Your Cases, Please!

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 lore of the world I made. 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 most honorable court on high, whose word is tantamount to the will of dice christ themself, and that other guy…i wanna say…mike? May it please the court I don’t know if what I have is more a case or a confession, but I present the the accidental human shield I run a campaign for my wife, our roommate, a friend of ours, and a friend of my roommate. The level 4 party was exploring a cult temple when they stumbled across a ritual in process (think the Temple of Doom scene where they rip the heart out) I had intended this to be more cutscene like as they watch the cult attempt to summon an aspect of their god into the body of a prisoner, and that the party would fight the failed transformation (a modified zombie) and a few straggling cult members while the rest of the group retreated further into the temple. Instead, my roommates warforged paladin (Hecho) decided to attack immediately, and drew his sword which he described as glowing in holy light, which made every NPC realize what was going on and turned into an all out brawl that’s fine, it happens here is where the problem was My roommates friend, an orc artificer named Lorri who wanted to be a tailor, was standing back to back with the paladin as combat began. In front of Lorri was one enemy, in front of Hecho were 5 enemies. The one attacking Lorri went first, hit and Hecho used his reaction to swap places with Lorri, taking the damage. I asked him if he was sure, looking at the board in front of us, and he said yes. He even took 7 damage for the trouble Noble right? That was, until it came time for the 5 enemies to attack Lorri. Each person had 2 attacks (again, these were all of the enemies i had in the entire temple, meant to stretch a few encounters) With just the first 4 enemies (8 total attacks) I hit 6 times with 2 crits, reducing Lorri to 0. With 1 enemy left, I decided to have some fun and had him say that if they all dropped their weapons and surrendered he wouldn’t kill Lorri. Hecho refused. Thing is, I didn’t know the guy playing Lorri really well, and this was only the 4th session. I didn’t want to kill a guy I hardly knew because of another PCs choice, so I told them I would roll for the attacks, and he only hit with 1 of his 2 attacks, sparing him with 2 failed death saves. Party was able to heal him on the next turn, and they won a tough battle. Hecho has gotten razzed for this ever since, but I do feel bad for “pulling my punches” since an unconscious PC should have just been auto-hit and killed. I only didn’t because I just met the guy. My wife told me later that she would’ve felt slighted if she’d found out I’d changed the rules to keep her from dying, so I must ask, who was most at fault? my gung-ho warforged PC? Or myself for preventing a death from occurring? I ask that your punishment is as ridiculous and cruel as possible, bonus points if it involves whatever weird bit is currently annoying Justice Murphy

To the Justices who are absolutely glowing today and the … oh my god, oh my god, what is that thing in the corner? Do we need to call animal control? I bring you the case of the Tight-Lipped Bartender I have been running a campaign with some of my friends in veterinary school (just finished our second year!) where the party is a group of monster hunters in the Wild West (think the Witcher meets Read Dead Redemption) investigating the decapitation of the town’s prize show cow Bessie as part of the plot of a night hag that is attempting to create an army of undead animals a la Pet Sematary. At the beginning of the campaign, I told the players that part of their goal was not to let the townsfolk become aware of the magical goings-on. Not only did I tell them as the DM, but I reminded them with multiple NPCs, including their one-eyed revenant mentor, the bedraggled mayor, and the mayor’s extremely hot secretary. Despite all this, on the first night in town, the banjo-playing swords bard decided that going up to the bartender in the busiest tavern in town and asking if he knew anything about Bessie’s currently headless condition. Questions were asked, chaos ensued, and the party was sent on a wild chase to prevent an angry mob of townspeople from breaking into Bessie’s barn. While the party succeeded in calming them down, the bard insists that there was no issue in asking the bartender since “they are such a classic source of information in campaigns”. To this day, I cannot bring up this in my opinion hilarious moment without starting yet another argument about the information known by local barkeeps. Justices, was I right to have my townsfolk be reasonably disturbed at the secret murder of such high-caliber cattle? Or should my bard have been allowed to assume a bartender is a reliable source of information in a DnD campgain?

Greetings to the esteemed honorable judges and the slightly less honorable bailiff, I present to you the case of the Beleaguered Barbarian. I am currently playing in a campaign where I my level 3 Barbarian is the only melee character in a party that has 4 other spell casters, I knew this going in and designed my character to be as effective a tank as possible and incorporated being protective and self sacrificing into my backstory with the idea that I would protect the mages while they did most of the damage. This plan and all the characters were made together with input from the DM. The problem has been that every single combat encounter for 8+ sessions the enemies have exclusively done damage types that ignore my various resistances rendering me unconscious by the 2nd round of most combats and the mages all scrambling to barely survive. At this point it feels like the DM is purposely designing encounters to make sure my character can't do the one thing it was designed too. I wouldn't really be annoyed if we hadn't talked about the concept for the character and the party with the DM beforehand and he said it was a cool idea. Am I being unfairly targeted or is this just what I should have expected?

My deepest respects for the esteemed judges, and deepest condolences to that thing over there. I present the case of the blurred blue lines. I used to work as a paid DM and would run 2 games for new dnd players and occasionally corporate groups who wanted to try playing dnd. One day I got assigned to running a game for 6 police officers, out on a staff party. My job was just to give these people a fun dnd session so I tried to keep an open mind. This became increasingly difficult after, being given the choice between a “good-guy” 1-shot and a heist they chose the heist and then proceeded to commit what I can only describe as atrocities upon any and all enemies/npcs. They seemed to enjoy the session but I can’t help but feel guilty for not pushing back a little more instead of letting their murder-hobo play style go unchecked. For context I don’t believe any of them had their actual firearms on them.

Dice Christ forgive me for I have sinned. I beseech the deacons of Dice for absolution. I lay prostrate awaiting salvation. I have been playing in a campaign for a few years now with some good friends outside of D&D, and my wife (this is not about her so do not worry). Also spoilers because the party listens to y'all. I am playing one of two of my DMs homebrewed subraces. A Makarii Tiefling, a subrace with 1 free portent a day because of Lore tied to a Devil of secrets and knowledge. The aincent Pact turned them into fiendish tieflings and the world is remis to trust them which is the ultimate irony as they wanted the portentcy to aid the world. My divination wizard Thazzo Rai'Fen came into conflict with one of my best friends PC over this Devil lore. She is playing a Desert Elf called subrace who have been in a seemingly never ending war with Demons of the Abyss as portals open in the Desert they are native to. Both subraces are pretty cool. Our campaigns major plot is stopping a giant world ending incursion of the Abyss. We all love the huge consequential stakes. My wizard, Thazzo Rai'Fen, in his roll generated backstory, came accross a secret meeting of the Devil who made this blood Pact with his people holding a meeting with the elders. This ultimately resulted in me getting a spell book that had some negative draw backs (it eats secrets/memories and is a direct line to this devil), but it evolved with me, learning new spells through DM prompted feats and eventually applying +1/2/3 modifiers, etc. My pettiness which leads to my sin starts here. Our Elf PC friend doesn't understand the lore distinction between Devils and Demons. Even after my pompous wizard explained it. I was operating under the understanding the Devil is a problem, but not a big one compared to the looming Demons of the Abyss and the enemy of your enemy is maybe not your friend but useful. She didnt see it that way. When it came to light to the party that my book had baggage it resulted in an ultimatum in the party prompted by my Elf friend who did and maybe still doesnt understand devils and demons are not the same... my wife backed me (gotta love a rogues pragmatism). It was the book or my life. I chose the book and spared my life, loosing all my spells sans cantrips for some time. Eventually we came accross a bother quest plot hook in our DMs expansive homebrew world. Sentient world eating giant bugs. The lore tells us burn them on sight or else its a xenomorph earth. Our Desert elf tried to befriend one and I was aghast. In the private confides of my mind where only Dice christ is privy to my thoughts I chose violence. Although I cannot recall what spells were chosen my gut tells me a fireball was cast. I chose then and there to destroy any and all monsters our Desert Elf, who was steeped in generations of bloody conflict with the Abyss, tried to befriend. Its been going on for some time now. I calmed a bit after I got another spell book, but still if she tries to befriend a threat imma nuke it. So I ask Dice Christ and the Deacons of the Dice for forgiveness for I have sinned and I will continue to sin until my PC dies a glorious death. (DM allows for glorious actions if youre gonna die). Maybe my next PC, the Dwarf Cleric Mol'son Kana-din will be less vengeful. P.s. does Murph like Hockey? Go Habs.

A Case for Dice Christ, Demons, Devils, Bugs, and Books. I lay myself prostrate to the will of dice christ for I have sinned. I have been playing in a campaign for years now (I cant remember how long exactly, maybe 2 years?) With my wife, and good friends, its a great time. I am outing myself for they are listeners, my divination wizard of a dm made homebrew tiefling sub raceh9egeehi9eejeo

To the ever wonderful justices and the bailiff who’s also there, I present to you the case of the accidental DND manifestation/hopefully not too creepy coincidence. About two years ago, I started playing in a campaign as a half-elf bard. He didn’t have loads of backstory, but did have a wife who he really loved. I’m not especially good at coming up with names so I named my fictional wife after a girl I knew a bit at uni and had a crush on at the time but hadn’t spoken to in seven years. Fortunately/unfortunately, a year into the campaign, I happened purely my chance to reconnect with this girl over Instagram (She messaged first). Justices, we have now been dating for nine months. As soon as the relationship was formalised (Literally part way through the conversation with my now-girlfriend), I texted my DM to ask to change the name of my fictional wife, which they very kindly let me do, and the campaign has now finished. However, my girlfriend does not know about this bizarre case of accidentally powerful manifestation. Do I tell her? Is this something I save for a potential wedding speech in the future as a fun anecdote? I lay myself at your feet awaiting your wise judgement.

To the intelligent, creative, and gorgeous justices (and that bailiff), I present: The Case of the Unplanned Race. I’m playing with two guys I met online to start a face-to-face game in my town. Our DM has been playing since 1st edition, while us players have only been playing a year or two. At the start of a recent session, we were transported from a spaceship to a field outside a town. We chose our mission, a “heist”, by flipping a four-sided coin my artificer made. Then papers started falling from the sky that only said one thing: “Race.” After some not-so-subtle hints, we determined the race was the real encounter this session. So we planned around it. With Longstrider, Expeditious Retreat, and boosted movement speed, we decided I’d race while the ranger helped from the sidelines. When I signed up, I asked for the rules. The DM only said combat and magic were allowed. After pressing him for more details, he eventually drew a map with five legs: run, swim, climb, descent, run. Then initiative started. The DM revealed the race was basically just repeated Athletics checks for each leg, with the role determining the distance ran. Problem: my whole build and strategy revolved around movement speed and double dashing, and I had +0 Athletics. I tried to swap with the ranger or get him to join, but the DM said it was too late. After arguing about movement and action economy, the DM let me add +3 for a dash action and +3 for a bonus action dash, but every leg of the race became another rules debate: * Why aren’t competitors doing anything besides dashing? Shouldn’t they be attacking or using spells? * What do spells like Grease or Telekinesis actually do? Are they worth sacrificing the +6? * Do my spider climbing boots matter? Or jumping to increase my roll bonus? * Why did he let us boost movement speed if it barely affects the race? The ranger also spent about 45 minutes doing basically nothing because he could only help for half of the race. The whole thing lasted around 2.5 hours, with constant confusion and arguing about initiative (which changed every round based on who was in front), abilities (the 9 other competitors only did non-dash actions when the DM was questioned), and mechanics (every turn I’d debate what my options were only to just roll athletics the majority of the time). I ended up winning the race by 5 “points” but didn’t feel great about the whole encounter. Eventually, the DM admitted he’d mostly made the race up on the fly. Which he appears to do most sessions and can get away with because he knows DnD through and through. So, gracious justices: is my DM guilty of creating an encounter with no actual rules or clarity? Or am I at fault for spending the entire session arguing mechanics instead of just embracing the situation?

Good evening Judge, Jury, and Executioner. Due to binging this podcast for a month straight I have recently gotten into D&D. I joined a local group that has been playing for a while but was starting a new campaign and looking for a 5th party member. They mentioned the DM despises homebrew, and shenanigans and keeps to the rules and roleplays seriously. I thought I was ready for that but in the first session 3 party members perma died due to one member making a joke statement about using his entire action to scratch his itchy arse. However since he didn't state "off table" before making his joke the DM took that as his action and did not let him use a fireball to finish off the goblins, who went next and killed 3 people with frenzied attacks. Even as a serious DM we all felt that went to far. None of the dead members want to reroll now and so we might kill the game. Should we stick it out or start a new group and leave this DM behind?

To the immaculate judges and the Bailiff who created one of my all time favorite characters (S/O Ill Luck Henry, my BOI) I believe my DM doesn’t like me! About a year ago, i joined an online campaign with mostly strangers, minus my two friends (also players) who asked me to join the campaign. Since joining, my DM has done the following things. - Skipped my initiative because they “thought I’d done enough before the action began.” - shamed me for bantering with a fellow PC, saying I “would not let her get a word in edgewise and needed to shut up” (the fellow player expressed they did not feel this way) - Brought out their own PC from another campaign that was level 8 gunslinger against my level 3 barbarian in a one on one duel -other things, but I’m trying to stay brief! Should I quit this campaign??? It’s my only dnd campaign I’m a part of at the moment, and I want to play!! And I love my character and the other folks in the campaign are so kind!!!!!! But also i feel a lot of dread and shame when I play. Please, shower us in your all knowing wisdom

No case I just wanted to say…. COME ON YOU GUNNERS!!!!!

To the Cool Pillow Justices and the Wet Blanket Bailiff, I bring the case of the Omniscient Magic Mouth. In our homebrew campaign, our party ended up on an island, covered by a magical barrier that prevented anyone from leaving. This barrier was tied to life force of the island's inhabitants. Naturally, our solution to this dilemma was to kill all the inhabitants, promising to resurrect them with Revivify. Surprisingly, this was both agreed to by the islanders and went off without a hitch. The issue I bring to the court however, is how we obtained the diamonds for said Revivifys. Upon being informed by the DM that this island had a mine with sufficiently valuable gems for the spell, our party's Artificer enchanted several rocks with the Magic Mouth spell, setting them to shout, "Hey, dig here!" whenever diamonds where in range, significantly speeding up the gathering of said gems. After the session ended, I brought up the fact that this implied some kind of greater consciousness behind the spell, it being able to unerringly detect any triggering source given to it within 30ft, regardless of the barriers in between. After a brief discussion, we agreed that the spell would not be allowed to function the same way in the future. Justices, was I right to bring up the potential abuse such a spell could have, or am I a big, fun hating jerk who should be executed for his crimes? I throw myself at the mercy of the court.

To the Roll Doll Supreme Justices, and the belly gem Bailiff, may it please the court. I bring you the case of the squashed wizard. I run a homebrew campaign for some friends, and in one of the last sessions they took over a duchess' castle (shoutout to Justice Murphy's d6-based siege mechanics from C3!). While the battle raged on outside, the party took on the duchess' head wizard in his tower where their favorite NPC was being experimented on. One of my players, a College of Creation Bard, used her Performance of Creation to create a large wall to give cover, and then used Animating Performance to bring it to life (sick af). She then commanded the wall to fall prone on the wizard, successfully pinning him to the ground. However, on his next turn, I narrated the wizard Misty Stepping to his desk, which confused the player, who argued he's pinned under a wall and can't see his target. I replied that the wall wouldn't have flattened him cartoon-style and he can still move tilt his head enough to see his target, or at least some point in the room (the desk was to his side and somewhat behind him, we play theater of the mind so there was some wiggle room regarding opportunity attacks). The players all agreed to this but the Bard felt like her creative play was for naught. Judges, should I have let the wizard turn into a human pancake, Space Jam style? Should I have rolled a STR check to wiggle his head? Or was I correct in assuming he could still get line-of-sight to the room? I humbly await your judgement.

To the blessed of the dice of Christ, I have a confession to make. I am in a curse of strahd campaign playing a grave domain cleric, during a fight in the spooky wizard tower I became the Heir to Kazham and despite being a cleric my dm had me attune to the staff of power that resided there. Now here is my sin, my Dm printed off a small card that explained what the staff did but because the font on the card was so small to contain all the info, I misread the 20 charges as 30. Because the staff is so powerful in general I did not question this at all until my current session. I quickly changed the number of charges and moved on without mentioning it. Can I be forgiven for my sin dearest Clergy? ps big fan of the show

Fathers and Mother forgive me for I have sinned, egregiously. 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. 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. Today my husband and I can't remember exactly what I did wrong but we think I was reading it like a math problem EX: Hit: 10 (2d6 + 3) slashing damage. So I would roll 2d6+3 and multiple it by 10 or I was adding the ten to 2d6 +3... either way it's wrong and basically infinite damage to level 3s . 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, the board game instruction reader in our house, for help. As is expected when effectively dealing the most damage ever 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 AND I was definitely lying about the damage since it was insane amounts. 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 at the time he just laughed and said “Yeah, that’ll do it!” P.P.S My baby sister has been 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, so big S/O to Olivia!

To the notorious SCJ and the great AND terrible baliff: I have been DMing an on-and-off mini-campaign for the last year with my partner and two friends. In this sci-fi campaign, the characters wake up in a laboratory with strange powers (stylized from 5E classes) and discover their town's been overrun by myconids—and the lab is home to a massive, sentient mega-shroom that wants to expand to new towns. Everything has been going great, until I pulled off a mega twist that turned on me. I revealed all the PCs had actually died in the myconid attack, and they were all fungal reconstructions grown in the lab from their bodies and samples of the mega shroom. In response, my friend playing an 17-year-old paladin decided that instead of exploring the rest of the town as planned and meeting up with his PC's dad, the only solution was that it wasn't safe for him to leave the lab at all—and he would have to figure out how to honorably sacrifice himself and kill the mega shroom. Immediately, I could see the rest of the party looked a little bummed: they didn't really want to split the party, but seemed to be disappointed to be stuck at the lab—especially our friend playing an 80-year-old rogue who was loving her new powers. Afterwards, my partner suggested I just ask our paladin to retcon his character decision so the rest of the party could enjoy the rest of the world and the storylines I'd planned for them. Esteemed justices, would it be a wrong in the eyes of the court to ask this paladin to change his mind and go against his character choice, or should I let the story play out? I await your merciful wisdom.

