring you 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 finally wrangled 4 friends to play. They are all fairly 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 two players seems to be struggling with the manual nature of D&D when it comes to leveling up compared to the video games they are used to playing. They were supposed to move up to level 2 a few sessions ago but haven't leveled up their characters. I have sent them resources, including online tools and even offered to level them up myself. Before each game they say they will finish leveling up but when they arrive they are still level 1. I offer to help them up before we start but they say not to worry about it and they will just do it before our next game. In the last game they got enough experience to reach level 3 right before this arch's mini BBEG fight. I'm wondering how to plan for the BBEG fight. Also, I get the feeling it bothers the other two players 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. P.S. to be transparent and fair one of the lackadaisical players is a real life bailiff and has to deal with a lot of nonsense from lackadaisical judges.

To the Rowdy Justices and the Plebeian Bailiff Jake, I bring you the case of the Water Walking Dragon. I’ve been running a nautical campaign for my players and they were in battle with a barnacle covered aquatic dragon who had evolved to no longer have eyes like those weird eyeless fish Justice Tanner probably knows about. One of the players cast Water Walk on the dragon, which when cast underwater sends a creature hurling towards the surface at a speed of 60 ft per round. My dragon had a swim speed of 80, so I ruled it would have to use most of its movement every round pushing back down as it comically battled the current. My player was disappointed that they didn’t automatically remove the dragon from the fight. Should I have offered additional mechanical benefit or was losing most of its movement while being dragged up by the tail enough? I prostrate myself before your judgement.

To the merciful justices and the mirthful bailiff. I bring the case of the prophetic dice of death. This might be too dark but I’ve done a lot of counseling since and you gotta laugh through the pain. Feel free to joke around with this as much as possible. My family has a tradition of rolling a d20 for your luck for the year. In January of 2024, my brother rolled a nat 1 and a few months later, my mom passed way. Did my brother kill my mom? I did buy him the dice set so am I partly to blame? Or does dice christ giveth and taketh away, and though she slay me I will put my trust in her. Is dice Christ a girl? PS my 10 mo old child rolled a 17 for the year this year. And my nephew rolled a nat 20. I rolled a 9. Somehow we still let my brother roll. He got a 5. PPS can you think of any way mechanically to roll with advantage for the year?

May it please the wise keepers of the holy crit and that guy who stands at the confessional and announces our sins, I come to you bearing 5 years worth of guilt that I can't carry anymore. I played in a Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign where I met my fellow players for the FIRST TIME during session 1. I was playing a Bard, and I made a bold mistake very early on that has weighed in my conscience ever since. During our 3rd session (3rd time playing with these people) we were locked in a player debate on whether we should assist a town in need or to turn the people against the mayor, helping the mafia. Only 1 player wanted to help the town. This player (lawful good) was threatening to rat us out if we went through with it. So... I cast Sleep on them. We then proceeded to tie them up, bag their head, lie to the towns people that he was delusional and a danger to others, and left him on the side of the road penniless and alone, kicking the character out of the party and causing the player to create a new one. It was hilarious! This was the point that I realized my mistake. I was playing a bard, and I didn't realize bards can't prepare spells each day. So, Sleep was not on my original spell list. I added it after a rest for this plan to work... Now, all these years later, I kneel before Dice Christ seeking absolution. PS: We still had a great time and we finished the campaign over the course of 3 years

To the high exalted judges and decent bailiff (I can’t razz a fellow Nutmegger in good conscience): I bring to you the case of Gravity and The Goat. I was DMing a one-shot with a group of mostly first-timers and one experienced player. They were playing a herd of awakened goats stealing food from a festival that was also being infiltrated by a cult of a minor chaos god. The climactic battle featured our veteran player goat headbutting the cult leader off of a tiered pyramid structure in the town square. Back of the envelope math put the total pyramid at 24’ tall (6 tiers of 4’ each). Feeling generous, I rolled 3d6 for the falling damage plus the ram attack damage. He was injured, but not killed. Veteran player argued that getting hit by a goat and tumbling down each tier would have a much higher chance of killing someone, so it should have been a d6 for each tier, as each one would have the chance to snap his neck on the way down. I argued that they were playing goats in the middle of a town-wide food fight and to just move on. What do you think? Are goats more lethal than I had accounted for?

To the Most Holy Justices and that dry toad or rad dude of a bailiff, depending on your mood, A friend of mine, DM, ran a one shot a year after a campaign our group had completed. It was supposed to be a fun reunion session with our level 20 characters getting called out of retirement to reunite and help the realm again by vanquishing the demon king. The session started with us in purgatory, fighting some strong minions. We made a good effort, but as we're getting close to winning more minions arrive. It quickly becomes clear that this is an unwinnable fight, but DM says it's okay if we die as it's purgatory, so we'll come back up as a group once everyone dies. When we revive as a group, we all got double speed and AC up to 23. The DM intended it do be a rogue-like session of dying and progressing with more buffs every time we die. Justices, this is where my grievance comes in: the buffs quickly became ridiculous. When we got to the boss fight of the session, the die and get buffed cycle continued. First by adding 7d20 to our damage, then 100d20, then 1,000d20. Our final buffs had us with AC 50, +2,000d20 to our damage, and +50 to hit, but all this was only for weapon attacks. I lost all enjoyment in the session because this was a 4 hour session where about halfway through character abilities meant nothing. It was more effective for our sorcerer to walk up and punch the demon than do any magic, and he kept trying to find spells that would make it fun. At one point I literally threw myself, a war forged artificer tank, on the demon's sword just to get our party through the next inevitable death that much faster even though the attack had missed. The DM seemed to enjoy it, but am I wrong for thinking that this was not the way to do a rogue-like style of a one shot? Or is my DM wrong for not warning us ahead of time the style of the session?

Hello fair justices and the superb bailiff Josh I present to you The case of the “Metagaming” Warlock I play a warlock in a home game with my friends, we are Level 5 and I joined late at level 4. I play a Hexblade warlock who uses pact of the blade as well as more battlefield control spells in order to play a melee focused spellcaster. The issue lies when I was creating my character, we take character narratives very seriously and put a lot of emphasis on playing your character realistically in role play. But when selecting stats (with point buy) as well as proficiencies and my level 4 feat I was told that I could only take things that my character would take but this came down to being told that I could only have so high of certain stats(such as strength or intelligence) because of my background or country of origin or that I couldn’t have proficiency in insight as my character “wouldn’t read into people like this” this as well as similar issues when selecting my feat, when pushing back against this I was told that to select things for gameplay reasons is Metagaming. it just frustrates me that I am being told what my character should have and act like and it’s effecting my gameplay as well. I put myself at the mercy of the crit P.S I love NADDPOD so much and have absolutely adored being able to learn so much about dnd from yall and listen to your adventures

We still demand you all repent for your unfair treatment of the sudoku case!! It’s a simple puzzle and there is NO MATH

To our bulwark of justice the Supreme Crit, and hey baby how was your day, dinner’s on the stove. I bring a case of IRL persuasion checks. I play a warlock in a party of otherwise low charisma characters, so I’m often put forward to haggle with any npc who has gold. I always give a short spiel before I roll persuasion, but the opportunity to use my dice never comes. My DM always just agrees to whatever (often outlandish) offer I propose, and I don’t know how to feel about it. The rest of the party is enjoying the extra gold I can get from trinkets and monster carcasses, but I haven’t rolled a persuasion check this whole campaign. Should I content myself with being a silver-tongued devil, or does my DM need to try harder to resist my obvious natural charm?

To the Honorable Crit Justices and Baliff “Amir’s Friend” Today’s case of Monkey Business is one of campus crime. We are in a Strixhaven campaign with some life long friends. We are on our 3rd year (in game) but have been playing since 2024. We were challenged to a duel by some other students at the beginning of our 3rd year because they accused us of causing all the issues with the school. We accepted to duel and decided instead of a 5v5 we would do short 1v1s as an introduction to all our characters new abilities and spells. Our team rogue a Hadozee went first. The semi friendly 1v1 went… alright. The one match took 2 hours and when the rival was defeated and yielding our Hadozee decided “fuck it. I’m going to kill him.” Then proceeded to stab the other student to death infront of us and all of his friends. Most of us were in shock and it ended the session right there since the only real next course of action would him being expelled or killed. The player dint understand why the rest of us couldn’t just proceed with our duels. Who is in the wrong here? Should we have just kept going?

Greeting benevolent judges and the dopealicous (yes I made this up just for you) bailiff from night court. I bring to you the case of the falling air ship. I DM a campaign for a party of five people in an attempt to flee a city where they had made many enemies they attempted to steal an airship. None of the party members backstory or characters in general would have had knowledge on how to operate this airship, but one of them rolled a high insight check on the levers that was in the air ship so I gave them a brief general description of what they thought the levers would do. The player who rolled the high insight check was upset that he did not know how to work the airship entirely while the other players did say that it made sense for none of them to know how to work set airship. When they went to land they pulled the lever they believed made them land and I told them they started to free fall as they pulled the wrong lever. Judges was I wrong for not letting my player know how to control an airship after a high insight check or was I in the right to only give him a general idea? As always, I await your gracious decision, whatever it may be.

Yo yo yo it’s BullywugNugTug back again with another case! We’re past formalities now, right? This case is about the death-defying under-leveled bookstore owner! To keep the backstory brief, my PC is a meek, non-adventuring bookstore owner possessed by a genie who wants to help the PC escape his “lamp” (the bookstore). I play this ragtag duo as a pact of the genie warlock at the same level as the party when I’m RP’ing the genie, and a lore bard at half the level of the party when I’m RP’ing the human. We’ve been playing for months now, and this past session was Otis (the human)’s first time taking the driver’s seat and realizing that he’s not even in the same realm anymore. We were in a Fey’s library, and all of us were searching (me slightly more frantically) for tips in these books for answers to get home. That was until the guardian of the books, a displacer beast (CR 5), lurked in from the shadows. We play theater of the mind, and our DM said that it was closest to Otis. And I must profess: I love character death. A reason for me to roll a new character? Sick. So I said out loud during initiative rolls: “how fuckin funny would it be if Otis has been conscious for 2 hours for the first time in days and he gets one tapped on the first round.” Well. Otis has 10 hp as a level 1 bard. The displacer beast did 28 points of damage in its first attack, of which it has two per turn. Everyone went silent, but me, cackling at how genuinely hilarious that was. Our DM took a moment, and homebrewed that Otis took the first 10 points of damage, and Dao (the genie) took the other 18, and I could switch to my Dao character sheet. Does this seem balanced? On one hand, I am severely underleveled when playing as Otis. However, it seems to me that now, Otis is a permanent source of temporary HP for Dao. I’m happy that we get to see how my characters will continue to develop, but slightly miffed at the potential robbing of a hilarious sequence of events

To the justices who embody Justice and to the bailiff who embodies nothing this 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 this still comes up my question is should I have made a big deal out of it with the shop?

I bring the case of the dm won't leave the dead PCs stay dead To the members of the courses who got me more interested in playing DND also hi codwel and Jake I am a player in a campaign where I And another player have gone through a few PCs and the dm won't let them die. because every time when they die or have to sacrifice themselves to let the party live. he say no and trys to give a reason why they would come back to life and we are tired of it. He also tend to play a DM PC. And here is an an example of this last season we were fighting a graveyard dragon and he was able to get the dragon down to get it down to 24 HP the same as the wizard health (that was basically face tanking all of the dragons stuff) while he was doing range magic (he was supposed to be the tank.) and we were able to kill it but the wizard die. Now he is trying to bring back the wizard. So counsel can you please tell him to stop trying to bring dead PC back from the dead. P.s. one of the characters I played was a tabix spour druid ranger that was a black feral cat Doesn't really change the case but I thought Emily would like to know

I bring the case of the stoned tabaxi to the not baby judges and the toddler bailiff I was a baby player in my first campaign ever about 8 months in. I missed part of an important session because of work and when I got back my character was held by a water monster and my Allie was in the stomach. So I thought oh I'll Thunderwave them out to buy time till they can heal so they dont automatically die cause of forced failed death saves (they had already failed one) well it worked i pushed them out giving them a failed save but atleast now they were out of the stomach but then they failed their next death save and cause of witchlight shenanigans they got turned to stone. We managed to bring them back via warlock sacrificing sister, but to this day everyone razzes me for killing my friends first pc. Tell me dms can I be spared if the razz i feel since no one objected to the thunderwave we are all complicit I await your judgment.

To the Justices Most High and…Geoff or some shit. I submit to the Court a Writ of Wrongius Razzus. 8 years ago, my group of friends from high school were playing our first ever session of DnD. The DM explained that we were all at a massive festival with tons of merchant booths and interesting looking NPCs for our characters to engage with. He gave a fantastic description of all the different areas we could check out we rolled for initiative to see who would go first, and the first PC, for our first move EVER in a DnD campaign said, “I check my pockets.” We were stunned. Rather than interact with any of the world that the DM laid out, he just wanted to see what was in his pockets. To this day we razz him about this almost any time we play, but he claims it is undeserved. So I ask the benevolent, court, is this a rightful or wrongful Razz? PS I listened to Dungeon court all throughout law school, so thanks for helping me become an actual lawyer.