Good morn wonderful honourable Judges and however we are treating Jake the bailiff today. I present the case of decimated backstory homework. I was playing in a star wars campaign as someone who used to be part of a gang of thieves of ancient Jedi artifacts. I sent this backstory to the dm who asked for in depth details for each npc including planets they visited, full timescales of what these characters have been up to, and each attitudes to my character and other factions. I was absolutely happy to do this to flesh out my character and help the dm out. I did spend quite a bit of time at the dms request doing this, only for him to kill off all the npc characters off screen in an random shootout that the pcs had nothing to do with. In response he said "got your ass and made you put so much work in for the plot twist". I ask you judges and bailiff if I am over attached to the backstory npcs I was baited to put a lot of work into, or was the dms plot twist that and I quote "utilised his creative writing degree to emotionally get me good" narratively interesting? The campaign was good but did fizzle out in the end mainly due to schedules and the dm actually cheating on me (in a strange way i think killing the npcs hurt more?!?). I thank the court for the guidance on whether I should be miffed by the slightly unsatisfying decimation of my characters backstory and npcs. :)

To the somewhat corrupt Justices Axy, Murry and Tanny, and the ever loyal Baliff Jake, I bring to you the case of the wrongful rules lawyer. My friends and I played a Pathfinder 2e one shot over the weekend for my birthday, and my brother-in-law was the GM. Everything was going well, and everyone was having fun until we got to the final encounter. One of the players casted a spell on the BBEG an adult Fortune Dragon. The spell in question was FLAMES OF EGO. Now this spell has an incapacitation trait in PF2E which means that if the creature is higher level than the spell it treats its save as 1 degree of success better. However the DM rolled a nat 1. Which would have been a critical failure, but was upgraded to a regular failure. However the failure still stated that the creature can not act hostile to a target that has not acted hostile to it. Upon learning this my cleric rushed behind the injured party members to heal them, which prevented the dragon from using any AoE spells to damage the other hurt party members. This is where the argument began. The GM argued that he could still attack others, and if I so happen to get hurt, then I wasn't a target. I however pulled up the rules for Hostile actions which stated that "A hostile action is one that can harm or damage another creature, whether directly or indirectly, but not one that a creature is unaware could cause harm". Justices, who was correct? Was I, the helpful cleric, in the wrong for being a rules lawyer and making the Big Bad Dragon not be able to use anything but individual attacks, or did was my GMs wrong for trying to skate the clearly defined rules, because the last line of hostile actions states that the GM is the final arbitrator of what is a hostile action? I look forward to hearing your decision, even if you guys are always mean to Jake [:-)]. P.S. We finished the one shot with me hitting the Dragon with my first attack on it, which was a Nat 20 using my last 5th rank spell! And in the end the GM apologized for being upset about it the next day.

To the lofty justices and bailiff Juice. I present the case of the secretly invested PC. I DM a game for 7 friends. Our campaign has been running for a few years and it has been pretty obvious that six of my PCs are really into it, and one guy just wants to hang out with friends. He hasn’t learned his paladin abilities, forgets every NPC, and generally just wants to chat during sessions. Recently, while exploring a wizard’s family crypt, he found a door with a void of darkness in the wall beside it. He immediately stated that he stuck his arm in it. I asked how far, and he said “all the way”. This was a Sphere of Annihilation. I let him make a dexterity save to feel his arm disintegrate and pull back. He rolled a 9. I narrated that he pulled back and his right hand was now gone. Judges, he was furious. He argued that he would have felt his arm dissolve and should only lose his finger tips, and that I had nerfed his PC because now he couldn’t hold a shield. I think this was the first time he mentioned his shield in three years. So I ask, was this warranted hand removal, or should I have just been happy my player was finally invested in the game and just done the tips? P.S. - Our artificer crafted him a silver hand the next session, but he still razzes me about stealing the original. It’s been a year.

I come to thee with a confession. When I was still pretty new to D&D, our party of six was sneaking through a city locked down after an assassination. Every block we crossed meant more stealth checks, more encounter rolls, and more chances for disaster. Naturally, our heavily armored party members were clanking around like a traveling cookware display and rolling with disadvantage. Every few minutes somebody would hit a Natural 1 and we’d barely scrape through another encounter. By the end of it, we were exhausted. No spell slots left. Almost dead. It was late. Everyone just wanted to survive this last stretch. Then, at long last, freedom was in sight. The final block. Everyone rolled well. We had made it. And then the Dice Devil came for me. Natural 1. Me. The ranger. The stealth expert. The one carrying the entire operation with Pass Without Trace and absurd rolls in the high 20s and 30s all night. I stared at the die. And I lied. I calmly announced another successful roll and everyone believed me immediately because, honestly, why wouldn’t they? We escaped. The session ended. Victory. But now, years later, as a wiser and more mature player, I regret it a little. Because failure is where some of the best D&D moments are born. Maybe we would’ve barely escaped another fight. Maybe someone would’ve sacrificed themselves heroically. Maybe the guards would’ve caught us and created an entirely new story arc. Instead, I denied the dice their final punchline because my ranger ego couldn’t survive fumbling the finish line. And somewhere out there, the Dice Devil smiles knowingly.

Case of The Constitution Slight of Hand. Hello to the Highly Highly Justices on high, and the guy, the dude, the lowly, and the bailiff Jah-hake. I bring to you the case of The Constitution Slight of Hand. I'm a forever DM but its my jam. I've been playing with my roommates, and my three brothers for two and half years. We are a month into our Neo-Cyberpunk Pirates Spelljammer campaign. The setting so far is a prison on a dwarf ice planet. Thier all inmates and have opportunities to get work assignments and free time activities to get intel/tool for breaking out. During a work assignment scene two of my brothers, a plasmiod artificer, and a Orc pugilist. They attempt to smuggle tools out of a work station. I ask for a sleight of hand and offer to use a different ability modifier based on how they go about it. The pugilist goes "Oh! I'll try put it in my prison pocket." Cue small pause before a eruption of laughter. I say "Go ahead and give me a constitution sleight of hand." Or in the case sleight of sphincter. My brother then asks if he can instead like a magician make it disappear. I tell him "No, im sorry but this is too funny, and your character isn't a trained magician." Justices, he crits...cue another eruption of laughter. Justices was i wrong to not let him back out of the slight of sphincter? FYI we're all in our 30's

To the justices of dice, and the simple, yet hard-working bailiffs of the court, I request your unimpeachable table top justice. Our forever DM had setup a homebrew game based on early version of tabletop (think pre-3.5 or OSR) where we were instructed to always have a backup character ready. We started the campaign in a dungeon, with the end leading to an ancient lich who put a geas on the party to find a magical stone that he required. Half the party was already at least one backup character deep and we were ready to move on from the dungeon and head into town. There, there was plenty to do and explore, including a quest board, and our DM stated that he didn't want to railroad us into anything and retconned the geas away. So we spent some time in the city, each of use exploring a few different threads, until we all decided to take on quest to explore some haunted treasure off in the mountains. As we set off on our journey, the DM becomes quiet and starts rolling dice. As we wait in silence, he chimes back in with "So about a third of the city has become infected with an irreversible blight and will parish, and the rest of the city is in dire shape. Had you pursued the stone you could have lifted the curse and saved the city". While there was no direct mention of any curse, there were clues that the town was becoming ill. I ask of you, were we an irresponsible group of hoodlums ignoring the plights of others in search of self worth, or were we hoodwinked by our DM into feeling guilty about letting a town parish?

The case of to die or not to die. To the honerable justices Murphy Axford and Tanner, and to that other guy: oh, hi. I dm a game for two of my friends. They are relatively new, but awesome players. One Is a bard and the other one a fighter. In a battle I had prepared, my bard got down, on her first death saving throw, she rolled a 1. (This was the first time for this player to go down). As the fighter was taking her turn, I realised that the idea for this battle was not to kill the characters, but to take them hostage. I quickly told my players that I made a mistake, and that she should actually be knocked out. My players seemed relieved, and are very happy to live. But I still feel like I might have ruined the stakes of death forever for these players. So: should I have let my player die? Or am I okay to take back my words and rewrite history? I prostrate myself before you in waiting of your judgement.

To the Supreme Crit Justices Tanner, Murphy, and Pensacola and my favorite of the bunch Jacob Penn Cooper Hurwitz (i googled it) i submit: The case of the Full Turn Fingerguns I was playing in an Eberron campaign with a focus on building up our parties’ Wizard’s Food Carriage and interacting with the setting. Fighting outlaws, defeating a necromancer, and such. It’s been a blast playing with players still thinking outside of the box, throwing hot boiling pots of stew as flavor for the wizard spells, a classic Paladin smiting with a great hammer atop a Stegosaurus, and a capitalistic Druid Apple Farm Heiress using capitalism and apples to solve her problems, and my character an old wartorn elf learning to live life again day by day. Inspired by their antics, I rethought my approach. Judges I’ve dedicated my character Dagwood Nabbet, a gruff 200 year old Wood Elf Wandslinger into a bodyguard to provide support for these band of lovable entrepreneurs. But I wanted in on the fun too. So I chose a fun third party spell. “Fingerguns” a cantrip that allows you to turn your finger into a weapon with properties of a small projectile and force damage. It's funny, fun and kinda useful in and out of combat, in theory. But then my DM made a ruling that stops it from being ethically used at all. Judges I would have to use my bonus action to ACTIVATE the spell and my action to attack each time I used it (much like Shillelagh) I’m not a huge fan of D&DB but in its interface it allows for a bonus action only to pop off. At first I let it slide because I did well enough in combat with all my other abilities, but as the sessions went on and I insisted that maybe the wording is misleading my DM wouldn't allow it, insisting that I use all my action economy on this one cantrip when I wanted to use it. In the end they wouldn’t budge and I dropped the cantrip for Prestidigitation, but having a quick draw and killing a guy with just a point of your finger sounds so funny and I will never get a chance to do it. Judges, am I in the wrong for not honoring my DMs decision and insisting I be able to use this as a bonus action ONLY or did I simply miss “THE POINT” of this spell. I humbly await your swift and righteous judgement in this lawless wasteland ADDENDUM - DM really wants to try out Daggerheart and is disillusioned by playing D&D as I go to submit this for added context to my DMs fatigue with the system and D&DBeyond

Snail Update: -Dnd group still roasting me -Everyone in the Patreon comments section roasted me -Scallion Pancake tattoo booked (tomorrow) -Drowncula novel complete -This community rules ❤️

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 Great on High and the Jan the Man who bears their Titles to all. I kneel before you seeking absolution for my crimes. A Dragon, A Blizzard, and my Folly I am a long time forever DM and carry a sin from my first college game. I was running a homebrew campaign and had my roughly lol 5 party of 6 crossing a vast tundra. For this I had prepared a random encounter table that had a large number of different events ranging from a distant dragon sighting to finding baby yetis in a cave. My mistake comes from the session this was implemented. My players rolled a Blizzard that required a save against exhaustion. Thinking this would be a one off I was a hard-ass concerning buffs cast in the moment, and my antics resulted in many of them failing. The problem arises in what follows. They rolled the Blizzard 4 more times in a row, and on a 5th time after a single day of good weather I forgot the dices proclamation and asked for a reroll. This was my second mistake, a nat one being rolled resulted in that distant dragon sighting and they're guiding NPC (parents killed by said dragon) triggered a planned dragon escape event due to them firing at the dragon. While I did plan that part of the night I am haunted by how exhausting the session was to those involved. Shortly after the campaign fizzled out abs we havent been able to get even a one-shot together since (roughly 4 years) Did I anger Dice Christ, Is this why my college group never worked after? I lay myself before you for judgement🧎🏾‍♂️

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.

To the preternaturally clever, extremely sharp-witted, MENSA-level intelligent judges (and the L.L Bean model they hired for optics,) Please hear my most disgusting confession. It was my first-ever campaign, and the player vibes were… tense, to say the least. At one point, at the end of a session, I asked to roll for something fairly minor. Forgive me, I do not remember what it was. The important thing is this: the energy was so hostile, I felt in my gut that failing this roll would have real life consequences for me. I got a low roll, so I vamped and kept re-rolling until I got a moderately acceptable roll. I believe it was an 18 on my third attempt. With my modifier, this was enough to move the plot along as planned. This would prove to be my final move in the campaign, as things got so heated behind the scenes I did not return. However, this weighs heavily on me. I have only had one d&d experience since, which was a disaster for reasons outside my control. I fear I have been permanently cursed by a secular TTRPG deity. Please help, dear clergy!

To the effervescent judges, Emily, Caldwell and Murph and the definitely present bailiff Jack, I present to you my case. Years ago, I was playing in a home game with some close friends who were often busy, though we tried to only do important story beats when everyone was there. In one particular session, we were missing a couple of people including our healer, so it was just my plucky Grung urchin who had dreams of being a swashbuckler, another rogue and our party's barbarian. With my character being kind of pitiful, it was funny to my party to push him around. In this particular instance, we were in a dungeon and our rogue and barbarian decided to use me to test for traps. Justices, I took wall spikes, grease fires, pitfalls and did it all knowing that my little Grung would brave anything to be useful to his crew. However, the last of the dangers we faced was a closed door. Encouraged to be the first one in despite being damaged and without a healer, the Grung captain-to-be took a necromancer's blight to the face. Already low, it went over my max HP in negatives and I was killed instantly. My froggy head blown clean off before a tri-corner hat could grace it. And thus I plead to the court. Though he may not have ever flown a jolly roger, or indeed seen a pirate ship. Grant my poor frog a pirate's vengeance on his scallywag crew for this completely predictable loss of life.

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 guy playing the 6 int barbarian? Will accept any sentencing with grace and not rage about it even a little bit.

To the highest crit in the land and bestest boy bailiff. May it please the court that I bring you another case of unlawful razzing. In a campaign I was in a few years ago, my way of shadows monk was sent on a quest to the desert. The DM made it seem urgent that my character leave in the middle of the night based on a message from her god. So I told him that she, being dutiful, would get up and go. Once my character was in the desert, he asked if I had specifically packed water. I told him I did not because I thought it was in my adventuring pack. He then ruled that I would start taking levels of exhaustion for not having water. While my character did not die, she got really close to it. The rest of the table found out and told me I was dumb for not packing water. To this day, I still get razzed about not bringing water to the desert. Just judges, should I have had to state I specifically brought water or should it be implied that it is part of my adventuring pack? I humbly await your ruling.

To the justices and the injustice of a bailiff, I present the case of the “cheese wizard”. I was DMing one last session at my friendly local game store since I was about to move. Ten people signed up to play a level 20 one shot against Tiamat. Which is a lot, but I’m pretty used to running for big tables. Naturally, I showed up early and begin to set up the terrain for the fight. One player was already there, whom the group dubbed cheese wizard. He asked me if we were really fighting the Tiamat from Hoard of the Dragon Queen, and proceeded to flip his iPad around and show me that he had her stats pulled up and was reading through them. Immediately I was disappointed and said I had made a few modifications, which I hadn’t, but I had 15 minutes to come up with something. I gave her some more spells and attacks to balance out the encounter, including counterspell. I later used counterspell to counter the cleric’s casting mass heal, to which the wizard said “well I could counter it but I know spells under sixth level don’t work” aloud to the rest of the table. Everyone encouraged him to act like he didn’t know, and he wound up countering at a higher level. It was a fun fight and the players got to say they beat Tiamat before I left, but I feel like it would have been so much better if there hadn’t been sneak peeks at her stats. Should I have prepared more ahead of time or do we need to banish the wizard for cheesing the fight? I humbly await your judgement.

Not a case but a confession - To the illustrious Priests of Dice Christ I fear I have sinned against my players and Dice Christ Herself. I am a new DM running a campaign for a group of 5 first time players who were all very excited to begin and are currently in the middle of saving a group of captive teenagers from a goblin shaman and his hired grung and bullywog goons. The cleric came up with the idea to use the warlock’s disguise self to lure the goblin’s second in command into a cave and then use their rope to trip her -effectively making her prone and giving them advantage on tying her up and questioning her. I thought this was great and had them roll to set the dc for the trap (14) and then had the bullywog roll, it was right as I rolled that I realized “I don’t want this to be a roll and would rather the trap worked and then roll the grapple check” so judges I lied. I said she had rolled a 4 instead of a 16 and gave them their advantage. I then proceeded to roll nothing bellow a 15 for the rest of the session against my players while they could barely roll above a 10. I feel guilty for calling for rolls I did not use. Have I besmirched Dice Christ? Have I cursed my players to roll low despite their clever planning? I throw myself at your mercy and humbly await the judgment and punishment of Dice Christ

To the three Judicial Jessica Rabbits and, Baby Herman I guess, I don't know. I submit a case of mixed expectations. I usually DM but decided to join a game that was looking for two new players. I ignored some initial red flags when the other new player 'approved' my character choice and started a new discord channel for us to 'whomp the DM'. Arriving at the game I was looking forward to playing my Dwarf Stars Druid, shipwrecked and surviving on good berries before finding the existing players who had also survived the shipwreck. Imagine my surprise when the other new player arrives on his own ship (not as a passenger, it was his ship), selected which of his half a dozen NPC servants would accompany him and then had them row him to shore, where he immediately arrested one of the primary existing NPCs. I decided the vibes were off and told everyone I didn't think it was a good fit, but should I have stuck it out? Could I have been the other new players 12th man servant?