Greetings to the Jurisprudential Justices and the Blundering Bailiff Yake, I bring to you the case of first time DM disrespect. I have a friend group that has been playing together for about 5 years now, and it is now my turn to DM I have been working on my setting that is a mix of Syfy and Fantasy where Earth was destroyed the earthlings relocated to a terraformed Mars got so technologically advanced the were able to open a rift to another dimension the Fantasy realm for the past 2 years waiting on my time to shine. I sent a 1 page primer to everyone to get them ready for what's to come, just yesterday as of the time I'm writing this we had our session 0, and by the amount of questions I got it's clear half of my friends didn't even look at the primer. I ask was I asking to much from my friends to read a 1 page primer or should I just suck it up and pretend I'm not bothered. I prostrate myself to the court and await your humble judgment.

May it please the court, I’ll keep it brief. My DM intentionally uses fake rolls behind his screen to deceive the party, and me and my friends are split on how we’re reacting. We’re all based in Vancouver, BC, Canada. 3 players and 1 DM, and usually no drama. This new quirk my DM has picked up started recently. Every time an NPC talks to us, sometimes after every sentence/paragraph they speak, he rolls behind his screen. When I asked him why he was rolling so much he explained that he “might be” rolling deception checks. He said that if let an NPC deceive us without rolling a deception check it would be unfair, but if he waited until he was actually deceiving us to roll we would just be able to tell at the table when we heard the DM rolling during a shady conversation. By rolling constantly and scrapping the rolls when the NPC wasn’t deceiving us, he explained that we would get numb to the sound of him rolling, and wouldn’t be able to distinguish a real and fake deception from an NPC. I think is this strange as hell, and the constant dice rolling during roleplay pulls me out of my character. The other two members of my party think it’s a really fun mechanic and a good way to keep us on our toes. Justices, thoughts? Is against Dice Christ to constantly be rolling and not using the result of the roll for anything? I love my campaign so please don’t tell me to get new friends, thanks.

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

Good day Supreme Justices Axeford, Murphy, and Tanner. And also the Grinch That Stole jake herwitz's Identity. I bring you the case of the Obvious Spellcaster. I was playing in a pathfinder campaign as a human sorcerer of the unicorn bloodline. When infiltrating a giant's castle dungeon, my character hid in the shadows as a giant guard approached. The DM narrated the giant sniffing the air, picking up on the smell of an intruder. I quickly responded by wanting to quietly cast Hidden Presence from my hiding spot, a spell that makes the caster basically invisible, silent, and unsmellable to a single target that fails its save. The giant failed, but the DM then described the giant lobbing a truck sized axe in my direction, because he heard me chanting for the spell. I said I was being quiet and offered to make a stealth roll. He responded by saying any chanted spell must be chanted aloud, not mumbled, and the giant's hearing was good enough to hear it even if I did roll. I then said I could cast it silently using my Silent Spell metamagic by burning a higher spell slot. He agreed, let me burn the spell slot...then continued to narrate the giant hearing my hands weaving in the air for the somatic components of the spell, and throwing the axe anyways. Justices, shouldn't burning an upcasted spell to make it silent...let it be truly silent? Or is my cool sorcerer doomed to scream and flail her arms around for every spell forevermore? I eagerly await your decision (hopefully to send the bailiff to steal his Christmas.)

I bring the case of the impossible choice Sweet tiny justices and even tinier Jake, In one of my first campaigns, I was playing with a DM who claimed he was very skilled and experienced, but I later found it was also his first time. Being a new and young player, I really wanted my paladin to have a little dog - I fought pretty hard for it, sought out dog breeders and trained my animal handling and eventually my DM caved and gave me one. I loved this little fucker, I called him Porridge (I am British, it sounds cuter in my accent, I promise) But one session later, we were given a quest from a mayor to find some bandits in a dungeon (classic shit), but the twist was we had to bring his little shithead son, Ruben, with us. All was fine, we razzed the son pretty thoroughly on our journeys but it was all in good fun. Halfway through the dungeon, we encountered a Gelatinous Cube - after a pretty poor fight with the thing that saw two of us unconscious and one of us dead outright, I somehow ended up cornered. As I looked inside the cube, I saw slurped inside were two figures - Porridge and Ruben. My DM gave me a choice - save my beloved dog, or that shithead Ruben. Of course I picked the dog! My DM proceeded to describe in graphic detail, this young boy being slowly dissolved by slime. This was 6 years ago now, and my friends still razz me - my character is forever known as the Boy Killer, and people still bring up that I'd rather save an animal than an innocent child. Should this be my burden to bare? Or did my DM give me an impossible choice? I humbly await your judgement

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?

FLACCID 20s To the most honorable Supreme Court justices whose divine wisdom guides us all, and oh hey bailiff I guess your advice is also pretty good… One of my dearest friends and players ( I’m forever DM) for years has always referred to a not natural 20 as a “flaccid 20” much to the chagrin of the rest of my players. We all always roll our eyes at it. Why can’t he just say mod 20, 20 not nat, dirty 20, etc. It got to a point one new player sheepishly once said “um a 20 when I add stuff I don’t want to say what it’s called” and I had to assure her it was only him who insists on this name. I will say it was funny the first time 4 years ago but now in different campaigns it isn’t. And I hear his voice saying it whenever I watch D20 or listen to NADDPOD when a dirty 20 happens. Should I just accept this is what it is now called? Or should he chill out and only say it rarely? I humbly await your judgment.

I kneel before the Almighty Justices and uh... (I look at some smudged writing on my hand) ... Josh. I present the case of a Noncommital DM. May it please the court. I was very lucky in finding my first ever DND Group online. We share many of the same interests, sense of humor, and ways we want to play the game. However, our DM seems to have some commitment issues with regards to the campaign he wants to run. He has started or attempted to start 10 campaigns: 2 fantasy, 1 eldritch horror, 1 sci-fi, 1 monster of the week game, 1 Jojo's Bizarre Adventure game (using a fan-made system), and 1 Persona game (also a fan made system). The more recent campaigns he's tried to start seem to circle around a more solid setting (in which he's attempted to start 2 campaigns, but he's very focused on perfecting everything), using a lot of elements from previous games. Recently he also teased the idea of a pirate campaign, as the group has been watching One Piece recently. While he checks in with us before starting new campaigns, I don't want to discourage him so I agree. But I miss my characters. I miss these stories. I miss Scrabster, West Dakota. Do we stage some kind of intervention? Are we wrong to agree whenever the DM suggests starting a new game? Do we wait and see how these more recent campaigns play out? Are these just the growing pains of a new-ish DM (who we've been with for about 8 years)? I await your ruling.

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 esteemed Judges and the host of MySpace BFF Season 2 Episode 10, I would like to bring up something before the church that I have witnessed. I just joined a game with a player I have never met before. During the first game, I discovered he has a very unique dice rolling method that makes me uncomfortable. He uses a dice tower and covers the bottom tray with a piece of paper so he cannot see the dice roll. He then rolls his d20 into the tower and keeps the bottom tray covered up. When he is called on to make a roll, he lifts the paper and gives the result of the previously rolled die. In some instances, the die is cold and has been sitting in the tray for 20+ minutes. When he’s done rolling dice, he covers the tray up again and rolls a d20 again so he has a roll sitting and waiting. When I asked why he was doing this, he told me it was a “faster, more efficient method of rolling dice” Judges, have I witnessed a sin against dice Christ? Is it blasphemy to allow a rolled die to sit 30 minutes before being used ?

Greetings Illustrious Justices, and special acknowledgement to Jake - hey! Today, I ask for your ruling on the case of the Bum-Bag of Holding. Several years ago I was participating as a player in a home-brewed campaign. I was a Dragonborn Wild Magic Barbarian by the name of Bumkrum Peters. One session, our party was attempting to infilitrate an enemy's lair by allowing ourselves to be captured and taken to the prison in his basement. So that we wouldn't be unnarmed after we were locked up, we needed a way to smuggle weapons in. Enter: The Bum-Bag of Holding. Bumkrum had possession of a bag of holding, and had the brilliant idea to tuck it into his sizeable, welcoming, Dragonborn-sized butthole, leaving just the opening sticking out. Since the bag is just a bag with a pocket dimension inside, we figured this would work fine. - we could put weapons in and take weapons out just by reaching in! Justices, would you believe that the DM rebelled against this idea? Jake? Despite us arguing our position and a discussion of logistics, physics, and anatomy, the DM held firm and we ended up going into the jail completely unarmed. We were able to progress through talking, but I can't help but feel we were robbed of the shittiest (in a good way) jailbreak of all time. I ask your judgement: is a Bum-Bag of Holding a brilliant idea or was the DM right to poo-poo it? Love, Bumkrum Peters

To whom it may concern - neither a case nor a confessional, so perhaps for the town crier? Hear ye, hear ye? Two of my best friends from college and longtime D&D party members got married last weekend! During the rehearsal, they didn't know how to decide who would recite their vows first, so I suggested, mostly as a joke, that they should roll initiative. They decided it was the perfect solution. So my afternoon became devoted to tracking down the perfect wedding dice! A tie dye set for one and a cow print set for the other, to be a surprise to them when it came time to roll. They immediately knew who each set was for, and rolled initiative... And the tie dye d20 crit! A natural 20 to beckon in a critical success of a marriage!!!

Dear benevolent and esteemed judges, and… him. I bring you the case of unwitnessed character romance. Ive been playing in a weekly campaign on discord for 3 months now, and things were going pretty well until about the third session when the paladin started heavily flirting with the warlock. Now i have a general issue with PC romance, but your honor, they were roleplaying this romance in dms on their own time. So when they started flirting, we were in jail and had only known each other for about 2 hours. Judges, is it wrong to be upset about people are roleplaying without us? P.S: I think the DM knows, but hasnt said anything about to any of the players about it

In deepest reverence do I write this plea - honored justice and her ever serving hand, please! Share with me your wisdom. I have loved dnd and TTRPG for almost a decade now, but never once had a consistent group to play with. I have tried in the past to DM but often had things fall apart as I was unable to keep up with planning interesting//fun sessions. Yet I crave to roll dice!!! I have recently asked some friends if they’d be interested in getting together once a month to play dnd, and I am so afraid of not being able to deliver. I know this is not a case and will accept judgement for disturbing you so, BUT is there any advice you can offer a fearful but eager fledgling dm? Your humble servant, slyme

Dearest Judges whom I love dearly, *polite nod of acknowledgement with undertones of resentment* Jack Our group has a problem player and need help dealing with him. Almost 2 years ago my partner and I started a new dnd game, its a pirate campaign and we are currently level 8. We invited some friends we'd played dnd before and one who we haven't played with but knew are into ttrpgs, Trevor (Character name) who my partner knew from university and had SAID he boasted an extensive ttrpg knowledge. We later found out that this is the first ever game he's been in, which wouldn't have been a problem if he hadn't been playing an edgy undead human warlock with dead parents and former crew, who just will not interact with the party. He gets upset when he's not involved and inserts himself into every scene but refuses to engage with ANY plot hook set up for him. My partner, the DM, made a whole dungeon based around his warlock patron and he missed half the sessions due to a prior commitment he planned months ago and didn't let us know until the day of. He then later complained that there wasn't anything to do with his character in the campaign. During the last session his character Left the party to find a new patron with another crew. After the session he said "I've decided to retire my character as I realised my improv style doesn't work with you all". Am I allowed to kill him? This is not his first offence with TOMES of other crazy bullshit he's done. Should we kick him out the group, me and my partner spent an hour after the last session bitching about him.

To the svelte, tanned and toned judges, and my boy bailiff Jake, who I refuse to bully despite how much he may deserve it. I bring you a case of cringe character communication. I've been part of an RP heavy campaign for the last 2 years and it's genuinely been one of the best I've ever played in.. until recently. A few months ago a new player joined our game, she was fairly shy and newish to D&D, but fit in quickly playing a little kobold artificer named Glip. At the beginning all was great, until a couple sessions in when she finally got comfortable and found Glip's voice.... and Judges, it was one of the worst things I'd ever heard in my life. Unfortunately, I suffer from misophonia, which makes me incredibly sensitive to certain auditory triggers, so I'm not exaggerating when I say that what came out of her mouth almost literally made me want to fold up into my own asshole like some kind of anal ouroboros. At first I thought maybe I could power through and deal with it, as initially she didn't talk much, but we're now 10 sessions deep and it's only gotten worse. She's really come out of her shell, and the rest of the party absolutely adores Glip, so she's been heavily involved in the RP and loving it. Now I don't know if I can bring it up, because ultimately it's my issue; she's awesome and not doing anything wrong, but it's gotten to the point where I'm seriously considering killing off my character and bowing out of the campaign just to escape from this verbal torment. Judges, I humbly seek your boundless wisdom, would I be wrong to ask this player to change a core part of her beloved character for my own comfort, or should I resign myself to suffering in silence until my chest caves in from cringing so hard? Thank you, and may your rolls always be interesting.