If it may please the inimitable judges and the capricious bailiff, I bring before you both a case AND a bonus gossip. First, the case of the Deadly Discord Drop-in D&D. In 2021 I was medium-new to D&D (I played in person inconsistently in 2019 then online during COVID, and joined a consistent online game in 2020 - more on that in the gossip later). My boyfriend had a friend who wanted to try DMing in his homebrew Dark Souls inspired world. He made a Discord server and my boyfriend, my friend, and I all joined, along with several other randos who I didn’t know and didn’t get to know ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. These sessions were a “drop in if you’re available” format on the DM’s whims, where people could join if they were free and so long as there were 3 or more players, the session would run. This seems like a great way to play lots of D&D, right? You’d think. The first session I joined was one of the early sessions. I had a level 1 Twilight Domain Cleric who was super fun to play, and who I was very excited to level up. That session and the few following it went well, I played with my friend and boyfriend, so the group was pretty much the same each session. At the time that this campaign was happening, I was a full adult with a job and commitments. Part of what was appealing about the “drop in if you’re available” format was that I didn’t have to commit to scheduling for a long campaign. However, this DM used XP leveling, and if you weren’t present for a session, your character didn’t get any XP. This meant that you could end up in a session where you were level 2 and other party members were level 5 or 6. I found this annoying, since I wasn’t able to join as many sessions and was falling behind some of the other player levels, but I was having a good enough time so I stuck it out. The good times were not meant to last. I'll remind you that the campaign was Dark Souls inspired, and as such had many deadly encounters. RIP my Cleric, she died. I believe I was level 3 at the time, so I went to build a new character who was level 3. This is where the case unfolds. I went to roll my new character and was told by the DM that new characters had to start over at level 1. My question for the court is this: am I wrong for finding this system absolutely insane and unfair? Especially given the deadly nature of the campaign, this seems to me like a flawed system deserving of your punishment. Things ended with the boyfriend soon after and I left the server, but I still think about it sometimes when playing in my much better campaigns. Now, the promised gossip: In late 2020, I was bored and single swiping on Hinge. I was living with my parents, and ended up matching with a guy I went to high school with. We went on a few socially-distanced outdoor dates, during which I mentioned that I had been missing my college D&D game and watching a lot of Dimension 20 (shoutout justices Axford and Murphy). He responded by telling me about the online Roll20 game he was in that played every week. He let me know that they had just lost a player who could no longer make the scheduled time and invited me to join. I played a fully tatted Rogue Grandma named Larcenous Lynn who had just escaped a retirement home and had a fantastic time. A few weeks in, the guy ghosted me and the entire D&D group, never to be heard from again. I’ve played with that same group of people for the last 6 years. He never resurfaced or explained what happened. I went to high school with him and lived in the same town, so I know he didn’t die, he just ghosted all of us.

For the sick as hell judges and that soliciting chud in the corner. I present the case of the absent one-shot. I am a DM that runs two different groups, boy group girl group style, in the same homebrew campaign setting. It's a world where the parties work for a guild and take on quests, mostly low stakes/commitment. About 2 years ago two of my players, my brother and his then girlfriend, were going on vacation for a few weeks effectively putting both groups on hold, not a problem. During that time I put a dungeon crawl one-shot together combining the remaining members of both groups. On the day of the session I shot them a message asking if they wanted a specific reason as to why their characters aren't there, but to my surprise they messaged back that they were mad I was doing this and didn't give much info after that. After they returned, my brother and I met up to talk about it. He told me that they, his gf especially, felt left out and if we were going to do a one shot while they were gone it should have been with new characters or that we ask them first. I can understand the feeling of being left out but I rebutted that I didn't need their permission to do something with other people's character's, especially while they were visiting the fucking Shire. We ultimately left the talk agreeing to let them know in the future even if they couldn't be involved but I still felt like this wasn't as big of a deal as they were making it. So I ask the court: Did I really mess up or should I just obliterate my bro IRL? I humbly await your judgement. P.S. A while later they broke up and she was kicked from the group. When I asked him about this situation he admitted to a bit of "white knighting."

To the sinfully decadent deacons of dice christ and the altar man committing adultery in my dreams Jacob, I just need to check in with the big man/ma’am/tha’am about three nat 20s I rolled in a row. I’m certainly not complaining about critting on my players with dice they gave me, but the excellent attack rolls came from the hands of my homebrewed oath of racism paladin, Dick Fuentes. I used his active racist’s mark spell and not-so-divine smite to down two of my players in single attacks, but they ended up taking Dick down in the end. I just wanted to write in to make sure this sequence didn’t reflect some controversial stances dice christ may have against nonhuman PCs and my irl all-minority party that I nearly demolished with my hatred and bigotry. Extremely sorry that I must bring this to the church’s attention.

Hello esteemed justices Murphy, Axford, and Tanner, and a hearty wassup to my lowly homie, Jork. 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 quickly determined who could fly up to help. Without any way to fly, my wife and I were forced to keep our characters on the ground, and too far away to assist. The other four party members, however, flew up to rescue our ally and confront an NPC who later proved to be a major villain. (One other PC was secretly a dragon, but that is a story for another time). During this encounter, one of the characters on the airship threw a corpse overboard. With 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 had been moving away from our position for a while, the ruling stood. I failed the save and took the damage. This resulted in my level 3 character taking double their max health, resulting in their death. This incident continues to be brought up as a joke at the table years later. 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.

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. 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.

Honorable Justices and sad dude in a bib and booster seat in the corner. I bring before you the case of Neil Anaton vs the State of Tonal consistency. I am prepping a campaign for my friends most are new. The setting is home brew think warhammer fantasy, bloodborne with dungeon meshi, and one piece. We’ve got a klashtar samurai with mage hand familiar flavored to be the spirit of his fallen brother, a gun running cajon croc, and a grudge bearer dwarf on a vengeance quest with a list of every slight committed to his clan. Then we have Neil Anaton or “not an alien” backwards, and guess what he’s an alien pretending to be a man that wants to return home. Neil is the creation of one of the new players and he is very proud of himself for coming up with it. As far as I can tell he is earnest and wants to play him straight but I have no idea how to fit him into the world. What’s his arc? Do I make him fey with amnesia, schizo fish man, I’m lost and idk what to do mechanically and thematically. If I don’t figure it out I worry it undercuts the other PC’s creativity and stories they want to tell. Do I slurp up his creative juices or do I spit them upon the street where they belong? I bend over before the court to accept spankings or praise as you see fit.

To the esteemed Justices of the Supreme Crit, and the great or terrible bailiff, depending on how we're feeling about him today (or, if the bailiff is Emily, the wonderful bailiff as she is always amazing). May I present the Case of the Retroactive Shield spell. My party at the time was me, a redemption paladin, a shadow monk, and a bard/sorcerer multiclass. We were on a mission to rescue some abducted kids, and were in a flight that we were planning to run from once we had them. The evil wizard cast fly to try and get away, but our monk used shenanigans to catch up to the wizard and grab hold of his foot. They were about 120 ft in the air. The monk's turn was done and we moved on to mine. I had started to explain what I was going to do when the monk's player made a comment that he was lucky the wizard hadn't cast shield. At this our DM perked up and told me to wait because he "wasn't used to playing caters." He went back to the monk's turn and cast shield, which meant that the monk missed his grapple check that he had done to grab the wizard and he fell from 120 ft up. The fall damage was enough to drop him, and I had to change my entire plan so that I could get him back up. Ultimately we did rescue the kids (although one lost a foot) and got away safely, but the retroactive shield left a bad taste in my mouth, and that damn wizard continues to be a problem. Judges, I ask you, was our DM within his rights to rewind the encounter so that the evil wizard could cast shield, or should he have taken the "l" and let the encounter move forward as it was already progressing? I humbly await your exaulted decision. -Paladin in a predicament from Alaska

The Case of the Bothered Bard vs the God of the Sun Dear Radiant Justices and the necromantic (not to be confused with the Neck Romantic) baliff Jeep Grand Cherokee. I write to you about a situation that kind of rubbed me the wrong way in regards to an in-game baby shower celebration, a city-wide parade , and a sun god that is a bit too into himself. My purple Tiefling bard, Poe, has been deemed the leader of a adventuring Guild alongside 3 of my other party members, one of whom is one of the princes of the city in which we reside. My bard misheard the reason of the celebration and made it a birthday party/babyshower gender reveal and arranged many businesses to give patronage, the world's longest conga line, and also a large procession of floats--one being our guild's gender reveal float of a giant mechanical baby that waves his/her arms around as it moves and will give a huge reveal at the end of the parade. Our dm, as a boon before we start rolling all the prep work involved, gave us items with mine being a +8 to a charisma check, which is fine because bards just keep winning with charisma. I was kind of anticipating a moment to use the item. Enter the sun god. He turned the day dark except for the area around him as he made a grand entrance. He was given a gift by another character but apparently the sacrifice would be inappropriate for the animal is sacred. No one knew this. So after a few long moments of Silence from everyone else in the group speculating on what they should do, I decide to use the item and try to put on a performance that may sate the sun god, as he is kind of the amalgamation of many sun-based gods such as Apollo, who liked theater and is very much a theater kid. I rolled very high (after all said and done with boons and house-rule buffs, I rolled 43). But, instead of anything good or anything bad happening from it, the dad of my princely party member presented himself and the sun god in him had a chat and that all of this was a performance and no sacrifice was needed. The rest of the session was effectively the Sun God trying to flirt with my bard , who was very upset because not only did he stop the parade, but no one got to find out the gender of the baby that may or may not have existed in the first place (spoiler alert : it's a boy). But, I was also a little perturbed that I used a very strong item in an encounter that seemed like it was scripted just happen regardless of what I did. Was I wrong in trying to be a custom character all cheeked up on a Saturday parade during a video game cutscene or is this the case that I should have been silent in the presence of the sanctimonious yet salacious solar sovereign?

To his holiness, Dice Christ’s pontifex Murph, his devout cardinals Emily and Caldwell, and Altar Boy Jornk, I have never played D&D, though I have felt Dice Christ in my heart for years now. I am on the precipice of getting to play with a new group of friends. The problem: the most experienced player, and would be DM, already has a game. He drops hints that he is dissatisfied with the old group, but I am afraid it is heresy to play gamewrecker. How far can I go to slander his old group? P.S. his wife is much more vocal about wanting to play with us. Is it wrong to ask her to sabotage?

To the wonderful Supreme Crit and the slightly less wonderful bailiff Jake. I present the case of the biffed plans. I'm a new time DM running Curse of Strahd for a group of friends. Last session we started with the party is hot water with the Burgomaster, the guards, and the town. I was all prepared for a stealth mission to break our prisoners, kill vampires, and overthrow the burgomaster. Instead they asked an NPC if they could throw an election to just make a new burgomaster. I thought the idea was really funny so I said it would work. I set up a quick mayoral debate between the party and some other canadits. It was really funny and the party seemed to have a good time, but mechanicaly it just came down to a few rolls. Your honors, did I rob my party of a better conclusion to the Valaki story line? I humbly throw myself at the mercy of the court.

To the well-received justices and the bountiful bailiff JJ, I present the case of the Chaos Pirate PVP. I’m currently running a Spelljammer campaign with four close friends and we need to settle a very serious matter. For context, the party is very chaotic: two of them are half-orc brothers who like to wage war for Gruumsh, one is a Druidic robot with an interest in bugs, and the other is not chaotically aligned but “true neutral” artificer dwarf who is just “along for the ride.” Now the party has taken to being pirates and looking for an ancient artifact, but in one session a few months ago, they boarded a deserted ship that had been taken over by Aartuk (plants). The brothers had decided to search one of the rooms, which contained a boss fight with an elder mind-controlling plant, after the robot had gone to the cargo hold. Now, at this point I ask the dwarf, who was last to move, where he wanted to go, and since he was next to the boss fight room I expected him to go there, but he says: “I want to loot the place”, and proceeds to move elsewhere. Kyle, one of the half-orcs, screams that he should at least help since it is a big fight, but the dwarf relays that it is not in his character and he wants to look for ammo. I let him, and the two brothers eventually finish their fight, although very hurt, and come looking for the dwarf. I didn’t think Kyle was upset, but he proceeded to enter a rage and start PvP with the dwarf, almost knocking him out instantly and saying to me “I’m going to kill him, like actually I’m going to kill his character. I hope he has a new character ready, I hate this dwarf” and stuff like that. I tried to dissuade the tension by saying that they needed to work together and so did the other part members (also I’ve never dealt with real pvp at my table before) but the dwarf was really upset asking why he was even playing in the first place and that he didn’t feel like continuing the game, so we had to call it off for the night and finish later and we didn’t get diner like planned :( It was very awkward for all of us (now I have a rule where no actual PvP happens in my games, and eventually they worked it out, although Kyle still hates the dwarf) but I wonder, who was in the wrong here? P.S. Kyle was known for attacking every NPC that I had, so he said that it was also “in his character.”

May it please the court and tease the bailiff, I present the case of Wizard of the Coasts’ Wacky Wording for the Web spell. Years ago, I ran a campaign for my friends set in a world where the BBEG had conquered the Feywild and was using time dilation shenanigans to build up an automaton army over the course of decades in the Feywild that could overwhelm the material plane in a matter of days. Early on in the campaign, the party fought against one of the BBEG’s lieutenants who was guarding a portal to access the automaton facility in the Feywild. During the scuffle, the party damaged the portal ring, causing the portal coordinates to shift from the Feywild to the Astral Sea. The fight had become dire, and the party wizard announced he “had a plan.” He tackled the lieutenant off of criss-crossing scaffolding above the portal, in order to cast them both into the Astral Sea. However, before reaching the portal, the wizard cast Web stretching over the portal entrance. While falling, he announced he would auto-fail the Dex check in order to be stuck in the webs. The lieutenant rolled and succeeded on the Dex check. To my great confusion, the party immediately celebrated. I described the lieutenant catching himself on the webbing and being able to move freely. The party rioted. They argued that, because the lieutenant succeeded on the Dex check, he was not retrained in the webs, and thus would fall through the webs into the portal and end the fight. I argued that the wording of Web says the webs become difficult terrain, and therefore anyone would be able to stand on the webs even if they also passed the Dex check to avoid being restrained. The party eventually relented, but argued that my reading of the spell “had as many holes in it as the web did.” Judges, was my reading of the 5e version of the Web spell truly "full of holes," or was my party's reading of the Web spell "sticky" at best? I await your humble and just decision. P.S. The party still kicked the lieutenant's butt and we finished the campaign after 3 heartfelt years together. This is entirely for razzing rights.

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 that 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 effortlessly sensual judges and the bailiff whose seething resentment boils just beneath the surface, I come to you with a confession that will rattle the many collection plates of Dice Christ. I have knowingly slipped a knife between the ribs of your livelihood, and perhaps worst of all, I have taken food off sweet baby Jake’s plate. Are you sitting down? Good. A $10 tier Mixed Bag episode was mistakenly uploaded to the $5 tier which I pay tithes for. Behaving more like a beast than a man, I listened to the whole thing before the deacons could retract this unintentional blasphemy. I knew it was wrong and still I succumbed to my own greed. I laughed at every joke, jokes meant for landowners, nobles, and notable members of the clergy – not me. That laughter still echoes in my ears, mocking me. I don’t deserve those laughs. I have made dirt in the elder’s sanctum. This albatross is my burden to bear, but tell me Justices, is it possible to forgive the unforgiveable? I seek a path to redemption. I will fix the Church roof this summer and look forward to the cleansing fire of whatever additional punishment you feel fit to bestow. Cheers, kisses and hugs xoxo

To the flawless, magnificent court and Jake Hurwitz, I present The Case of the Overpowered Background. I’m an inexperienced DM for several slightly-experienced D&D players. I’ve given out too many magic items, buffs, and wompings to my players, but things have been going well overall. However, one of my players has been using the “Haunted One” background to try to ruin my life. Basically, commoners look in the Haunted One’s severely traumatized eyes and will do everything they can to support them. What this has translated to? The player constantly demanding shop discounts and advantage on charisma checks. I’ve honored this multiple times, but I must confess that I’m getting sick of this overpowered background. Should I be punished for honoring this character’s background instead of putting my foot down? Or should the player be punished for milking a pre-written background? P.S. This player has not written an actual backstory for their character and has plainly stated on multiple occasions that their character is evil. I lay myself at the mercy of the court.

Dear Honorable Justices and Bailiff Jacques, For the last three years, I ran Call of Cthulhu, where I regularly narrated things like, “You feel overwhelming resentment toward this stranger,” or “An unnatural dread settles into your chest,” and nobody questioned it because, frankly, that’s kind of the whole game. We recently switched to D&D and are now running a campaign involving devils and Hell, and out of habit I still occasionally narrate emotional responses, intrusive thoughts, or supernatural impulses during spooky or tense moments. Apparently, however, D&D players enjoy having COMPLETE ownership over their characters’ internal thoughts and feelings. I’ve gotten weird looks, some pushback, and one player even privately asked me to stop telling them what their character feels. In my defense, she was literally fighting demonic possession at the time. The problem is that this has been one of my favorite GM tools for YEARS. It’s quick, atmospheric, and fantastic for horror, tension, and setting tone. So my question is: am I the asshole for holding onto this GMing style and trying to use it in D&D, or is this just a Call of Cthulhu habit that immediately becomes illegal the second fantasy heroes get involved? And how do I keep the dark, spooky vibes of a devil-and-Hell campaign without my players feeling like I’m stealing agency from them?

May it please the Crit, and I think there’s someone else there but I can never remember their name? I bring before you a few cases, please choose whichever you most enjoy. 1. I present the case of the MurderHobo Heist. Back in college when I ran a campaign, my players decided they wanted to rob a bank. I cannot stress enough that this was not related to the campaign, they just decided this was something they wanted to do. So, I had them roll for finding a bank. With a fairly poor roll, I told them that the only bank in town was the Main Bank that served the whole city. I warned them that this would be very difficult, but they insisted on doing it anyway, and we ended the session early for them to plan. When it was time for the heist I too had done a lot of planning, and almost immediately they were discovered after tripping an Alarmed (the spell) door. They all escaped relatively unscathed but were upset with me for not allowing them the heist they wanted. Judges, was in the wrong for not allowing my players to have fun and play how they wanted to? Or was this true murderhobo behavior that was adequately punished? 2.I present the case of the Fudged Crit Fail. Back in high school I was very new to D&D, and still, in this instance, playing my very first character ever (Dragonborn Fighter). We were fighting a White Dragon, and I rolled a 7 to hit. I was sad, but content with my miss. However, my DM said “Wouldn’t that be more interesting if it was a Crit fail?” To be fair, they weren’t wrong. That fudged nat 1 caused the dragon to explode into ice shards, killing my character, a prominent NPC, and another player’s Legendary Character (a character with a lot of lore that he’d be playing for years). It changed the tide of battle and the session utterly. I was shocked, of course, and the other player kept shouting that I’d killed his character, not knowing the DM had fudged the roll. Judges, should I have spoke up for myself and not allowed this to happen? Or is this just how the game goes sometimes? 3.I present the case of the College D&D Competition. As the title would suggest, I was in a D&D competition in which a bunch of pre-rolled characters battled it out in a sort of battle royale, and you earned points to get prizes. I was one of three remaining players at the end, currently in second place, and the other two wouldn’t be able to, due to the few characters remaining, be able to earn enough points to get on the leaderboard. However, *I* had a possibility to get first. I pointed this out to the person next in initiative, saying that if he let me get that one more point I needed and didn’t kill me, I’d be eternally grateful, especially since he wouldn’t be able to get even third place if he killed me and the other player. He ignored me, and killed my character next turn. I did still get second place (and a small Wyrmwood dice box), but I still think about this interaction. Was I wrong (or even rude) to ask this of a fellow competitor, or should he have been cooler and helped me win? Alliances were encouraged in the game, if that helps. I throw myself upon your mercy and accept any ruling you see fit to pass down.

To Justices; Awesome Axford, Curious Caldwell, & Merciless Murphy. I bring forth a case of DM vs DM violence. I am a DM who goes to multiple game stores and was running 2 simultaneous campaigns, I was itching to play on the other side of the board, so I found a group to do so. Weekly Saturdays, five minutes from home, perfect. Or so I thought. When we started I should have seen the red flags from the start. We shall hence forth name this DM as Flaky. Flaky thought maps we took crunchy, to which I thought ok theatre of the mind. Fast foward 2 weeks and we find out he also thinks combat is too crunchy, to which I replied cool roleplay is fun I guess. The next week he sends an email less than 24hrs to store that he would not be making it, short notice but a notice. The next week all of us assume that we are in clear to go to shop. We wait 1hr before store owner comes over and says he will be trying to find a new DM because he has heard nothing and this was week 2. I offered to step in and run the game, we had a session 0, altered the schedule to fit what people could make and etcetera. Fast foward to next week, at the end of our game, in walks Flaky to run his, after not informing the owner. Some of us stayed until he then decided Saving Rolls were too crunchy, and ripped a sword from a players hand for missing an attack in a surprise round of combat for no roll. Afterward he was mad at me for, taking his group, a group of new players who wanted to play but was considering leaving and not playing again if this was how it was going to be. So am I in the wrong for "taking Flaky's group"? I humbly accept any and all sentences placed upon me. P.S. the new group has a great time with, Maps, Combat, and most importantly SAVING THROWS.

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 honorable and dare I say, ravishing justices, as well as either the lowly lowly lowly lowly Bailiff Jonk or the wonderful and honorable Bailiff Jake (please substitute depending on the bit this time), can you jump in midair? Let's take it back to where it all started. I was running a combat where my players had to fight a wizard who did a fun little thing, teleporting his adversaries 501 feet in the air. The rules say you fall 500 feet instantly and another 500 at the end of your turn, so it's pretty funny to have a turn while exactly 1 foot in the air. They were level 18 and there were 9 of them, so you should feel bad for me, not them. Anyway, after a few goes of this, one of my players says that they'd like to jump on their turn. I say this is obviously ridiculous, but they say that technically there's nothing in the rules that says you must be on the ground to do a standing jump. I looked, and it turns out this is technically true. I ruled that they couldn't jump in the air by pointing to a dictionary definition that says jumping is pushing off from a surface and my players cried tyranny so I added a mythic phase to the fight, but is this truly correct? Can you jump in the air? Does this not open the door to fuckery such as double jumping?

To the unknowable and unstoppable Justices and the unfortunate and unnecessary baliff I bring you the case of the treeless forest. So there we are in Pathfinder, a dysfunctional orc family on vacation, travelling together through what our DM described as a lush forest when we are attacked by a griffin, which begins doing fly-by attacks at our party. As a melee alchemist entirely focused on juicing themselves up, I spent the first few rounds readying an action to swing my axe when the griffin dived into my range - which did not go off. While I did not have ranged options, I did have a comically large, magically enhanced strength and carrying capacity so I could carry our luggage - Thork had a 34 strength and was capable of lifting 41,000 lbs over his head when fully juiced. Wanting to be more proactive than standing still with my axe, on my next turn I asked the DM if I could look around the forest for a fallen log or felled tree, hoping to use an improvised weapon to get some reach. I was told there were none. No luck roll, no perception check, just not a single fallen tree anywhere in eyesight. Ok, that's fine - I asked if I could go to the nearest tree, and attempt to unroot it. No, I was told, I could not. No strength check, just a no. In 9 rounds of combat, I got to swing my axe a single time, which missed. Judges...I just wanted to roll a dice. So I ask - was my DM wrong to deny my requests whole cloth, or could I not see the forest through the trees?

To the esteemed justices and like the 7000th most famous person from CT. My wife and I are playing a Rime of the Frostmaiden campaign with two friends, one of whom is the DM. Justices (and Jake), we spent over 20 sessions, a real-time calendar year, at level 3. Our DM, perhaps out of a fear of railroading, does not signpost. At all. It got to the point where we looked up where we were in the source book just so we could move on from Ten Towns. All we did was confirm there was nothing left to do there (bc the DM sure wouldn't). We didn't look up any new info. I DM myself - alternating weeks and campaigns with our friend - so I have experience with giving the gang a little push when they need it and consider myself pretty good at it. Consider this a guilty plea for a potentially lighter sentence. Also, we're not sorry and will probably do this again.

To the grand justices of the court, Axford, Murphy and Tanner and the lovely lovely lovely, lovely lovely, lovely, justice Axford again. I present the case of Murder Hobos V. Aremag. Our online table had finished their first campaign (Shout out to the Gal Pals, saviors of Kendalia) and were gearing up for Campaign 2: into the scraplands. Our DM had introduced a new player to our group who played a two - shot with us and was going to join our long form campaign. They took their roleplay a bit more seriously than us but were more than welcome. The two-shot we played went really well so we were excited for a 4th party member. At the end of session 2 of the new campaign our party had repelled the invaders who were attacking the starting town and the new player, Aremag, took 3 of the bandits captive and told them they could work on our other player's ship to earn penance. They did not ask the captain if this was ok, mind you. After an insight check from the player who was captain of this ship they came to the conclusion that these guys would most likely betray us and escape at the first opportunity. Since none of the rest of us wanted to babysit prisoners we hadn't asked for we threw them overboard. To clarify we had just recently left the dock and the bandits were not tied up so presumably they could have swam to shore. Aremag took issue with this and said we would be roleplaying the consequences of this next session. That's fine, a little inside party conflict can be fun, right? Except the player kept sending messages in our discord chat telling us things were going to need to be discussed and that what we did was unacceptable and that we were all just a bunch of murder hobos. After about a week of this we finally just told him "hey man, it happened, can we just drop it?" Which caused him to call us all murder hobos once again and say that he couldn't play with us if that's all we were. Justices, and pioneer of web comedy, Balif Jake, I ask you: Were we murder hobos or did a paladin try to justify slavery as a punishment as outlined in the 13th amendment?

The the distinguished justices Murphy and Tanner, the Deity that is Emily Axford, and that one guy... Tim? I come before you to ask: Is my DM weird for turning DND into forced therapy or am I just overreacting? My roommate and I joined an online DND group in 2020 amidst the pandemic and have been playing with them nearly once-twice a week since. The group consists of the GM, his girlfriend, their friend from college, another guy (who is a story unto himself, but thats not for today), and us. I've gotten weird vibes from the DM from the beginning but to keep it short, (this is retroactive, I didn't succeed at keeping it short) he has been studying and training to become a psychologist in his state and recently has finished the majority of his work and is now, to my understanding, working on his dissertation materials. Around the same time as he began his last few labs he created a new game for us to play where he runs a rouge-like system, fighting through levels until you die and then get points and level ups and then do it again, but at the end of each run the characters go into therapy. To be clear, I am not currently playing in this as it doesn't align with my schedule, so everything that I hear about it is second hand from the other players. It was a fun idea to me at first, trying to break down the psychology of the characters we make. Then he started bringing in aspects of the players real lives and applying it to the characters. At the start my roommate and the other players would tell me about their discoveries for their characters and how cool it was. Now they talk about their characters but include the aspects of their real lives, sometimes the way they talk about it is as if they don't even realize that its actually themselves and the things going on in their IRL lives (i.e. one is currently going through an IRL loss of a close family member, now her character is going through the same thing. One player lives IRL in a care facility due to long Covid, his character started as a swarthy and lively chap but now he is kinda being put through the same things because the DM inflicted him with a disease "at random") I already thought all of this was weird just in general but also just with regard to the coinciding timing of him working on the data collection portion of his dissertation. Now recently the GM has been pressuring me to join the game with them and he has gotten all the other players, including my roommate, to join in. Despite my insistance on not wanting to leave the other campaign I'm playing with these people the DM has insisted I choose which of my former characters I would want to bring into his therapy game and he dms me on discord with questions about their mental state and processes of thought, he has even begun trying to include details from my real life that I'm pretty sure I haven't told to him. Judges, am I in the wrong for not wanting to take part in this weird psycological play where what I do and say may be included in a psycological study without my willing participation or knowledge?

To the Honorable Justices and the worm bailiff, Lowly - I present the case of the Marvel Menace. In the early days of our playgroup one of us wanted to try DMing for the first time with just me running two PCs. The practice session was fun and I agreed to another. What I didn’t know was that the DM invited a second player to the next session. I was nervous because my two characters were parodies of Marvel characters - funny for a one shot but far from what I would typically play in a full campaign. Of course, the new player comes in with Thor and Black Widow and a full campaign ensues. From there things only got worse as the second player created exclusively Marvel characters for all subsequent campaigns, one shots, and mini arcs in our larger play group. These PCs have not been well received at the table as we tend to play typical medieval high-fantasy adventures. Judges, I ask you - who must bear the blame for this superhero epidemic that has been going on six years now? Is it the second player for forcing his superhero fantasy into our forgotten realms, is it the new but overly permissive DM that enabled us, or must I make my way to a Dice Christ confessional and beg forgiveness for this superhero inception? Perhaps everyone is to blame and this case has no heroes after all. I leave the ruling in your capable hands.

To the effervescent justices and the completely flat, no-fizz bailiff Jeff, I seek a ruling on the interplay of Misty Step and Clairvoyance. In a recent session the party had to journey into an unconscious giant worm. My wizard walked around the outside of said worm, cast clairvoyance to have a lookie-look inside and then, on his next turn, attempted to misty step into the belly of the beast. The DM didn't allow it, saying misty step requires line of sight. I (and the party) argued that clayrovoyance says that "you can use the chosen sense through the sensor as if you were in it's space," and that as I was burning a 2nd and 3rd level spell slots and only travelling less than 30ft, it should have worked. In the end I relented and walked the long way round, but I'd ask the judges if they agree with our DM's ruling?

The Case of the Sleepy Palabarian. May it sensually stimulate the justices and absolutely rail the bailiff way too aggressively. For my first campaign, I had a large group with a wide range of personalities. The persistent problem was a human Paladin named Dovakhiin. For several sessions of combat, on a single turn, he would say things like “I swing my sword and chop through all three of their heads.” Or “I rip a tree out of the ground and hit him and send him flying like a baseball.” He even tried to start PvP. I tried my best to be accommodating but like I said I was new, I didn’t do the best job, and the party was becoming annoyed. Eventually the player expressed frustration with the mechanics and my rulings, so I pitched that Dovahkiin was behaving much more like a barbarian and it would be a much simpler class to play than paladin. He seemed excited. The previous session Dovahkiin had separated from the party “to blow off sexual energy”, so we started with him hallucinating and fighting a shadow version of his paladin self while he unlocked his Rage. The party was ecstatic, a couple even saying it had been their favorite moment of the campaign so far. Then we cut to the rest of the party to see what they were doing before the groups reconvened. About 15 minutes later, I called upon Dovahkiin…no response. Dovahkiin?…. We all checked in on the players camera and he was peacefully sleeping on his laptop keyboard. By the end of the session, Dovahkiin had fallen into a pit of lava. His player was subsequently told by one of the other players (his closer friend) that he’d been removed from the campaign. I no longer talk to the player and sometimes feel bad. He had been an annoying character and seemed aloof during sessions, but outside of play was always excited about it and I’ve been told he was genuinely disappointed about being removed. Were all the new player antics and falling asleep midsession really worthy of removal? Or did my party and I trample the bud of growing player? I prostrate before you.

To the justices I could grab a drink with and the bailiff that would successfully peer pressure me to shotgun a fourloko, I humbly present the case of the permanently partial party. Inspired by the great heroes before me, I knew I had to do whatever took to be part of a collaborative story. Even if it meant buying more books than necessary and ignoring them to steal Murph’s ideas but alas, when I thought I had everything I needed, I found that only two of my friends were able and willing to join a regular session. Until I introduced my coworker to NADDPOD and got him hooked. I couldn’t believe my luck! I asked my friends what they thought about inviting him to join us and one of them responded that he didn’t think this would involve interacting with strangers and is no longer interested in playing whether we invite my coworker or not. He seemed super excited about it and brought it up often before this incident so it’s strange this made him suddenly give up on D&D completely. Do I deserve to forever only wonder if I could be a good DM or does my buddy need to face the punishment of making new friends as an adult? I thank you for your judgement! P.S. Duck Team Sucks! Hate the show!

To the honorable justices and Micah’s little brother (not in age nor stature, but in character) I present to you the case of the abandoned crew. In a 3 and a half year long 9 person campaign which wrapped up beautifully a few months ago, I played Francis, the underwhelming captain of a rag tag crew of space pirates. About halfway through the campaign, Francis was teleported away from the party to face off against 4 other pirate captains for the title of pirate king. After his humiliating defeat, Francis sent a letter to the party resigning as captain and decided to fake his death and go into hiding. I ran my plan by the dm between sessions and he was on board. For the next 13 sessions the party was split and the dm (may dice Christ bless his soul) would go back and forth between 3 concurrent storylines with some players playing npcs along the way (another pc had split from the party a session earlier and was on a quest to find a home for her people with a new player that joined the following session) Upon reuniting with his crew, Francis had his prominent nose permanently broken by a brick to the face and was repeatedly beaten up in his hospital bed by his former crew mates. I maintain that this led to a more interesting story but some of my fellow players still razz me for splitting the party. This also started a trend for the rest of the campaign where, for one reason or another, the full party was hardly ever in the same place at the same time except for arc finales. Was I right to abandon my friends or am I a terrible excuse for a captain who doesn’t know the meaning of a collaborative game? I humbly await your judgement

To the Almighty Acolytes of Dice Christ and the guy that sleeps under the pew: I come seeking forgiveness. I was a part of an online homebrew mini campaign dm'd by a friend and first time DM, that centered around a lich that used forbidden magic to create a blight and make plant-infused undead. Towards the middle of the campaign, our party happened upon a field covered in vines. The DM called for a dex check that everyone passed, except for our tactician (homebrew class), at which point vines started to cover their arm. After the ensuing battle, the DM narrated that the blight had infected their arm and one of us would have to amputate it, after which the session ended. Acolytes, this left a sour taste in my mouth, but I didn't say anything. The following week, it was announced that our tactician was quitting the game because of their arm, and didn't want to retcon not losing it. I feel partly responsible for their departure as I didn't say anything or suggest another roll. I await your judgement. PS. We recently finished this campaign and it was the most fun I've had with d&d in a while. The DM also is planning on running another campaign in the future.

I do not know if I stand before the proud and honorable justices and their bumbling boy bailliff or the blessed and bountiful dice deacons but I bring to you the case of the accidental main character. While attending this year's comic con, I attended multiple one shots hosted by multiple incredible game masters, but more often than not I found the short story giving my character special importance. I never intended to steal the show, I simply wanted to play interesting characters who kept the story moving forward, so when presented with what I belived the game master presented as the plot device in the form of a alien antenna that showed me how to cure the city of radiation in a psychic vision, my super mutant stole it from the party who wanted to leave it behind, splitting the party in two for the rest of the one shot. Even when not making these big moves to push the story forward in these limited time one shots, I still found the plot revolving around my character's, such as the game which quickly came to be a plot around stopping a cult from destroying a piece of the chaotic storm god of my frog man cleric worshipped while I did my best Sol Bufo impression. While my little brother who played the games with me said he didn't mind, I still feel like I must have done something wrong by literally derailing the one shot as an amusement park obsessed wizard who skitched a ride a ride on an out of contol roller-coaster, so I ask you for either my punishment or my penance so that this guilt can be lifted from my shoulders.

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

To the honorable Justices of the Court, and Jake, I guess. We had a friend invite us (experience players) to help introduce a new group of players to the game, he had a built one shot he was sure we could get through in a 5-7hr session. Our characters all woke up in a dungeon with amnesia, nothing known about ourselves or our part members. The first part of the game was to "unlock" our characters. All of us playing separate storylines, with no cooperative team play... for 7 hours. At which point, the new to D&D players were cooked, us as experienced players were straight up not having a good time, and there is still about 8 hours of play time to get through the one shot. My question is this... are we the assholes for wanting to drop this campaign like a hot upper decker shit and run far far away? This DM is a long time friend of ours and we have been playing the 'schedules' game for a month now. This campaign involves my entire family, teenage kids included, who love the game, but just not this one.

To the honorable baby justices and the infant bailiff…jazz? I bring you the case of "Did I do that?" In my first campaign, our party reached a lone tripwire stretched across a long hallway. We each took careful approaches: some jumped, and I, the rogue, made the dex check to step over it. All clear. All's well that ends well, right? Well. I just *really* wanted to know what that tiny tripwire did. So from 80 feet away, I drew my light crossbow and asked to shoot the bolt. Rolled a 19, +4 dex, hit it on a 23. The entire dungeon began to shake. A pit yawned open beneath the tripwire and a banshee sprang out. We'd been endurance-running the place, so we were all below half health and only level 2, and we ran for our lives (the DM also winked that this fight would be a *bit* much right then). On the way out we sprinted past a room crammed wall to wall with treasure, but with no time to loot we bolted to the surface, where the exit sealed behind us as the dungeon crumbled. For our "short rest," the DM lovingly read aloud the full list of magic items we missed. I've been razzed for this for years, but I ask you, judges: what the fuck else was I supposed to do with a lone tripwire that was just *begging* to be fiddled with? We finished that campaign at level 9 and it was great, but I never lived it down. Am I truly THAT at fault? I move for some contributory negligence on my DM for putting a trap like that there in the first place. Also some eggs please.