To the righteous reverends of reason, Today I come to you, hat in hand, to confess to not only worshiping false idols, but to being responsible for creating the idol in the first place The whole situation happened innocently enough, as they often do. I was at a DnD session with friends and during a pivotal roll, I started chanting “quack quack quack” a la Mighty Ducks-style, and the result of the roll was a success! This led to the whole group being on board with doing that every time we roll moving forward. Before I knew it we had a formal prayer (Praise the Duck), invented a Goose devil, and even came up with a title for the head of the duck religion, The Dope. While it was all in good fun, I’ve begun to notice that almost every time we do the duck chant, the roll ends up bad now, and this has gotten me thinking. Have we angered Dice Christ by worshipping a false idol? Are we being punished for our hubris? I ask for your help in showing contrition, and to hopefully be welcomed once again into the loving arms of Dice Christ! P.S. I am writing this the day after I went to the Radio City Music Hall live show, and just wanted to say I had a blast!

For CAKE HURWITZ! 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 Deacons of the Dice, I bring a confession and ask for forgiveness, for a sin I didn't quite commit, but almost did. I ALMOST changed my stats. I had used the point-buy system for stats, so my bard has great dex and charisma, and everything else is pretty bad. But I was recently making other characters, and experimented with rolled stats, and rolled INCREDIBLY well. So out of curiosity, i went to see what the rolled stats would have been for my bard, and I again rolled incredibly well. So I sat there and stared at my way bigger numbers, and thought to myself, "Wow... those numbers sure are way bigger." I applied them, and what do you know, my stats also got way bigger. For instance, a starting charisma of 19, 17 dex, the rest mostly in the 12-15 range. I thought, "Well, I mean... i COULD change it, and nobody would know..." It wasn't even early in the campaign, we were like 10 sessions in and level 4. It was objectively WAY too late to be messing with stats. But they were really tempting stats. I said I wouldn't use those higher stats, and I never did, but I did let them sit there until the day of our next session, when I opened up my character sheet, sighed, and changed them back to the lower originals. I may be weak, but I have my integrity intact. Please forgive my heart for wandering so! PS, it was super exciting to see y'all live for the first time a couple weeks ago at Radio City!

(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.

For the clerics of Dice Christ: I have a confession concerning the wrongful death of a summoned badger. In a campaign I was running a few years ago for my family, I decided to give my sister’s PC a bag from which she could summon an animal of her choosing. She ended up summoning a badger that crit on the party’s enemy during battle! (An animated suit of armor). This is where I must confess my sin. The suit of armor went next in the initiative. Seeing as the badger had just attacked it the turn before, I thought: “well obviously the suit of armor would just attack the badger back.” Rather than describing the badger’s death I described it merely burst into light, but alas the damage was done. My sister left the table and did not return and we never picked up the campaign again. This was probably around three years ago. I recently brought it up to my sister to apologize and she said she didn’t remember that ever happened. However when I reminded her she got mad at me again. I humbly beg for Dice Christ’s forgiveness.

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”. In the pseudodragon stat block it says that it “understands common and draconic but 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 sweetie justices and the sour baliff, I bring the case of preventing future crimes I am planning a campaign with friends heavily introduced by game of thrones with many of my players being intrigued by the possibility of politics and backstabbing, very tyrion / variss style. I am excited but also nerveous as I could see player v player in this way going very badly. My players are all very new to dnd so I am going to do a series of session 0 one shots letting my players try different classes and levels to get a better grasp of the game before starting the campaign proper and with the option to bring things into cannon from the session 0 one shots if it fits and they are happy with it. Dear justices I ask if this is enough to protect my campaign from feuding friends or if im building a ticking time bomb any and all advice on how to go about this would be amazing thank you P.s i realize this is for future crimes so I request that if I am found innocent any punishment goes to the baliff jìõrk

Dearest judges and bailiff jonk, I am writing on behalf of my wife, the DM in our weekly campaign that has been running for 5 years. "My players recently dimension doored into an ancient red dragon's ear and dropped a sphere of annihilation into the skull cavity. We had to pause the fight because it got late, but we'll come back to it next week. Murph please save me!! What should I do?"

CONFESSION FOR CHURCH: Humble dice clergy, hear my plea. I have just moved back near my friends after 2 years away and have jumped in on their Odyssey of the Dragonlords campaign. We recently hit level 5 and so I (as a fighter) have a second attack, but before that, I was knowingly sinning to be more "helpful" in battle. I wield both a sword and shield, and until level 5 I was using both the shield's AC boost and the higher damage die you use for wielding the sword two-handed. I justified it to myself because I had missed my friends and really wanted to protect their characters, one of whom is my character's son -- but I knew it was a sin nonetheless. Please pass judgment on my soul.

To the wise justices and the regular bailiff, I bring a question, in Murph’s words, do I need new friends? A year and a half ago I started DMing for a friend and a group of a few strangers that have since become my friends. About 8 months ago, I moved two hours away and we started doing monthly sessions where I make the, again, two hour drive to dm for them. They have started playing weekly amongst themselves. I was kept in the group chat, but it just highlights how much I’m missing. In the last three monthly sessions, they’ve added four new people, making our already unwieldy number unmanageable. I am back to DMing for strangers and I don’t feel like I fit the dynamic. Please note, I was never consulted for adding the new people to our monthly sessions that I am DMing for. So I ask you: would it be wrong to quit playing with my old friends and basically never see them again? Thank you for your mediation. PS: I do, in fact, have other friends in my new city.

Dear humble, beautiful, resplendent judges all your hair looks really nice today! Oh and yeah they extremely “____” bailiff Jerry. I present the case of falling victim to the Skill check bit. A few years back in a Curse of Strahd game I played with friends online at the start of quarantine. My human path of glory Paladin to Kord had just had to send off his brother (another PC who died last session) in a Viking funeral and made a prayer to Kord to have his soul be taken care of and swore I would let fight on for our cause to find out what happened to our parents that traveled to this terrible place. I rolled a religion check: Nat 20. The DM narrates a wonderful scene for me to send off my dear brother and then asks me for a perception check after. I failed. I then proceeded to get jumped by 4 scarecrow like creatures while my fellow party members were asleep and as I go down almost instantly since I’m level 3 I managed to wake them up just barely. A fellow Pc wanted to help me but didn’t have any form of healing so asked if you could try to stabilize me and the DM said “yeah sure roll a medicine Check.” My fellow PC then accidently misclicked on the website and rolled Athletics and then tried to roll the correct check only the website but the DM burst out laughing and proceeded to narrate that his character picks me up and tosses me towards the wagon and away from the danger… which seemed fine until he said “ your body crashes into the wagon and my neck cracks and you lose a death save” nowI’m sure you can guess who’s turn was next as I go on to roll the most tragic Natural 1 of my life. To this day my friends joke about how this is my fellow Pcs dumbest move and can’t believe he rolled athletics even though i was trying to argue to just let him roll the correct check only for the DM to make my character fall victim to the bit. The campaign dissolved a few sessions later. Judges please tell me I’m not crazy for thinking this is so outrageous and say a quick prayer for Ignis my paladin.