Greetings to the Mighty Justices Urphy, Worm and TANNY(!); and a smile that doesn't reach the eyes for the bailiff. I bring the case of Bob Bob is my DMs univeristy buddy, and a fellow PC at the table. Bob is very funny and witty and, away from the table, an all round solid dude. However...Bob is also a habitual line stepper who will often 'overlook' the limiting parts in texts regarding spells, racial traits and class abilities and has been caught cheating on more than one occasion. After 3 years of play Bob has never read the rules and does not intend to but is fully prepared to argue with their DM about interpretations of rules and if they do not get their way will agrresively sulk or create a vibe kill at the table - as such, Bob often gets their way Bob has maniupalted their way into having a level 10 wizard with a shield, homebrew spells and Robes of the Archmagi My DM ended our 3 year campaign midway into the story as they suffered burnout and I secretly know Bob is a large part of this. Bob is also a player at my table as I started DMing 6 months into leanring D&D try releive the pressure on my DM running everything (and to say thanks). Bob has been allowed to stay at my table along with all other players from my friend's table becuase I am not a monster... and did not know better at the time. Bob is a huge pain in my ass and we clash more as I do not tolerate as much crap as my gentle DM friend but still let him get away with too much as people didn't give up their evenings to watch me argue with this tit. Bob has not been amenable to gentle discussion about course correction/table etiquette. Everyone now has varying degrees of beef with Bob. Bob has instead suggested I limit their ideas becuase I do not know how to handle their creativity and that their ideas are not world/game breaking if I really think about it. Bob has taken to insulting me to my face or shit talking me to other players. It is time for Bob to go but my friend cannot face that chat. I seek guidance from the wise and Jake P.S. hate the show x

To the milky pre-cogs and jom cruisewiz, I present a future case of future crime. I am part of a long-running curse of strahd campaign, which is usually hosted at our DM's house (his wife is also one of the players, so it just makes the most sense). They have a couple house rules they play with, which are all biased toward the players. One of the house rules is called "Hero Points." You get a certain number of hero points and you can spend one at any time to redo a roll, but you only get them back at level-up. As a devout follower of Dice Christ, I don't really like hero points, cos I want the chance to fail, but I figure I can just not use mine and the people who do think they're fun can use theirs and it's no skin off anyone's butt. However. I'm worried about the day when I fail some huge dice roll (reviving a beloved npc, interpreting a vital message, etc) and everyone is begging me to use a hero point. Judges, do I stick to my convictions and let Dice Christ tell her story? Or do I play the game my friends want to play where everything goes right and we always win? I am at your mercy to send to milky future jail or whatever happens in that movie, I don't remember.

Hay Y’all, Baby Jake too, from my Current Campaign with Vatre. At some point my Brother DMinstituted a B Squad Home-brew independent of NaddPod DnD court . And I think it’s a great way of letting go of the Anxiety of weather or not my character is the Perfet Fit for Party Dynamics or what ever. In fact Vatre is My second Character if the Camoaign and I made my first character temporarily His Fimilar ( she/they is a Sprite who used to Pilot a Goddess’S armour like it was a mech before we revived this goddess) I think y’all were right about the cabbage farming side quest aspect of it being too narrow of a veiw for this mechanic. Vatre Litterally Almosted Died fighting a Beholder Zombie out the gate. I doubt sidequest farming could ever be this Thrilling -Morgan(no longer a pirate but still wizarding)

Honors & ‘Liff: the case of bachelorette cattiness. I was playing in a one shot at my local game store where we were a band of thieves running a heist as a bachelorette party for our NPC bride-to-be buddy. The goal was to break into a vampire lord’s house and steal the true name of a demon goddess. Given the goofy nature of the game, I decided my character would be the bride’s childhood best friend who not so secretly hated the groom and was possibly jealous and in love with the bride. I hinted at this pretty openly, though did not do anything to sabotage our efforts in any way. At the end of the one shot, when we had procured the demon’s name, I asked if my telepathic warlock could speak the demon’s name and try to make a deal; the DM, a good friend of mine, agreed, and I asked the demon to break up the happy couple and/or ruin their wedding. The table laughed, save for one person, who immediately rolled to stop me from asking this; the DM stated she did not know this was happening as it was a telepathic convo and had already occurred. She stated “well out of character, I personally think this is disgusting.” The game ended awkwardly, as this person kept arguing to intervene and I just said “okay whatever, the game’s over anyway, let’s not roleplay this out”. Was I wrong to roleplay my moody jealous bff doing something silly at the end of a light hearted one shot, or did I deeply violate the sanctity of marriage?

To the personable justices and the pestiferous baliff, I bring the case of The Rogue vs The Railroad. I played in a campaign with a first-time DM and a lone wolf-type rogue. After our party was accused (wrongly) of kidnapping a local king's daughter, we were surrounded by MANY guards. The rogue had successfully hidden nearby beforehand, but as the King knew us and knew the rogue wouldn't be far, he called to them to come out or he would kill the rest of us. The rogue didn't, and the King demanded a volunteer party member to 'make an example of' if they didn't come out. My halfling druid had the most friendly relationship with the rogue, so I stepped forward and pleaded with them to come out. The King gave the rogue a final chance, which they didn't take. Thankfully, the DM changed the threat of death into amputation and my druid only lost an arm. The party (in character) yelled for the rogue (who still didn't appear) and the DM immediately ended the session so she could work out what happened next. When we asked (out of character) why the rogue had stayed hidden, she said 'its what my character would do' and said the DM was forcing her character into something rather than giving her a choice. The arrest was definitely intended to be a cutscene, but was this the DMs fault for forcing it, or the player's for not putting her character aside for the story momentum? I await your judgement

To the honourable Supreme Crit Justices Axford, Murphy and Tanner, and also Jake, I guess, I present the case of the surprise baby. For the last two years (since early summer 2024), I have DMed for a party of three good friends and my partner in our online campaigns. I have been friends with everyone in this group for at least eight years, and when I suggested we all play together, I was super delighted that everyone immediately got along. We were more than a year into our second campaign, and the party’s Alchemist Artificer, who is chronically late to everything, missed a couple of sessions. We missed her a lot because she is a truly fantastic role player, but it was nothing too unusual, and nothing we couldn’t work around by just focusing on other PCs for a while, so no big deal; we posted the next planned date in the group chat and asked her to confirm whether it would work. A few hours later, she texts me (and keep in mind this is a dear friend who I’ve known for eight years) to tell me that unfortunately she couldn’t join the session because she “just had a baby last week”, and could we possibly just work in a reason for her character to sit out for a while. Esteemed judges, she had not mentioned once in the last nine months that she was pregnant. Am I right to be at least a LITTLE MIFFED as her DM that she didn’t give me a heads up to think of an elegant way for her character to be absent for a while? I had to make something up on the spot about how her character left town so her servants could remodel her house! I eagerly await your judgement. (PS I truly love her so much and she is one of the funniest people I know so there are no actual hard feelings here but come on!)

Deacons of the Dice Church, but especially Father Tanner, I come seeking the Bless spell of Dice Christ and your Guidance cantrips. I am preparing to run Course of Strahd, and although I have taken much of Father Murphy's DMing advice to heart, I can't help but be a little nervous. It will be my first time as a DM, after only being a player since the beginning of this year. I worry that I won't meet my players' or my own expectations telling the story, or that I balance an encounter poorly and accidentally kill my players whose stories are deeply interesting to me. Any and all advice for running this campaign is welcomed and deeply appreciated. Thank you

Please forgive me, Dice Christ, for I have sinned. On Mother's Day last week, I was DM-ing a game for my mom (a teifling druid), sister (an orc fighter), and my sister's boyfriend (a kobold wizard), all level 4. My sister's boyfriend cast Dragon's Breath on my mom's Raven familiar, ala Bukvar and Fia style, as they had done before, to help in a fight against a zombie golem. However, my mom sent him a little too close to the golem with a 10 ft reach, and as it attempted to fly away, it provoked an opportunity attack; any hit from this thing would kill this bird. It hit... Or did it? I fudged the attack roll, exclaiming that the bird was very lucky that I was rolling so badly. The next round, as the PCs were either hiding from the necromancer they were fighting against or distracted by the mage apprentice on the other side of the map, the zombie golem didn't see anyone but the poor bird that had just unleashed its ice breath, so... I took another swipe, and it hit, again. And I fudged it, again. "Geez! I can't roll for shit when I'm trying to hit this bird!" The next round comes, and my mom sees her familiar in trouble, attempts to help, but there wasn't much she could do in the moment. Her attack missed, and in my mind, the INT 2 creature would try to hit the thing that hit it last. I went for the bird. I rolled, and the poor raven was unceremoniously swatted from the sky. After the third hit, I couldn't put off the attack any longer. Ultimately, she can resummon her familiar, and it made for a good story moment for my mom, but I pray the Dice Christ can forgive me for not wanting to kill my mom's familiar on Mother's Day. What say you, Deacons of the Dice?

​If it may please the most stellar justices, and their gas giant of a bailiff, Planet Jake; I come to you pleading for direction and perhaps some divine punishment for those who have wronged me during my journeys traveling the stars. ​In a homebrewed 5e space campaign, I play a sensible and charismatic Astral Elf Wizard, currently banished from his home planet and seeking to restore his honor. While exploring a desolate world with my party, a strange storm rolled in, enveloping us in a veil of magical darkness. Naturally, the planet's inhabitants used the cover to spring a surprise attack. ​I rolled a Nat 20 on initiative and, on my first turn, cast a 5th-level spell called Alustriel's Mooncloak. It creates a 20-foot emanation of dim light alongside some helpful benefits, though triggering its main action ends the spell early. Unfortunately, due to the brutal enemy surprise round, our cool-guy Leonin pilot, Jax Boeing, took a massive amount of damage. ​On my next turn, I immediately used the spell's special action, Respite, to heal Jax up. The DM, however, completely shut me down. He ruled that the magical darkness negated my 20-foot emanation entirely; because the dim light couldn't exist inside his darkness field, no one was technically in the area of effect. To make matters worse, he ruled the action still "happened," meaning my 5th-level spell ended instantly with absolutely zero effect. ​Justices of the stars... Mr. Boeing fricken died. And I feel like it's entirely my fault, because I explicitly told our actual healer, "I got this." ​I ask you: Do I deserve to continue my exile, my honor fully tarnished? Or does our dark-loving DM deserve a "light" ass-whooping? I firmly believe that a 5th-level magical light should be able to exist in magical darkness. I humbly await your judgment.

The Daddy Killing Patron To the incredibly badass judges and the plain bad bailiff Jared, I give you the case of the patron-less daddy killer. There’s a lot to this case so I will keep it as brief as possible. I played a sea elf fathomless warlock of a noble background with a surfer/stoner vibe and a distrust of authority. She’s at a school to get away from her overprotective parents who sent her there with a necklace of sending. (I have explicitly said to my DM I am excited to play this class and that I did not want an evil patron.) During their adventures, my character was given a flute by an evil entity. Not wanting the responsibility, she destroyed it. As she did, her patron began to scream into her head something about freedom and “destroying all the sea elves”. Concerned, my character decides to use her necklace of sending to call her dad to ask if he knows anything about her patron. When she contacts her dad in a FaceTime-y way, her dad screams at her that she has doomed her whole city by destroying this flute. Turns out that destroying the flute resulted in her patron being released from the plane her city elders were keeping it. A tentacle then rose from the water and skewered her father. (Keep in mind my character saw all this in a “Facetime”.) My character ran to the headmaster of the school to get help and he opened a portal to her home city which was being destroyed by my character’s patron. Suddenly, my patron got sucked into the sky without any explanation. My DM then turns to me and says I’ve lost all my warlock levels and had to choose a new class! He stood there smiling at me waiting for my answer. He was surprised when I said my character killed herself and then I quit the campaign. He quit DMing this campaign after this because he “got bored”. So I ask this of you judges, was I wrong to be miffed and should have waited to see where the cool storyline he supposedly had planned went or did I have every right to be upset? I await your humble ruling. PS sorry if this confusing. I had to condense a lot.

May it pleasure the most Supreme of Courts and tickle the bailiff’s fancy until it wets itself… I present the case of the Bullseye Druid! I joined a campaign my partner was in with her friends, who I didn't really know. The DM was running the same module with another group and thought it would be fun for both parties to race to retrieve a special amulet for a town festival. Each group ran separate sessions through an underwater grotto, using potions to breathe. At the start of the joint session the DM made it very clear that no one would be allowed to die from PvP. Our group was not allowed to make stealth rolls even though we ended the previous session having Pass Without Trace up. Our rogue got the amulet off a giant shark and I cast Invisibility on him. The DM's husband in the other group said, "Focus fire the Druid [me] to break concentration" even though his character had no way to speak underwater. Their party of 6 players proceeded to ignore the shark and take me down in one round, though I held concentration and the rest of my party dashed away with the item. We ultimately "won" but I was salty as the sea. Your honors, should we have gotten to make stealth roles against the other players’ perception? Should the DM have stopped the table talk to uphold her "No PvP killing" rule? I await your ruling with potion-baited breath!

To the beautiful elegant judges and the Bailiff DJ Jazzy Jake. I bring you the case of the fearless tremor sense. I am a player in an old west inspired game. Last week we were engaged in battle against earth elemental worshiping monks. Our paladin/sheriff used her aasimar ability ,necrotic shroud, to afflict them all with fear. This forced them to roll with disadvantage as long as they could see the sheriff. Our DM then narrated them all shutting their eyes attacking using their tremor sense to negate the disadvantage because, “if they can’t see the target of the fear, they aren’t affected by it.” Judges, what is tremor sense if not another mode of seeing? Should we have been able to whomp the monks even harder than we ended up whomping them? I leave this judgement in your manicured hands.

May it please the Jazzy Justices and NOT please the bleached blond bad body bailiff bitch boy baby Bake. I present to you the case of Lost Stakes v. Monkey Wake. During college, I was running a homebrew campaign for my friend group. In the first arc of the campaign, the barbarian's friend was in town and asked to sit in on our session, so I gave him an inconsequential NPC to play in combat: a Biddy (freaky little stupid reskinned gnoll witherlings used as minions). We'll call him Biddy Bad. In the combat, the monkey artificer, who was the newest to DND and a little less engaged than the others, went down. At that moment, our guest announced that Biddy Bad had created a philosophy called "Anarcho Biddyism" in which "All Flesh and Blood Belongs to Biddy." He then brutally tore open the chest of the knocked-out artificer to cause two failed death saves. The artificer went next, and failed his final save. The artificer loved his character, and I was worried that if I let him die in a random anticlimactic combat, he would lose all interest in the game. So I narrated his soul leaving his body and encountering a powerful spirit (the secret BBEG) who bartered with him to restore his life if he would free it from its chains. This was a cool moment, but the catch is, I had already done it once before. Another player almost died in an earlier combat and was saved by the spirit in exchange for killing a key friendly NPC. I had intended that to be the sole use of this plot hook. After the monkey artificer was revived, the fighter said "Damn, I guess we really can't die in this campaign." Am I at fault for deflating the stakes of our game? Should I have let the artificer go to monkey heaven? Or would it have been a worse fate to let a new player die at the hands of a rando guest Biddy doing a bit? Am I just bad at balancing combats or was Biddy Bad out of line? I prostrate myself before the mercy and fury of the Supreme Crit.

dear judges and also jake, i bring you the case of the remorseful womping. in 2018 my group at the time had just finished our first campaign, and we wanted to do our second campaign with the same characters but giving someone else a chance to DM (the first mistake). i played a purposely unoptimized hexblade warlock that took pact of the tome and mainly used eldritch blast reflavored as magic arrows and a dip into paladin for ranger spells like hunter’s mark. during our first session my DM stopped everything in the middle of our first encounter to ask me “wait, why do you have half plate medium armor as a ranged fighter? shouldn’t a hexblade be using a sword?” and made me rewrite my character sheet in the middle of the session. because i was a shithead teen and did not have the emotional maturity to think “this is weird, i should dip” or having grace for a first time DM, i instead made my character into an absolute min-maxed nightmare. i had advantage on every attack through darkness/devils sight, and three attacks per turn with pole arm master boosted with hexblades curse and double smites. it was an awful sight. because our second encounter was balanced for our original low damage party, my mid session rebuilt character absolutely chewed through was was supposed to be a primary villain. the rest of my party still had fun and were excited about the womping, but the minute the deed was done i felt remorseful for taking up so much spotlight and going shark eyed on my friend’s first time dming. so judges, am i absolved for absolutely (rules as written) going to town like a spin attack bloodborn character because my scholarly warlock was made to be reworked mid session, or are there no heroes here?

To the high clerics of dice Christ Axford the Awesome, Tanner the Tenacious, and the Holy Baliff Hurwitz! (and murph) I come seeking absolution. I was a DM running one table in a multi-table D&D epic for Free RPG day at my local library. My players (level 3) were defending a small hamlet from Hill Giant attacks. The adventure was written for 4 hours, but the DMs coordinated to shrink it down to the 90 minute time slot for the event. The fight was nearing its end, and my parties Druid laid down a spike growth all around hill giant, which will only harm him if he moves. With 1 minute remaining in the session, my parties cleric cast Command “flee” on the hill giant. I knew that if the general failed this would be an awesome moment to end the session, and I put my faith in dice Christ and rolled “in front of the table”. However, the general rolled a natural 19 and succeeded just as the coordinator announced “30 seconds until dice down, then the fight is over” Clerics, Baliff, murph, in that moment I committed a heinous sin. I had already rolled in front of the table, and the hill giant had clearly succeeded. However, I told my players “regardless of the roll, the hill giant general is affected by your command and flees, eviscerating his remaining hit points on the spike growth” The table (mostly new players) cheered and celebrated as the epic adventure ended. However, I fear I have put doubt not only in my heart, but in the hearts of these new players who may have learned “well I guess the dice don’t really matter” Please condemn or absolve me of my sins

The Song For Nothing To the esteemed Jurists of the Supreme Crit, and their cabana boy Jork. I give you the case of the Song of Nothing. My friends and I are playing Wild Beyond the Witchlight, and during our last session before the Carnival elects a Monarch (think Homecoming King), I snuck off, and my very selfish and egotistical Chamgeling bard sang a song in disguise to try and get all of his friends (but not himself) the crowns. I rolled a persuasion check, which got me a 28 in total. As part of my roleplay, I had even written a song for the occasion, and shared it with the party. However, when it came time to reap our rewards, only one of our party was elected Monarch. I was given DM inspiration for my deeds, but no crowns for my cohorts. The DM said it was because only one person could win the crown. Why let me roll for it then? Judges, was I wronged? Should all of my friends have gotten a reward? Or am I being a greedy little goblin and should be happy with my Inspiration? The reward for winning the crown was pretty minimal. It was more about me trying to create cool moments for my peers.

Dearest Sweet Justices of the Crit & Jill's favorite roommate jake, This is from years ago, early in my ttrpg life. I was playing in a Star Wars one shot, & our crew was just told to retrive a data card. & I playing a force user decide to mind trick the person & say "you mean this data card". Now Justices I admit that this is insane & I only did it because I thought it would be fun to use my powers. So I roll & apparently roll well. Because the DM goes, well there goes my entire plan for the session, with clear disappointment. I feel kinda bad at this point but don't really know what to do, we play for a little longer but the session kinda fizzles & the DM seems a little upset. Was I in the wrong? Or should I simply have been told that it made no sense for my jungle man with the force to have had the data card? I humbly await your judgement (P.S. I say apparently rolled well because the system we were using had "D6" but without numbers)

To the esteemed Justices and Bailiff Japes, I bring a civil case before you and seek in-game damages. Almost four years ago, I joined an online dnd game with friends from college. I played a fuckboy barbarian. One friend also brought her current grad school friend (J) to the group, who the rest of us didn't know yet. He played a tortured emo bard. Over the first real-life year of the campaign, my barbarian and his bard developed a bromance that they eventually realized was a full on romance. J and I also hit it off above the table and we started dating long distance, visitng each other around once a month. Fast forward to six months ago, our DM went on paternity leave. In the last session before his leave, it was revealed that the bard's loyal cat was actually his older brother, cursed into cat form. We broke the curse, and his much hotter and more powerful older brother Ricard emerged. Last month, J dumped me totally out of the blue and left the dnd party group chat. We have been considering resuming the campaign, and here I seek the court's opinion on appropriate in-game resolution. Justices, how do we narratively remove his character? Second, I as the plaintiff seek permission for my barbarian to fuck the hot older brother. I also ask that the defendant pay damages in the amount of "skyping in for 10 minutes while I make the DM narrate a steamy sex scene with Ricard." I humbly await your ruling.

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.  

Dearly beloved Justices shining brightly down onto the lowly Bailiff JNCOs, I lay at your feet a case of involuntary PVP Way back when I first started playing I was in a Mutants and Masterminds game with my then partner (the DM) and some friends online. I was playing a bug themed superhero who was just a silly little guy. Early in the campaign the party was infiltrating an enemy base and trying to rescue hostages. The main villain that the DM created for this scenario happened to have mind control themed powers. In the first round of combat, my character was taken over, and the DM proceeded to take control over him for the entirety of the battle using him to hurt and hinder the party while I just sat there and couldn’t even play. I did not get a single roll to try and break out of this for several rounds and it only ended when the other PCs managed to kill the villain! It sucked. Should the DM suffer a punishment from the court??? I think yes. P.S. I have a new DM/partner now who is rad and awesome and we have the best dnd group ever and it rocks so that’s good

Dearest Justices of the Crit, and Bailiff Jake who clearly has a tattoo of Jeremy Irons from the 2000 D&D movie, I humbly present a homebrew rule for judgement. Upon rolling a Nat 1 for an attack roll, the player or DM rolling has to roll the D20 again. This second roll determines how severe of a failure the initial Nat 1 becomes: A 20 makes it a regular failure, A 19-10 means you drop your weapon and have to pick it up next turn using your object interaction (risking the enemy trying to throw it further away in the mean time), A 9-2 means you lose your grip on your weapon/component pouch/etc and it lands half your movement speed away from you, or something equally inconvenient such as using your bonus action to re-string your bow, A second Nat 1 means your attack an ally. Having used this as a DM, I have had the double 1 happen only three times, once to our Warlock, who eldritch blasted our Ranger, which led to a lot of laughter, and twice to me, both times in a boss fight, causing the BBEG to swing, miss, and hit and kill a minion. Much to everyone else's laughter XD Personally I like this rule as it makes a Nat 1 even more worrisome, but I would love to know how the court would react to this rule, and if in the courts' opinion this rule should be banished?

May it pleasure the court to completion while the bailiff holds the camera. Herein lies the story that lead to me deciding to never DM again. It was about 12 years ago, I had started a Diablo themed campaign in which the party gets sucked into the treasure goblin world travel nexus via an animated magical chest named Chesty. I had them all roll as they entered to determine their individual resilience to the mind distortion effects of the goblin world’s temporal and metaphysical manipulation, which would dictate how well they would remember getting reset to the moment they entered on failing a certain puzzle (only the third puzzle would do this by the way). By some unholy act of the Dice Devil, they all rolled natural 1’s. I was stunned because it meant that behind the screen all their characters would not remember anything on a reset. This was only my second time DM-ing ever, so I started to sweat a little when they reached the third puzzle. Part of the puzzle required them to roll a dex save to dodge a magical cannon that resets their day Groundhog Day style when they get hit. At this moment the Dice Devil decided he wasn’t done with me just yet, as on their rolls for the next 3 times they encountered this puzzle, judges I shit you not, they all rolled natural 1’s. I could tell they were not having fun after that 4th reset, so I apologized to them, the campaign ended, and I swore off DM-ing for good. Judges, should I have just scrapped the puzzle or was I right to end it there and let the Dice Devil win?

Honorable justices, I come not with a case but a confession. I plead guilty to the dwarf slaughter of the beloved cleric, Bumbo Thunderbeard. I'm running The Shattered Obelisk, and the party is currently in a dungeon populated by abberations and the undead. My crime was a two-step accident. First, I replaced a difficult, thematically inconsistent hydra encounter with the more on-theme encephalon cluster - a creature I thought would be an easier fight because it didn't have regeneration or more than two attacks a turn. I didn't notice the part where the cluster had an instant kill effect if it dropped a creature to 0 HP. Second, in the room before that fight, I presented treasure in the form of armor that gave the undead disadvantage on attacks against the wearer. I oversold the armor because I really thought it would help them in later fights, leading to Bumbo wearing that instead of his magic armor that prevents critical hits. Fast-forward to combat. The encephalon cluster goes last in initiative, is already bloodied, and only has Bumbo in melee range to target. On it's turn, it lands two hits on Bumbo - the last of which is a crit. I had to narrate to everyone's surprise and horror - including my own - how the cluster swallowed Bumbo whole and left nothing behind. The player opted not to revive Bumbo so he could play a barbarian instead, who we looped into the campaign as Bumbo's estate lawyer coming to fulfill his will. This was an accident caused by my own negligence as a DM. I humbly await my sentencing.

The Return of Clunky! To the benevolent Justices and Jaculable Jake. I have erred. In my eagerness to be told "good job" at following the brevity request, I failed to provide an example of Clunky's rollless success skill. At one point in our campaign (Tyrrany of Dragons) our party was inside a walled city that was surrounded by an army of cultists. In order to give the party and city time to set up defenses, Clunky volunteered to parlay with the general of the cultist army. During the meeting Clunky thought it would be smart to try and get the general to switch sides. He asked what the general was getting paid. He said a man of his rank should be getting top dollar and that his party offers competitive wages and has a fantastic health insurance package along with matching retirement contributions. The DM gave the "hah that's awesome." and proceeded to narrate the general explaining to his fellow cultists that he needed to talk to someone in the city. He and Clunky then booked it inside the gates before they realized he switched sides. All of this happend without a single roll. While the wage and benefit structure is good, I don't think it is auto-success good. I beg the court for forgiveness for my incomplete initial submission and ask again, am i wrong in wanting to roll for these and have chance impact the story more? I humbly await your ruling.

May it please the court and the bailif Jake, I present the case of the involuntary unarmoured paladin. In my second campaign I played a paladin with a rogue, a ranger and a warlock. Due to a dispute with a local official (we had when intoxicated stolen things - while we never decided to drink as it was only narrated to us that we did after we were refused payment for a fulfilled quest and went to the tavern) We were thrown into prison with the execution set for the next day. We tried all things we could think of but escaped through no means of our own as a guard let us out. The guard had managed to grab all of out things including my paladins family shield except, the rangers bow and all other bags except my paladins chainmail as it would be to noisy to risk bring. We did not have the gold means to replace it, and even though we had smithstools in the group we lacked the materials to make a new. I disnt mind at first and tried my best with my 13 ac (-1 dex, borrowed leather armour and shield) but this remained a running issue for 7 months in our bi-weekly campaign while none of the other players suffered any such penalties from our prison stay In the end my paladin managed to be lent metal peomising to pay after the newest quest and made her own chainshirt after four months, as a substitute, until we pooled all our funds to buy a new one and all of us players were tired of having the main melee character going down every single fight. I sincerely considered multi-classing for second wind or rage as in this time we levelled up twice. Are we right to think that if one pc gets vital equipment taken away they should have the means to replace them within a resonable time, or were our (former) dm right in keeping it away to raise stakes? I humbly await your judgment

Dearest Honorable Crits, and lowly balif who may yet be less lowly than I, 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 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)!

Most Honored Justice and Esteemed Bailiff, I bring to you a case of a DM turn DJ. I'm playing my first ever campaign over Discord with folks I've met online. 5 players and 1 DM. All new people to me but there are groups within the party that know each other. (I'm playing a Rogue based on being a distant Vantasmo cousin!) Our DM plays music throughout our sessions, mostly video game osts or movie scores, and they slap! I'm a big fan. HOWEVER, every now and then, our DM gets inspired by a moment and pauses everything to "find the right song." We've only had 3 sessions and this has happened 10 times at least. Judges, he does this like a Tim Robinson characters. He makes a scene: huge gasp, goes "wait wait stop! I know the perfect song for this!" , and frantactically searching online. The DM could take anywhere from 3 to 7 minutes to find the right track (often skipping around long youtube videos or spotify albums to remember what song he's thinking of) and won't let us role play or even talk amongst ourselves because he "won't be able to remember the song with all the chatter." He even kicked our Druid out of the call for for chatting to the party IN CHARACTER about her feelings in the moment. That didn't fall over well with the Barbarian (the Druid's irl friend). We have brought up this weirdness to our DM both in the moment and after sessions, but he claims "it's worth it for the sick ass music" and isn't open to changing the way he runs the sessions. The kicker is that the music our DM picks actually DOES make the moments feel awesome. We've even asked as a party to "run it back" and loop a song because of how well it fit our emotional beats. Lines are being split across the party on whether or not the music is worth the weird pauses. And it seems to be drawn by who knows each other from before the campaign or not. I, being the only new member, am catch somewhere in the middle. I've heard enough Supreme Crit case to know this is strange behavior but also don't want to rock the boat after wanting to play DnD for so long. Judges, I'm at your mercy. What is the solution to this bizarre situation.

To the supreme Crit and Bailiff Jake (or add something mean if that’s what we’re doing this time): I present a case of questionable NPC (former PC) death. Okay here it is: We have a 2014 5e campaign in which we are thieves attempting to infiltrate the Strixhaven campus to steal an item. We took on aliases as a way to infiltrate the college without raising any suspicion and also had an NPC advocating for us as a “notable alumni” of the university. This NPC, named Jason, was a favorite of the party and, mind you, a legendary dragon slayer. Jason was ALSO the first DND character I have ever played, as I did not have a character sheet when I joined this campaign, which added more to the sentimental attachment to the character. Another player joined our campaign during this session, coming off as a bright eyed and bushy tailed student entering their first year of college. At the end of the session, however, when we all parted ways for the night, this new player went off with Jason. They stopped to watch the sun set on the main bridge on campus. As they did so, this player used Puppet from UA, to make Jason walk off the side of the bridge, thus killing himself. Judges, we ask you, was it fair for the DM to allow this to happen, when there’s no way Jason could have failed this roll with the stats I know he has? (Thank you for your wisdom)

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

To the honorable justices and jorts, for the longest time me and my friends (been gaming together for about a decade now) have had a 'meets it beats it' rule in regards to player rolls vs. NPC rolls. Recently, I had the idea that it could be fun to introduce roll offs in that situation where the player rolls against the NPC in front of the table for a nice dramatic moment. I proposed the idea and told my players they could vote on it and after the final votes were tallied, roll offs won! The problem though is that I introduced this idea mid session, right after my friend (our other forever DM) had just rolled to meet an NPC roll. My friend had voted against the roll offs, but was still willing to participate since the table had decided. I went to go get a tray to roll off into when my friend announced "I got a 19." Judges, I trust my friend with my life, we have fought together hammer and axe through the end times. I know he got a 19. But he didn't roll in my big tray in front of everyone. I told him, I'm sorry but you have to roll in front of us, in the tray. He said "No, I'm not rolling." I said "You have to reroll, or you forfeit and the NPC wins." He said again "I'm not rerolling." So I then narrated the NPC seeing through his lie and continued on with the session. Justices, I kinda felt like a dick. He rolled that 19, it would've been hard for this NPC to beat it. But I wanted to be a dramatic bitch about it, I wanted a suspenseful roll where all the players eagerly stared into my box lid tray in the center of the party. Was I right to try to make him roll again, or was I being a DM Dictator focused more on the moment than the mood. I ask the punishment please be elaborate, cruel, and harmful. P.S. we all are good and he never said anything about this, just feel guilty P.P.S. Hate the show <3

To the honorable justices I bow before you and to the bailiff I try to dap you up please don’t leave me hanging cmon man. I bring you a case of alleged DM favoritism A few years ago my friends and I were reaching the end of a 4 year long Homebrew Campaign and due to decisions made by the characters we all agreed and thought it’d be fun to end the campaign with a PVP 3 on 3 where myself (Drakewarden Ranger) another player and a DMPC (Artificer and cleric) would face off against 3 other players (homebrew vampire paladin, necromancer with a dragon familiar and a min-maxed sorcerer bard who’s only goal in life was to stun.) if this sounds slightly unfair you’d be right but we had one thing, my +3 vorpal sword. The battle begins and the sorcerer bard cast telepathy on my character to disarm him and throw the sword into a pit, I fail the save. However the DM allowed my dragon familiar to use an opportunity attack to try and grab the sword on which I rolled a nat 20. The player then complained how that’s not fair and stood up pointing at me yelling “DM’s PET DM’s PET” over and over which really killed the mood of an otherwise cool finale Justices was this justified? Was the DM trying to keep my team’s one ace in the hole fair or am I just DM’s special baby boy? P.s we don’t play with the sorcerer bard player anymore for other reasons and also agreed beforehand the vorpal sword couldn’t one shot on crits for fairness.

To the honored justices who rule with excellence and precedence and the bailiff who looks like he could use an extra coffee this morning, I bring to you the case of the court-side conundrum. I wanted to try my hand at DMing after losing my old D&D group, so I got together some high school friends, who I’ve had a fantasy football league with going back 9 years, to be my players. I should say, we were in a Discord call since 2 of us (including me) lived far. I wanted to do theater-of-the-mind anyways, so after months of trying to schedule, we finally set a date earlier this month. There’s just one problem. This night just ended up being Game 7 of round 1 for the NBA playoffs. I scheduled this before the playoffs had even started, let alone knowing our local team would get to Game 7. Basketball isn’t any of our big sport, so I didn’t think it’d be an issue. Except it was, justices; without telling me before, at least three of them had the game on in the background (on mute) during our call. And all they wanted to talk about in character was the medieval game of the cavalier knights (Cavs) against the dinosaur-like lizardfolk (Raptors), which I canonized as a joke to try and keep their attention. Within 20 minutes, though, the party insisted on going off to find a casino to make bets about the game and just to watch. Knowing I lost this battle, I relented and let them. When the game finally ended with us all watching in a Discord call, I tried to usher them back into the tavern and remind them of the NPCs. But they were hopped up on winning a game 7 and were still a bit aimless, but were finally moving the plot. That is save for one player, who after a while made a comment about someone scoring a HOCKEY goal - meaning they turned on a playoff hockey game (which was game 1 of the series) right after - and not even for his main team. Which sucked, because his character had the most in-depth backstory and I trickled in little things for him to bite, which all got missed. So justices, and bailiff if I must: am I wrong to schedule a game during playoff season? Or do I need to cater to my audience and just not have any D&D until July, to avoid any conflict with a big game? PS, I’m afraid for the fall, because the only night that works for each of us is Sundays. And that would mean Sunday Night Football would be in the background for all of us, which I won’t know how to schedule around and it’s making me worry.

To the Joyful Judges and Bailiff Bake, I think that is what you do. I present the case the Negative Nancy. I've been running a game of dnd set in a post apocalyptic world where civilisation is larger under ground and nobles pay adventurers to go to The Jade Expanse to seek and return magic items and expensive equipment from a by gone era. But I have this when player lets call him Nancy who constantly complains that the players get too much magic items and that they need more attunement slots and who I am ruining the campaign with these items. But judges he also complains when monsters don’t have any rare and fancy magic items as well as saying 'if I don't get a reward whats the point of playing'. so Judges I ask you do I remove this player from my table or do I try everything in my power to appease him? P.S. he is an older player and I don't know if that is a factor a play to his attitude towards my game.