I humbly ask the cool cats of the court In my Call of the Netherdeep campaign, my players recently interacted with a black market apothecary. Jokingly amongst the list of items for sale I mentioned they had a gas station rhino pill. Of course, they purchase one immediately and feed it to the Barbarian. I thought haha wouldn't it be funny if it polymorphed him into a rhino. After some rhino in the middle of town shenanigans later the party is now obsessed with getting more of them. Do I give in to their chaotic whims and let them turn into a swarm of 2 intelligence beasts ?

To the luminous justices and the lugubrious bailiff, I bring you the Case of the Impatient Interloper I play a half-orc fighter in a large party of mostly new players (myself excluded) and a DM who is excited to finally get his friends into the game. The campaign has been going for nearly a year. Many of our monthly sessions have been focused on getting everyone used to the rules of D&D. There is an overarching plot, but honestly most of the inexperienced party members haven’t engaged heavily with plot hooks the DM throws their way, instead getting into goofs and shenanigans. The DM seemed okay with this for a while, but recently he made an impassioned plea for people to send him more details about their characters and ways they’d like to interact with the world, in hopes that he can weave their stories in and entice more plot engagement. After that, our most recent session started off with the party split up to complete a few tasks, and the DM had organized a few minutes’ focus on each scene/group for a special lore reveal or targeted character moment: an elf had a vision that revealed details of his murky past, a trio snuck into a thieves’ den, a duo ran into long-lost relatives, and my group got into a tavern brawl after some info-dealing dialogue from an antagonistic patron. I thought the DM did a good job managing time, but when it FINALLY came time for my little group to play the bar brawl scene (after the three other groups), one of the players from the thieves’ den piped up, saying that HIS character would probably be at the tavern with us, too. And he wouldn’t let it go. The DM clearly wanted each group to get some time for character development, and he reminded the player a few times that the thieves den was a bit of a walk from the tavern, but the persistent rogue wouldn’t drop it until they were allowed back in the tavern, interrupting combat narration with, “Don’t you think we would have arrived by now?” Or “I really think my character would sense danger and know to get over there,” despite ending their scene having decided to go to an entirely different location. Justices, I ask the court to punish someone: me for being overly irritable with an eager new player, the rogue for insisting that they double dip in the bespoke scenes, or the DM for not managing expectations more clearly. I humbly await your judgment.

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

The case of the swapped statblock. My players were confronted by the BBEG early, cornered in a ruin with some artifacts that he was also looking for. I made it clear to them that he was much higher level than them and that they should find an alternate solution than combat. To their credit they did, they snuck away and led a much more powerful creature from the ruin back to fight him. They wanted to see the fight play out for a few rounds, so I let them play the monster while I played my BBEG. What I found quickly was that my homebrewed BBEG statblock was woefully underpowered compared to the creature, and he was surely going to die like a chump. So behind the screen I quietly switched his stat block for one that I knew was more the creature's match and continued on the fight. Nobody was the wiser but I felt dirty about it afterwards. Was I in the wrong?

Dear Judges of the Dice Angels on high and that guy that I saw at liberty bagels eating out of the trash. I come to ask for help about the CHARACTER WHO ONLY RPS WITH THE DM! I am a DM over a three year long curse of Stradh campaign, and I have a beautiful group of individuals that play with me! And all are great, but there is this one player who…has a unique way of playing. They only roleplay with me, the DM. They only interact with my NPCS if they get to walk away and be separated from the party. They kind of give off loner emo sometimes BUT THIS IS MY online best friend I have a matching tattoo with!! My girlfriend is also in this party, and this is stating to annoy her slightly. What should I do???? I lay my woes down in your hands Ps. I will also add this player has had me kill off their character three times due to not liking them, and my girlfriend is trying to not make too much of a problem of it, but she feels as though it’s too too many times.

Hello honorable justices who can not be bought unlike the Supreme court and the Bailff Justin who gives Florida energy (in the bad way) or if we are being nice future cake conisour Baliff Jake or Wife Worm Baliff Emily. I bring you the case of the Attempted Warhammer Hoodwinking, I am a long time DM who has started to introduce friends to the game that haven't had the ability to play before. Recently they have been having such much fun that they are surprising me with their friends (which I take as a compliment) this is not the case I present tho. I have run multiple books (which I alter significantly to kinda make my own campaign and just use the book for assistance with timing) and we were halfway through Out of the Abyss when one of these "new additions" asked if he could DM the next campaign. I was super supportive and excited to be a PC. This is when problems occurred. We have been running combat heavy comedic campaigns for the most part but the more we all keep listening to him planning (which he did very loudly during break times and forced conversations in that direction) he is planning a super serious Warhammer 40K political roleplay campaign and got super defensive anytime we tried to Crack anytype of joke. The other PCs and I had discussions that we didn't want to play that and voiced that to him but he just kept saying trust me yall will have fun. During the final session we all told him that another of the "new additions" wanted to run a Fallout new vegas esc combat heavy comedic campaign and that is the direction the group is deciding to go this was met with a "OH we'll see about that". The epic conclusion I had designed in my campaign was that the Demogorgon offered them a wish if they sabatoged a simple wedding and killed the Groom. What I didn't tell them and they didn't roll high enough to know is that the grom was Graz'zt and the bride was Juiblex (in a human form I made). They hijacked the systems to keep the wedding secure and weaked everything before rushing in the finish the job (kick ass right?). They all formulated the plan to finish off the the bride because she was significantly weaker. This is when "new addition number 1" (let's call him Corey) breaks formation as a monk and uses insane movement to barrel rush the groom way across the castle 1000's of feet away while saying at the table "I'm getting that fucking wish so I can wish us all into my 40K campaign, y'all will have to play it then". While the rest of the party was struggling to finish off the bride he rolls a higher initiative and gets first round of combat against the groom greatly weakening him (putting him on deaths stoop). I see that the rest of my party was about to defeat the bride, so I cheat and use Graz'zt teleport ability and just move him into the room with the rest of my party problem solved. That's when from across the table I hear "Um, Actually his ability only let's him move 120 ft" so I bullshit and say "Correct but he is using the spell which allows him to go anywhere he is very familiar with and since he was planning on getting married in the ballroom he would be very familiar with it". This gets me a sigh and his turns become I run 180ft while the rest of my party are slaying the groom getting the wish and using it to wrap up the campaign where they all either go back home or set themselves up with the life they were seeking. He refused to narriarate his ending and even took a six pack home that wasn't his. I await my sentencing for if my crimes of bending the rules to prevent someone for hoodwinking future campaigns.