To the most honorable judges, and also the bailiff who’s name I forget, I present the case of the min-maxed cleric. I played in a One Piece inspired campaign where we all created our characters with certain “crew roles” in mind. Out of us 3 there was a swordsman, a captain (myself), and a doctor. The problem arose when the DM allowed us to take extra feats while designing our characters to fit in with the setting. The swordsman and myself took feats to increase our durability and provide some extra maneuvers in combat. Our Doctor, however, took five dips into one single feat: Amplified Attack. This feat lets him roll an extra 2d8 when he deals fire dmg with a spell. He took this feat for all 5 of our extra feats, since it could be taken more than once, for a total of 10d8s on every fire spell. He also took no healing spells or skills and repeatedly talked about his plans to “nuke enemy ships” and “torture our captives and cauterize their wounds.” Judges, am I fucking insane or should our party’s only healer put a few points into healing? P.S this campaign lasted all of 2 sessions and I never got healed once. The DM wants to start it back up but we’re still not sure about inviting that player back. And for Caldwell, the Doctor also wielded the Flame-Flame fruit

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

Good morrow honored Supreme Crit Justices and bad morrow to my close, personal friend Jeremy. I come to you today to present the case of too many campaigns. I’m a part of an eight person group that has been playing together for four years now. For our entire time together there have been two DMs running two campaigns in their personal home-brewed worlds and we have maintained a pretty stable schedule of one session a month for each campaign. We are coming to the close of both of their second two-year long campaigns and have been talking about the ones they want to run next, but Justices, I want to DM too! I’ve been floating myself running a Strahd campaign that transports some of their previous characters into Barovia and de-powers them (imitation is the sincerest form of flattery Justice Tanner) for about 3 months now and everyone is on board and excited in the abstract. But as we turn to new beginnings I worry that there isn’t room for me at the DM table. The simple reality that I live the furthest (2 hours) from our designated DnD house coupled with the fact that all of us in the group are working crazy hours just to get by makes me think that a third campaign just isn’t in the cards right now. Justices, should I pursue this campaign to start next month alongside the beginnings of my normal DM’s new campaigns? Should I wait until Halloween and use the Death House dungeon as a one-shot that might roll into a longer term campaign? Or should I try to get closer to my work friends and start a new, more casual group closer to home? I await your holy judgement with baited breath, may Dice-Christ be with you always~ PS - give that rascal bailiff a purple-nurple for me~

To the mighty, handsome and Lean Bailiff and the filthy greedy Justices Durph, Pumely and is it Togwell? I come to you with a case that might cross into a Confession. I fear that i the dm for my group commited a sin as a player. I played a rightous Paladin, Durphy Style, and wanted to smite for a lot if Damage so i interpreted the Ruling of Great Weapon Master that on every damage die i roll 1s and 2s turn into 3s not only the 2 d6s from my maul. Did i Powergame to smite harder or did i read the rule correct? I himbly throw myself into the strong arms of the Bailiff

To the beneficent justices and their dutiful bailiff Joke, I present the case of the Bullywug Who Wasn’t. Some context: a few years ago I ran a 5e campaign for some friends. Late in the campaign (after 2 years and 100+ sessions) my cleric asked if her BF Dan could join. I said sure, but Dan turned out that he was also a DM with a lot of opinions about how I ran the game. He clearly wanted to take over as DM and convinced the cleric (his gf) and the monk that he’d be better than me, citing his background in acting and improv. The sorcerer (my partner) and I wanted to finish the campaign that we had nearly reached the end of, but we were outnumbered and my campaign ended prematurely so his could begin. I was sad naturally, but I endeavored to be a good sport so I rolled a character I was excited about: Foggy Bumppo, a Bullywug barbarian. I talked to Dan about the folksy backstory I’d written for Foggy but after our discussion, he told me that “he had an awesome idea to add to my character’s backstory, but he wanted it to be a surprise.” I said sure- he had hyped up his abilities as a DM and storyteller, so why not? Cut to session four of this new campaign, where it was revealed that my character Foggy wasn’t who he thought he was. He found the corpse of the “real Foggy Bumppo” and discovered that he wasn’t even a Bullywug, but a human who had been experimented on the look like a Bullywug and also implanted with the original Foggy’s memories. I was devastated—I didn’t want to play Frankenstein’s monster. The game seemed to fall apart shortly thereafter when my friend and Dan briefly broke up, and when they got back together and tried to restart the game, I opted not to rejoin. I was then accused by the monk of being a poor sport, saying I must still be salty over the way the previous game had ended. Justices, was Dan in the wrong for drastically changing my backstory without my permission? Or should I have been a better sport and trusted Dan’s storytelling abilities? I await your judgment.

Id really like more tortle tank, 8-bit Book Clubs, and surprise rounds. I love DND court, but I'd also really like to see more of these other programs that made NADDPOD so special

Greetings to the honorable judges and the little bailiff boy Jorsh. Allow me to be the first to present the case of DM versus ChatGPT. I am the DM for an online game I’m running with my college friends, who are all new players, as a way to stay in touch post graduation. In the game, the bad guy is using an item to mind-control animals, similar to the trident in the Moonstone Saga. The Druid cast speak with animals and rolled a natural 20 persuasion to tell a swarm of rats to stop biting them. With the natural 20, I straight up told her that the rats were being mind-controlled so there wasn’t much use in persuading them to do anything. They’re rats. Later in the combat, the ranger speaks up and says “I put this into ChatGPT, and it agrees with you. The rats would still be compelled to attack us.” I was so dumbfounded. I immediately gave him disadvantage on his next roll for using ChatGPT, and people immediately started yelling at me! The rest of the session was fine, but I could tell that the ranger and some of the other players were bitter about my decision. A few of us work in social media marketing and are being aggressively encouraged to use AI at our jobs, but if I wanted to play dnd with Chat GPT, I would. Judges, please vindicate me or at least punish my player for forcing me to listen to what AI thinks of my DM-ing. P.S. any advice about telling my players to not use ChatGPT during our future sessions would be greatly appreciated

Jubilations, Generous Judges and degenerate Jak-jak. I present to you the case of the money stealing DM. In our first campaign, we came across some sort of illusory simulacrum of a now-dead wizard, who asked us to help finish the illusion-made-real machine, left incomplete upon wizards death. Our Wizard and Artificer rolled really well. We tested it on an illusion- a stack of platinum bars- and It worked. Then it worked on Wizard Guy. He was finally a real boy. The problem: we left and headed back to town. When we were informed our money was disappearing, half vanishing every 10 minutes. Then, a random devil guy with cliche mustache appeared from a PCs watch for some reason, did not much, and left. Then we make it to bank, and strike up a laundering deal with bank teller- just for devil guy to push her in bank portal and lock himself, her, and the money away. It’s been YEARS. In game and real life. The bank is still out of commission. I ask you judges, what the fuck? That sucks, right? Please give us the justice we feel we deserve! For the record, the platinum bars started at dr. Evil levels, worth roughly 1 million gold. It was down to around 100k gold by time it was in bank. But we were in the Icewind Dale! There was nothing to spend it on anyway! Second, we have played online for years and often play in the same world, with either the same characters or members of the guild those original characters formed, So the money could still be impactful.

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

To the High Justices of the Supreme Crit, and that scalawag bailiff in his little boots, Jake me boy, I bring the case of “the blunderbusted hustle”. Imagine a January evening in Buffalo, NY, a blanket of snow on the ground and the boys are ready for a fight! I DM a Ghosts of Saltmarsh campaign, and my 3 players were lvl 6 during the events of this case. Our Dragonborne, unarmed fighter/warlock was on the card for a one night only “brawl at Brook’s Landing”, the bar that our undead skeletal Bard had named after him in life, and now performs at as his main means of income. Our half-high elf Storm Sorcerer was helping Brook to collect bets, and placing a hefty wager of the party’s money on our Dragonborn to crush the competition. Guys. Our boy did it! With his feat improving his unarmed strikes and a couple lucky rolls, Malleus the Dragonborn came out victorious. Everyone was pleased, but the new owner and operator of Brook’s landing, who was furious. The party knew the bar owner was taking bets of his own, but didn’t know how poorly he had done until the end of the night. As the bar cleared and the night closed, our bard and sorcerer were counting their winnings at the end of the bar. The owner, who is used to a rowdy crowd was also counting his money… with his blunderbus on top of the bar next to him. The place clears out and the sorcerer notices the bar owner’s disappointed face and asks, why he was upset? The bar itself made a lot of money that night. The owner replied, “MY BAR made a lot of money, MINE. so why don’t you both get out of MY BAR.” The sorcerer answered, “Brook’s the one with his name on the sign, so it’s practically Brook’s!” Click Clack, BOOM. I announce the owner(Kragel Frock) pulled his blunderbus up and shot the sorcerer in the face, roll initiative. My player replied, “WHAT! HOW?” I said he had his piece on the pine next to him and was quite obviously pissed off with the results of the night, and you said the wrong thing. He gave me HELL for the rest of the session saying he didn’t get enough warning and it wouldn’t have gone down like that. I did go through the proper procedures and initiative after the first shot. The players whooped Kragel’s ass and the session continued. Justices, am I ok to get the first shot here? I await you swift and righteous justice.

To the honorable justices, and the other guy I give a knowing, but respectful, nod to. I bring you a case in which justice Murph will get righteously angry with. I am a player in an online discord campaign with a couple of my friends. We are in my character (Frog Cleric) hometown, and go to investigate a nearby bandit camp to find it already abandoned. As the party sprints into town, the DM asks everyone for everyone to roll perception checks. The Aasimar Paladin, doesn't say a word. We continue on, assuming that she is running to the bathroom or getting a drink. Finally, my Cleric rushes to his home, where he finds his wife dead in the road and his kids in the rubble! After giving my all to this scene, where i was actually crying while playing, The DM asks for initiative. The Paladin never says a word. Session ends, and shortly after, like 10 minutes of after session talking, she leaves the current call and joins the one with her boyfriend without saying a word. After, when the DM asked her what happened. The paladin explained that she was tired, fell asleep mid session, and texted the DM’s partner to see what she missed! Are my DM and I right to be peeved? I await your judgement with a gleam in my eyes.

To the honorable Dice Dieties, Murphy, Axford, Tanner, and Hurwitz, I offer my tale of the Spell Stock Deception: I was a cleric in a high-level campaign and the DM asked me for the spells I had stocked. He seemed to have taken express interest in me having taken “See Invisibility”. I figured this was a hint that it would come up soon. Five sessions had passed with multiple combats and it had never come up, so I stocked different spells and took off “See Invisibility”. Sure enough, we later get to the lair of a Hag and are in an empty room. He looks at me expectantly and after we had all failed perception checks, I said I cast see invisibility, which showed a hidden gate in a wall that led to a dragon’s lair. Please accept my request for penance. I await your judgement and hope for mercy.

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

To the honorable crit justices and the very very very handsome balif jakey. I was asked to join a a campaign in progress with a close work friend and his current party he dms for. I was given pretty strict rules with character creation and background creation. But once it was all put together it was time to play with them next session. I was given knowledge about the party had been cut almost in half because of not wanting to switch online due to covid. Not a big deal, I understood. I was told I had a specific connection with a player character because I had ties to the same secret organization in game. DM thought this would incentivize that player since the other player character in the same organization left the game. I try to role play pulling his character to the side after my character notices the secret sigil tattoo of our hidden group. Barely an effort. It was like I was rude for even speaking to him. I brush it off because I don’t want to show up and ruin a campaign party. We then had a huge combat where we all got to get our butts into gear. At the end of it somehow to this day I don’t know how, the cleric that didn’t want to play at this point gets squashed by an ogre that fell from the sky. The dm kept us in combat order and did everything in his power to not let us help the cleric. Everyone was very upset and vocal. “WHY CANT WE HELP HIM” said a player. The dm stayed silent and kept narrating. The player decided in the middle of this session that they wanted to kill off their character. MThe dm was trying to make it happen and did. Everyone in the zoom call was livid. To this day none of us have spoken about that campaign or each other for that matter. Justices, was the DM’s way of going about this right? Will I be allowed to play a bard gunslinger named Peter quill ever again?

May it please the court, and tickle the fancy of Bailiff Jake. I am running a Spelljammer style campaign for an amazing group of players. The party had just arrived at a giant asteroid belt hub where I had carefully prepared faction politics, NPCs, lore reveals, and future story arcs. Then a friend joined as a guest player for one session. The guest was fantastic, the roleplay was great, and everyone had a blast. Their character delivered an important lore reveal exactly as intended. The problem is my players reacted in the most chaotic way possible. Instead of slowly investigating the mystery, the party got involved with pirates, caused several arrests, stole the pirates’ ship during the chaos, and fled the asteroid belt while being chased by the main government faction of the campaign. Essentially, my players heard one dangerous truth and immediately chose “grand theft spelljammer.” The asteroid hub was supposed to be a slower political arc where they built alliances and uncovered secrets over time. Instead, they skipped directly to “interstellar fugitives” before seeing about 70% of the content I prepared. My question for the court is: How do experienced DMs get a campaign back on track after a guest player or unexpected event completely derails the pacing and direction of the story? Do you redirect players toward the original narrative, move important content elsewhere, or just embrace the chaos and rebuild around it? For context: everyone is still having an amazing time. I just feel like my players skipped from episode one straight to episode five, missing the info dump in episode three.

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, seemingly unable to 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 ok, 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..." and it broke my heart In the sessions since, there is a lingering menace on their dice that troubles what should be "easy" rolls, especially if there is advantage Oh wise Council of Dice Christ Cardinals, please help me atone

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.

This one might be too heavy or real, but I did want to throw it out there. To the magnanimous judges and bailiff jonk honkwitz, I come to you with a personal conundrum. I’ve been with my D&D group for the last 7 years, all friends from college/high school that I’ve known for at least 15 years now. We’ve done several great campaigns via Roll20. The week after finishing our last campaign one of our players and friends unexpectedly passed away. We continued with the next planned campaign, but our weekly group has only been able to connect three times since we finished our last campaign in November. Things have not quite felt the same since when we have been able to play, and I’m struggling with wanting to continue. However, this has also been how we stay in touch and has been great to keep us connected. Am I guilty of a crime for even considering dropping the campaign, or are extenuating circumstances a strong legal case for feeling less awful about this?

Bless me Dice Disciples for I have sinned. It has been 20 tormented years since the events of this confession. At the tender age of 15, I inadvertently ended a campaign when I quit because....well, essentially because my fighter wasn't cool enough. I can recall neither the rolls nor the reasons leading up to my leaving, but I remember the breaking point well: when MY strength check failed to save an ally teetering on the edge of a cliff but the FUCKING WIZARD pulled him up. I couldn't take the embarrassment. I left and the campaign ended. Dice Christ has walked beside me through these past 20 years when I have played any other class but a fighter. In my most recent campaign when we hit level 16, I - a full Life Cleric - briefly contemplated multiclassing into Fighter...and then the DM abruptly ended the campaign citing familial duties. Oh wise Disciples of Dice Christ herself, please, tell me, when will I have paid my dues for my 15 year old table flippin' 'tude? When do I get to be.. A super bad ass fighter in a D&D campaign?

Howdy judges - and “hey, I guess” to that guy who keeps showing up to court and reading out loud during mmm lthe proceedings

Forgive me O disciples on high, for I have sinned! A few weeks ago, in my second ever DnD session, we were in a living forest fighting a very impish old druid, called the treefather. My halfling rogue got a nat 1 for initiative, which I, being arguably lucky, rerolled and got another 1. I immediately and gleefully rerolled this as well and got an 18, for a total initiative of 22. I quickly realized I couldn't actually reroll the second nat 1, and should've stuck with that for my initiative. To my great shame, I said nothing. However, I had been rolling extremely mid for the entire 6 hour session so far, I missed practically every single attack, rolling very low damage on my hits and failed almost all of my stealth rolls. After my unchaste 18, I started rolling really well, critting several times both on attacks and saving throws and doing tons of damage. Honorable justices, did Dice Christ bless me or did I accidentally enter into a profane deal with the Dice Devil? Is my soul lost or can I be forgiven? I am on my knees awaiting absolvement or damnation as you see fit.

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

Dear radiant justices and the bailiff who always seems to try really hard and doesn’t that just make it more sad. I come to you today with the case of the calendar puzzle. On a road trip I was driving and “dming” a story with some friends, using an odds or evens mechanic rather than rolls (I was driving after all, and it wasn’t a planned session). The puzzle I came up with was a four digit code for a door based on a npc’s birthday (May 15, 2000). I cannot stress this enough, this npc was very French, complete with over the top accent and ending sentences with a hon hon. When putting in the code, they guessed the obvious 0515 and 2000, but then were stumped, making random guesses, all met with a red light and a “wrong code hon hon” (Pause if you want to guess the code) The code was 1505, using date conventions of day/month/year found outside of the US aka France. Out of the 3 people in the car, no one was able to guess it for some time, requiring multiple hints. I ask you judges and bailiff Chuck, was this puzzle too hard or do I deserve to find out what happened at a little place called Mangias. I await your wise and just ruling. Troy G.

If the court is pleased and the Bailiff has sneezed, I would like to present my case of the abrupt one-shot ending. I got ABSORBED dnd incredibly recently by binge listening to a couple hundred hours of naddpod. This means I’ve heard murph say at least 5 times that I’m basically a master dm and so I organised a one-shot with some friends that understood less about it and made sure to make their characters with them to help. During the game however, I’m sure it’s not a new feeling but there was a sense of disconnect from the players playing, the characters being portrayed by myself and the fights themselves so during the boss fight, seeing my disassociated players, I began to skip rules and fudge a few roles to finish the game quicker (I’m a dice Christ atheist) I felt this was the right decision because after the session, my players didn’t really talk about the game and switched the attention to something else My question is, 1. does the problem of engagement fall on the player, or the dm? 2. Was I maybe way too invested and overlooking their enjoyment because my energy was unmatched? I humbly await just judgement

For the beautiful boy and my best friend, Job, and for the trio of terror, I bring you, the case of the every class (and subclass) class. A few years back, I attempted my first ever campaign as a dm. It was with a group I had been a player in, but the DM wanted a break, so I stepped in. I asked all my players to come up with characters and backstory and I said that I would allow some homebrew, it just would have to be approved by me. Well, one of my players, a very passionate player, took this as that homebrew was 100% on the table and proceeded to create a “wizard” character who had the ability to, at every rest, change classes, and at every short rest change subclasses. He also had come up with a (admittedly cool) long and complicated backstory he had spent a week writing. I was charmed as for being a first time dm, having a player so invested in the world was amazing, but I told him that the idea of the character was just too overpowered. How was I suppose to plan encounters if he could just change who he was at every rest? He promised to not abuse the power, and he had already been working on all 13 character sheets and said he would not make him too powerful. I put my foot down and told him no, and he began to ghost me on discord for a few nights. I will admit, I do believe he would have tried to make it fair, but I found it far too overwhelming for a first time dm, and it also just felt… wrong. He came back with a real character, a monk who was very cool but I could tell for the whole campaign that he was disappointed not to play his wizard of many faces. So I ask you, was I right to destroy my friends passion project of a character, or should I have let the chaos of the multi class-class into my game?