May it please the court and the ultimate baliff, I bring you the case of the PCs who thought they deserved boss fight abilities. I was DMing an adventure in which my PCs got possessed by dead evil gods. The neutral Lich NPC they were allies with warned them of this, and two of them freed three each to get dark powers at a cost, and both failed the wisdom saving throws to not be possessed. I took control of their characters as NPCs, and they made temporary characters to help the rest of the party save the ones who were taken over. When they found them, I had made custom stat blocks with additional powers, and a boss fight against two former PCs began. After they were saved and exorcised of the dark gods, the two players were upset to see the abilities the Boss Fight version of their characters were using weren’t on their character sheets I handed back, and said I should give them back. I did not, and things went on as normal after this side quest, but it’s always tickled at the back of my mind. Should I have given them the powers their dark god-possessed characters had at one point? Thank you for your verdict, whatever it may be.

Judges!!!! Jacob!!! Please help I am playing a paladin in my first ever campaign! I was attacking an enemy and asked my DM if they were undead or a fiend to get my extra divine smite damage and they said "your character doesn't know that". I clarified, "oh I'm just wondering if i can roll my extra d8." My DM said, "your character doesn't know, so you don't know". We went back and forth for a little bit, with me arguing that my character doesn't even know what a d8 is, so wouldn't we not be rolling anything at all if that was the in-game logic? She eventually said that in the future I'll have to use an in-combat entire turn to do an insight or history check on every bad guy to see if i know if they're an undead or fiend. Your honors, is this insane? Is this raw and I'M insane? Gracias

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

The Case of Astral Escapism: 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 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 in the first place. 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 headmaster. Both bodies were tossed into lava destroying any chance of revivify. 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.

To the Prestigious and wise Justices and to the scoundral Bailiff Jake, I bring you the case of the Drunken Vampire My friend and I were invited to a game of Vampire The Masquerade online, to which we were both excited to play as we had been itching to play TTRPGs. During our session 0 the GM talked about the setting and how many players were playing (there were 6 of us) and we noticed someone was missing. We started making characters and everything was fine until our missing player joined the call, hammered. He said a few short sentences about his character and then left. My friend and I were puzzled, but decided to continue on. Then the first session happened. He showed up 30 minutes late, in his cups. The GM did the introduction, our characters all started in duos. My friend went first, her intro took about 15 minutes, I was next, then it was the Drunk Vampires intro. Within the first few minute he had called another player character a slur. Everyone got extremely uncomfortable and was dead silent as he and the GM laughed. When the player asked why he said that to him he immediately turned hostile, saying he can say what he wants cause its what his character would say. The session ended soon after, only 40 minutes in. Both my friend and I were thinking of leaving, but wanted a peaceful resolve to it too. We went to the GM and asked if they could talk to the player about their language because it was making us uncomfortable. The GM chastised us and got mad that we went to talk to her instead of the player, who we had only met two times when he was drunk and who had just gotten hostile twords someone who confronted him. She went on to say that if we are uncomfortable with him we were the problem and that we could apologizeor leave. So we left. The VTM campaign fizzled out soon after. So judges, were my friend and I justified in going to the GM when we were uncomfortable with a player we had only recently met, or should we have just talked to the Drunk Vampire to see if we could resolve it with him instead. I thank you for your kind and fair judgment.

Can a shit constitute a level up? Hello the honorable and benevolent justices and that guy Jack that Jill is cucking. I bring to you a question, can a shit be so harrowing that it constitutes a level up? I am the dm of a brand new campaign that I have with 3 of my friends and my brother. For contexts I have been trying to get a session going for years now, and finally we were able to start and all are first time players. We had our first session following the module but my friend had to leave early suddenly so I narrated her eating some bad stew and having to go shit at the inn while the rest of the party goes off. The module says after the first job the party levels up so as they finish I tell them all they level up and say our friend does too because her shit was so bad. They razzed me a bit saying that’s unfair but after explaining it makes the game easier moving forward if they’re all the same level they accepted but I’m worried they might take it as a bad start to a campaign so I ask you benevolent justices can a shit constitute a level up?

Dearest wisest Justices and that guy over there, why is he here ? I am honored to present you with a case in which I plead guilty and am in need of pardon from the church. I call it the case of the DM persuasion check fuck up. This case dates from summer 2024 but I still think about it. As a big fan of you guys, I decided to persuade my friends to play DND. I was the DM. I managed to get 5 people. Within these 5 people, there were 3 : M, S and K. K was M’s girlfriend at the time so we wanted to get her in on the fun. K didn’t really like us, thinking we were too close to M and she was scared we were all trying to hit on her… At the start of the session, S decided she wanted to seduce M’s character. Wanting to get my players to understand rules and checks, I allowed her to roll peruasion. Lo and behold, she rolled a nat 20. M looked at me with fear and discomfort in her eyes and K looked at me with fury in her eyes. I instantly knew I fucked up by allowing S to roll. I elected to tell S that M’s character wouldn’t fall in love with her character because Nat 20 doesn’t mean automatic success, but that her character would maybe feel a connection and trust her character more. We then had a nice session and everything went well. Justices, we haven’t played since… M and K broke up, I broke up with my exboyfriend who also was in the party and M, me and the other guy in the party are now less close to S. Justices, did I curse my friend group ? Is DND the bane of my existence? I feel like Dice Christ is telling me I shouldn’t play DND

What’s up my tight justices and the cool bailiff, Micah was it? I bring you the case of the “critical yes and” After sneaking into a manor of an old love interest of my character, my party and I were investigating the goings on. As a joke we said my character had a fun helm that originally attracted the lady of the manor to me but had since been lost My party took it upon themselves to egg me into making a perception check to see if it was still in the manor. Lo and behold.. I roll a nat 20. My DM then begins to describe my helm as having a big purple feather on top and small wings like Mario on the sides. My party erupts in laughter and piles on, saying it had a cape attached and was rainbow patterned. My DM says the nat 20 was to remember exactly what it looked like, not to find it. Justices should I be miffed or just do more collaborative storytelling? (P.s. if any of this feels familiar this is the exact situation of ill luck Henry’s jean jacket, hopefully no one caught on) (p.p.s. Never seen the show)

Schrödinger's Sin Hello to the dice clergy! I am in a long running campaign where we have incorporated in a lot of homebrew, so I'm keeping the exact technical details vague to avoid getting too long. I play a multi classed spell caster with a single level in cleric. I don't use the same ability stat for both classes, so my spell save DCs changes based on spell origin. To make things easier on myself, I tend to only prepare utility cleric spells where I don't need to roll, but I do have some rarely used higher level cleric spells via items etc as well. Recently, my party was rather spectacularly losing a major battle. We were desperate and our last shot was a spell I'd never used before cast with my final spell slot. Our DM set up a big dramatic moment and asked my spell save DC and I very confidently said the one based on my primary stat - aka the one I always use. The DM announced that the BBEG failed and we all exploded. It wasn't until half a round later (long after things had calmed down) that I had the horrifying realization that I wasn't sure if that was one of my cleric spells, and if I had said the right DC. Dear clergy people. I haven't checked. I have been living in a state of anxiety around my potential maybe probably not but what if big sin. Adding to the uncertainty is that I can't remember if the DM announced how much the BBEG failed by - if it was by 4 or more, it would have failed against either DC and I could sleep easy knowing it doesn't matter. I do not want to sour the victory for the rest of the party, so I have not told them any of this, but the potential guilt is eating away at me. Please, grant me the wisdom to know whether I should confirm my sin (I have a master list I can check) or let it lie, and the courage to face whatever I decide or find.

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 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 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 Everyone loved the new character, so I thought we were all good. Untill one session later, my DM approached me again saying, " Im going to leave the game. I'm 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 character that the party loved. 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 his character sacrifice himself so 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.

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.

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 beautiful voluptuous judges and the bailiff that will be banished to one of 4 different dimensions for the rest of the episode (roll 1d4) The Grinch Dimension McDonalds Land The Crick Jens’ Apartment I formally present to the court the case of the annual asshole. Me and my group of friends have been playing D&D together for over 10 years now and ever since in almost every campaign one person has been known to play a single archetype of character, the smart mouthed asshole. Rude, untrustworthy and constantly putting other characters down. So much so that they have betrayed the party multiple times, one of these times killing multiple party members including one that they bullied and threatened to kill on multiple occasions, leaving the player detached for the rest of the session. This even got to the point where one party member left the group completely to form another. I have thought of talking to them about this but they are very much the type of person to get super emotional when presented with any sort of criticism. Am I taking this too personally? Or is this player at fault for constantly using their D&D character as an excuse to be a dick? PS, NADDPOD wrestling campaign WHEN. ive seen fan animations for it

To the various court members (cant really tell you guys apart) I present the case of the Eternal Surpise round A DM of mine presented a new house rule: all enemies get a free round of actions before ours because "they ready their actions beforehand". When I tried to do the same I was denied. When I pointed out that obviously both sides would try to be ready for combat and the point of initiative is to determine who is actually quicker he would change the subject. Whenever I pointed out that that's just a surprise round he would become despondent for a couple minutes before moving ahead with the session. In these surprise rounds my PC was coincidentally targeted and downed invariably. Court guys, this was wack right? He eventually dropped the rule without saying anything but I just need to know I wasn't crazy. Please.

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

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 merciless justice murph, the all knowing justice Axford, the corny judge Caldwell, and that guy with a humiliation kink, I bring to you the case of the celibate dm. I dm a group of four players in a world that was heavily traumatized by Shar. As memory loss is in her domain I have been feeding most of my players some memories that they gave up (w/o remembering that they did it) last week after the paladin went down I narrated a dream sequence where I revealed his soul was actually destined to shadow fell, he had made a pact with Shar a century ago, and he had a wife and son that was killed in the war. After the session the player messaged me saying that while they loved the other twists they did not like being married with a kid, as they had written out an entire backstory for their lover (whom their character wouldn’t have remembered) and then didn’t share it with me. I then spent almost an entire hour crafting a reply to explain that I want them to have fun playing their character and I’m happy they’re so invested but it’s a collaborative storytelling game and I can’t do that if they’re writing secret backstories in their free time. The message was received well ish and we are still working out how to incorporate this new info into their characters journey. I prostrate myself before the court over one very important detail: I lost track of time writing this reply and missed my window to have sex with my wife. After I sent it she was too sleepy and we just went to bed. Am I as much a fool as I feel I am or did I make the correct yet difficult choice to be a gentle dm instead of a teasing top? This lustful lesbian loser awaits anxiously for your decision.

I’m submitting this on behalf of Jessie A (who introduced me to NADDPOD)! To the wise justices and honorable bailiff, My beloved husband and DM likes to make background music playlists for our campaign. His tavern playlist includes multiple Tchaikovsky pieces from Nutcracker and “Libiamo” from La Traviata. He insists this is not weird. Other players have called the choices “interesting” and I have told him it is bizarre to play DND to La Traviata. He says “Libiamo” is a literal drinking song so it’s perfect. I say it’s in Italian and it’s still weird. And I’m sorry, but the Nutcracker overture is not “high elf vibes”! Obviously he can do what he wants but am I wrong?

Greetings Judges and that fella who recently learned out to breathe, I bring to you a case and a question, is a pantsing that traumatic, and where is the line between a wrongful and a rightful razz? Judges, I have a Caldwell. Specifically, a pre-god-goofing campaign 1 Caldwell. More specifically, my player ACTIVELY WANTS TO BE LIKE EARLY CAMPAIGN ONE CALDWELL. And while it is entertaining, I love Beverly and all, good gods Murph I sympathize with you more every day. Recently, I told my players to come ready to tell a traumatic experience their character had before the campaign began. (Meatshed inspired) An example of general tone; one player (a bear raised like a pet) told of how they were abandoned because they got bigger, came back, and was told to leave. This vibe continues for two more players, then we hit our Beverly, who tells the story of how they were in ‘the academy’, were pantsed while doing math, and verbatim, said “My butt fell out of my pants.” Needless to say, this broke the entire table. It took 30 minutes minimum to get back to “normal”, and we kept falling into fits of giggles for the rest of the session. While this was deeply entertaining, I do kind of mourn the loss of the serious vibe we had going, and the final player had to really fight for her life to tell her trauma. We razzed the absolute pants off of our Beverly for this, and we still sometimes crack up about butts falling out of pants. Now, who was wronged? We lost our serious session, but gained a very funny experience. Our player derailed the session, but has been razzed to death, and is now immortalized in dungeon court. Are there no heroes? P.S. If you didn’t guess already, that trauma was ripped from my player’s real life. 3rd or 4th grade. Harrowing. Ily forever Fitz ((My name is pronounced Lin-knee-ah))

I bring The case of size discrimination To the dear sweet crit judges, and the guy who probably still hasn't read the second animorphs book. I'm playing in a campaign with a brand new DM. He is very nervous and is running Avernus by the book and so far doing a pretty good job. My problem comes with his obsession with making sure that our 3 short players (2 halflings and a dwarf) are constantly nerfed, if they are in knee deep water they have to be carried. The halfling couldn't attack across a desk because they're too short, said the dwarf barbarian couldnt restrain someone because he would be too small to hold him back, later the same barbarian couldn't carry someone because he was too small. He told the halfling monk that she couldn't give the help action to a 6 foot 9 character because she was too small to help. I keep wanting to say something about modifiers mattering more than height, but a couple of the other players that I dm for in anther campaign keep giving me that "i know just leave it alone" look. Justices is this height discrimination unfair or justified? P.s. it might be interesting to know that the dm is about 6'8 and I am 5'5. Probably not relevant