May it please the Honorable Crit, Justices Murphy, Tanner, Axford, and Baliff Jill’s Husband who sometimes pretend to eat cake, I present to you the case of docking in town with Penial cancer. I play in a game with friends of mine in a world inspired by the Witcher. While rescuing a town from a cult that was turning the townsfolk into fish horrors, one player became infected by an enemy with a scarab in his back, a la the Mummy. The DM made the player roll for the number of days he had before consequences of the infection took place. Fast forward a couple of sessions, our group sailed to a to the closest town and was boarded before we could dock by the guards. The player with the scarab was in his cups this session. A bit buzzed he ranted about how we needed to dock and not pay the fee, it was urgent. He claimed to the guards his ailment was “dick cancer.” Bewildered, the DM made him roll a persuasion check. Natural. 20. We made it into the town, and everything is fine. But now the player does not like it when we meet new NPCs and the rest of the group informs them of this players recent diagnosis (the actual scarab has yet to be cured and the player has roughly 10 days in game to solve it). I humbly ask the Court: should we stop razzing this player for his outrageous claim, or should he have had more tact, regardless of buzz? We humbly await your decision.

Hello Frankly Sexy 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.

May it please the wise, noble Justices, and the probably AI Bailiff, I present before you The Case of the Unreasonable Teleport. Years ago, I had my second dnd group in the final battle against a librarian devil in hell, blackmailed into service by another powerful Archdevil. At the last minute, our flaky druid cancels. I’m despondent — but my girlfriend suggests her younger brother could fill in. Against my better judgment, I agree. Now, before this, I ran my very first dnd campaign, including my girlfriend and her teenage brother, playing an Orc Outlander Barbarian of… questionable temperament. As a naive DM, I let him get away with: killing an important quest-giver NPC, claiming as his Outlander trophy the penis of a drake, and distracting a prison guard by… enthusiastically entertaining himself in his cell. Shockingly, the campaign did not survive. Fast-forward back to the finale, and to my surprise, the brother is mostly fine! He's a little edgy, but nothing too insane. He wild shapes into a bear, helps defeat the devils, and the party proceeds to the Archdevil’s lair for their well-earned reward… when Bear/Brother climbs atop the desk and defecates upon it. In disgust, I had the Archdevil instantly teleport the entire party away — no rewards, no answers, no closure. Justices, was I justified in banishing the party to bed without dessert for one player’s sins? Or did I dish out collective punishment for the crimes of campaigns past? I await your sagacious ruling. Sam the Weary DM

Our dice daddies who art in the celestial plane, I come to you with a confession of a jealous manifestation. I have been listening to Naddpod and other ttrpg actual plays for close to 8 years. In college, I tried many times to get my best friend to listen or watch some with me, as I found enjoyment in the format and thought they would too. However, they said they "don't like listening to people just talk," and I left it like that. When I would talk about it in passing, they would again brush it off as being disinterested in D&D as a whole, and I accepted that I would never get my college friends along for a game. It has since been a few years since we graduated and we live in different states, but they told me a few months ago that their home friend would be running a campaign with them. I immediately had to subdue the immense jealousy I felt. In all these years, I had never gotten enough friends interested enough to play even a session and now I knew they would be playing without me. However, my true confession is that I fear my envy may have manifested in a malicious way. One of their party members will not be able to play for a few months and others are moving soon, and the campaign will probably end unsatisfied. My friend is upset about this, as they were beginning to really enjoy their character and mechanics, but there is now a possibility that their game will move online and I would be able to join from out of state. I throw myself at the feet of Dice Christ for feeling jealousy towards my friend and for the future sin of benefitting from their campaign falling apart. I accept what punishment he sees fit.

To the glorious justices Axford, Murphy, and Caldwell, and the stinky no good 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 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 a moment that had to be earned. I spoke to the DM and explained my thought process and they agreed, and stated this would be saved for bigger moments down the line. In a session a short while ago (a few months on from the last incident irl, only a few weeks in game) 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. 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 whether you should just role with the punches or - if something is core to your character - you should speak to your DM about saving it for later down the road. 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

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

May it please the court, and the glorious bailiff Jake Hurwitz, This isn't a case I just want to honor the sixth anniversary of Hardwon action surging on a naughty pistachio. Thank you for your service.

Dear humble, beautiful, resplendent judges all your hair looks really nice today! Oh and yeah they extremely…’something’ bailiff Jerry. I present the Case of dying for the 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.

To my good friends Justices Axford, Tanner and Brian, and also jake Hurtwirtz - bike thief, i know it was you. I bring you the case of the misplaced prize money. A couple of years ago i took it upon myself to organise my friends bachelor party after the best man failed to do so in time. With limited time and resources, i prepared a pirate themed one shot, i made dinner for everyone (ramen, from scratch), i bought an expensive bottle of scotch and cigars, and to round the night out, a Super Smash Bros tournament. I presented this plan to the group chat and added “id appreciate if anyone is able to chip in any money for dinner and drinks” - this is foreshadowing. One groomsman said he would put up some prize money for the smash bros tourney. The night went well. The players chose from characters I had prepared, while the groom played a swashbuckler rouge, with added legendary actions that allowed him to control the pirate ship and command the npc-crew. I even bought him a captains hat resembling Luffy’s strawhat from One Piece. At times, i was DMing while preparing dinner, leading to the best compliment ive ever received “i dont know how you made a meal that good while DMing a game that fun”. However in classic dnd fashion, the game ran long and there was no time for the smash bros tourney. The groomsman who offered up the prize money had to leave, and as he did pulled out his wallet, produced the 50 Australian dollars intended to be won, and handed it to the groom with a ‘congrats mate’ and promptly left. Justices, i thought he was going to give those Australian dollars to me. No one chipped in. To make things worse, one groomsman is a chef, but i made dinner. One guy worked at a tobacconist, but i bought the cigars. Justices, in lieu of a smash bros tournament, who should have received 50 Australian dollars, me or the groom? Ps. If you’re lost for a punishment, may i suggest lethal injection.

Dear justices of the most supreme variety and the supreme pizza bailiff Jake. I bring you the case of i want to use him more. I am in a pokemon campaign and the dm has this weird thing where he throws enemies at us but wants to use them as plot devices later. He actually said I plan for you to see this guy 5 more times. We will be battling then suddenly his pokemon are just batting moves away and nothing can hurt them and the enemy gets away and the dm just says I love this enemy hes your arch nemesis. Lots of us players have pointed it out but the dm doesnt care should we just let the story be told cause I love the other elements of the campaign or ask the dm to nit put enemies in front of us he wants to get away I will take any punishment you deem fit should I be an unworthy submitter

Confessional: Exalted emisarries of DiceChrist, I come seeking absolution & salvation from the apathy which has gripped my heart. I have DM'd a 5e table of 5-6 players for 10 years now over Discord & FoundryVTT, with 2 players having been here the whole way & the current group for about 5 years now. Aside from common sense & table manners stuff, the only rule I've always enforced is "if you want to join, you have to promise to see through the current plot you're involved in before you leave. If you can't do that, you can't come play." 1 year ago, we were 3 sessions away from the current 4-year campaign's finale when one of my players said she couldn't play anymore. It began as "take a break", but then grew into "I'm not playing again, period". Knowing that without her the campaign finale would never come as the other players (one of whom is her husband) wouldn't do it without her & it'd feel off even if they did, I fully broke & borderline-begged her to reconsider: 3 sessions for the finale became 1, I & the others bargained to control her character for her so she could just hang & chime in for RP, but it was all to no avail. She said she couldn't do it, and so the finale never happened. A year has past, and frankly I've had a hell of a glow up. I quit the job I hated, I moved closer to my bestie & opened a café/vinyl cocktail bar where I work 10x more than before but love it, and I've even made a new group to play Pathfinder/Starfinder 2e with bestie & an in-person table as a spiritual sequel to the last campaign. It took a while, but I reached a place where I'd made peace with the campaign finale never happening. The art we commissioned was still awesome, the moments we had still incredible, and while I didn't speak as regularly with the players, we were all still friendly enough. Then, on my birthday a couple weeks back, the player that quit told me—plus all the other players—that she wanted to finish the campgin & play again. Deacons of DiceChrist, this is why I come to you. For as excited as everyone else got, I found myself pretending to be happy about the news. In truth, I was a little annoyed & a lot numb to the announcement. It meant revisiting a lotta feelings I'd processed & packed away, and having to deal with all the burdens of DMing (I love it, but it's still work ya know). Yet what can I do? My players are thrilled, they're all excitedly talking about how great it is we finally get closure for this story, and they see a path to our group reforming to keep playing. I don't want to tell them that I already got my closure, that I did the age old advice of "make new friends & play with them". I accepted the tepid end, and was content to leave it all in the past. Now, I can't even get excited about doing it again. They all expect the grandiose finales I'm known for. The harrowing encounters, the heart-wrenching scenes, and the gut-busting laughs we've shared countless times. As I read my notes though, I don't feel it. I see the excitement in my writings, but I just feel... apathy. So I come seeking absolution for my apathy. DiceChrist has given me that which so many other DMs beg for: a chance to finish what we started. How can I accept this gift with the jubilation it deserves, and drive the shadows of luke(warm) reception from my heart?

Oh great powers that be- Madame Axford and Messieurs Tanner and Murphy (and panko crumbs hurwitz)- I seek forgiveness. I think I’ve cheated on my dice with myself. You see, I am a forever DM, but was invited to play in a two shot with some friends as a PC. This is the first time I’ve been a PC since before the pandemic, I was SO excited- I made a badass water genasi tempest cleric, made a thorough backstory, I even drew a full color portrait of her… the whole nine yards. I got to the session, and I’d never rolled such dog shit. Now- an off day happens, (shout out to murph), but when I next DMed for my regular group my dice continued to roll dog shite. I fear I never consulted with my dice and told them we’d be taking a brief departure, I think they are quite upset with me. I’ve now played four sessions and my dice seem to have abandoned me in my time of need. I am begging. Dice Christ- my players can’t keep whomping me like this, I seek your forgiveness and will to anything to reconnect with my dice, (fantasy) lives are at stake.

To the Exatled and Omnipotent Lords and Lady of the Suprmeme Court, and to the guy whose job could be outsourced. I come to you with the Quandry of Couples. Our group is normally made up of 5 people for anonymity we're Optimus, Bumblebee, Jazz, Elita and myself. Two of the group Elita and Jazz are in a romantic relationship, and are an established couple. Now Elita and Jazz weren't perfect, as our group starred playing one-shots they would bring these busted tandem characters those synergy would ruin any chance of a balanced encounter, but we made do and had fun This dynamic use to be fine, until recently Optimus started dating. Now Optimus's girlfriend has joined a few of the one-shots and the tension is palatable. Its a weird couple adversarial feeling, with snide remarks and straight up antagonistic moments where a one-shot did not get out of the starting tavern because they refused to co-operate with combat almost issuing if not for Bumblebee. Theres many a time where Bumblebee and I, who have a homoerotic relationship purely for the sake of comedy, will look at each other in pure amazement at the yotal lack of co-operation on display. To summarize, the vibes are off and the Straights are not doing okay. I now throw myself at your feet and beseech you. How do I deal with these couples that are at loggerheads?

To the Priceless Supreme Crit Justices and Bailiff Junk, I present the case of the Baldur’s Gateway player. I play in a queer in-person DnD group with people I met doing oneshots. We have different experience levels and comfort with RP, but it has been a great way to make new friends. Except we have one player whose only experience with DnD is from Baldur’s Gate. During combat, the player will stop to quiz people on their subclass abilities, particularly if they weren’t in the game. And the kicker is, at least during the last session, they were playing Baldur’s Gate on their laptop during our in-person session. Justices, is this just a new player’s training wheels or should the laptop be banned?

Greetings honorable messengers of our beloved Dice Christ. I present to you a confession that has been weighing heavily on my heart. My uncle was a dnd player ever since he was a kid (in the 80s), bought every magazine he could and was an absolute nerd about it. He sadly passed away when I was ten and not that into Dnd to his utter sadness. Years later the dnd fever finally struck me, I went into my grandma attic and gathered every thing he had. In there, I found a box with his “favorite stuff”, maps he designed, wooden sculptures of characters he made and a set of metal dices. Probably the first he had. Ever since, I brought the d20 everywhere with me, every exam, every first day of school, every job. I would roll it like once or twice a year before an important event and more often than not, I would get a nat 20, and I would always succeed in whatever the roll was for if it landed on a 20. A few weeks ago, I rolled it before something deeply important for me, got a Nat 20, and realised a little piece was chipped from the dice. Just above the 20. Panicked, I tried the salt and water technique to see if it was unbalanced, but the dice being too heavy, it didn’t work. Tried every single tip on the internet to see if my beloved die was weighted but none worked. So I present to you my heart and my pleas , is Christ Dice messing with me ? Have I been wrong this entire time thinking they were by my side ? Should I stop rolling it and force Destiny with a cheating die ? Should I honor my uncle and keep rolling this maybe-cursed-die ? Have i been unbalancing the universe for years and will I suffer great consequences ? Thank you for hearing my confession

I present myself on hands and knees adjacent to the holy arbiters of dice Christ to beg for her forgiveness. I am a long time DM and I fear I may be misusing/mistreating the glorious 5e as a system. I run an ongoing dark western southern gothic campaign and it’s been going wonderfully my players love the world, their characters, and the NPCs and I too am having a great time. My sin comes in the form of the many sessions we spend in a row with zero combat, normally this wouldn’t be an issue but in those combat free sessions often the only check rolled are persuasion checks from my players (which I don’t even properly contest I simply vibe out a DC after they roll). Oh glorious representatives of dice Christ, do I deserve her forgiveness? Or should me and my party find a new system? (p.s. I was at dungeon court Chicago and at the end Emily threw her gavel right into my lap, so if our star crossed nature could earn me some forgiveness points I would really appreciate it!)

The Case of the Leftover Chips Dear Superfluous Judges and Awesome Baliff James I present to you the case of the leftover chips I have been playing with a table of friends that I have known for years and joined their home game about a year ago, we meet every other week on Sundays to play and it has been good the problem lies in our snack assortment. Each player is expected to bring a snack/drink that the majority of people would enjoy to each session that way we have an variety of things to enjoy. However our human fighter lets call him John has had issues with this, he has been bringing the big boxes of individual snack chips but when they are not finished or only the sub-par snacks are left (Funyions and Fritos) he claims that he should not have to buy snacks again until all the chips are gone as they would “Last longer than most snacks”. We have had some heated arguments about this and I wanted to ask for your opinion on our Snack Squabble. I put myself at the mercy of the Crit

To the wise and honorable justices and to the bleak and terrible bailiff, I bring to you the case of the illusionist wizard who wouldn't take a damaging spell. During COVID, I ran a campaign that had two two hour sessions every week. One of my players played an illusionist named Ara and when selecting spells chose not a single damaging spell. That's fine, I thought at first, illusionists have plenty of non-damaging tricks to help out in combat. The problem was that Ara would only cast haste on our barbarian and do nothing else the rest of the combat. This would've been fine if not for the fact that he would complain that my combats were boring because he couldn't do anything. I would remind him that he was the one who chose not to take any damaging spells. I offered for him to change his spells but he refused and continued to complain about my combats. Eventually, I gave him a homebrew ability that made Minor Illusion into a damaging cantrip by causing psychic damage and the complaint let up a bit, but Justices, should I have had to do this? Or is Ara just a whiny wizard?

To the dapper and dashing Deacons of Dice Christ and the alter baby himself, I come to the house of Dice Christ on behalf of my friends to pose one question. Why 11? After the Radio City Music Hall live show, my friends and I went out to a local bar and met some other naddpoles while there. We all talked about the live show and what an amazing time we had. Many people at the table purchased the NADDPOD D20 Set at the show and were excited to break them out at their next sessions. One of our friends, Lis, decided to open hers up and roll in front of the table. Two 10s and two 12s, averaging an 11. Not the best rolls, but nothing too out of the ordinary. Weeks after the live show, my regular D&D group met for another session. Three of the four of us were at the show and our DM, Blake, also got a NADDPOD Dice Set. When seeing what dice were rolling hot before the session, they rolled their new dice set and rolled an 11 on Every. Single. Die. The day after this session, I was talking about how crazy and ironic this situation was with another friend who attended the live show, Annie. She offered to roll her dice set and see what she’d get. In her rolling, she rolled two 11s. She rolled some more, getting a myriad of numbers across the map, but when averaging the rolls, that number was an 11. Clergymen, why do these specific dice keep rolling and averaging 11s? Is this number of some significance to Dice Christ, or is there some penance members of the congregation can do to bless these dice with better rolls? I await your judgement in the front pews.

Honorable Priests of Dice Christ, I bring to all of you a confession. For the last two years, I have been running a campaign for my partner and three of our friends. All of these great people share one, not-so-great, character trait: They are all VERY forgetful. Hoping to counteract this trait, I now open every session with a NADDPOD-style recap, have provided each of them a brief lore cheat sheet, and have gotten into the habit of printing/laminating custom item cards for every single item they get. During a recent session, my players asked to loot a dungeon that I had forgotten to prepare loot for. So, I rolled random loot using a generator I found online and began spouting off what they found before actually reading the descriptions of the items myself… One of these items was the Gauntlets of Ogre Power, a wondrous item that instantly boosts the wearers Strength score to 19. Our three friends all have decent strength already (18, 18, and 16) so they offered the gauntlets to my partner, a Warlock, knowing she loves loot and has a low Strength score. My butthole clenched in this moment as I realized this would make Strength her THIRD stat sitting at 19. She ALREADY has 19 Con and 19 Charisma due to rolling three 6’s TWICE during character creation (for real, I rolled them myself and she yelled at me when I tried to nerf her). So… not wanting to give my partner the ability to womp me more than she already does, I did something treacherous… I simply did NOT make an item card for the gauntlets. As hoped, and expected, the next session went swimmingly, as did every session after, and not a single person has mentioned these gauntlets and my partner’s strength remains a lowly 12. However, I can’t help but wonder if I have sinned against dice Christ by taking a page out of my players book and “forgetting” something to make my life easier. Forgive me, I beg.

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

(if used please use the pseudonym Franklin T.) Honored Justices of the Crit and the Jailiff Bake: I am an experienced DM introducing a table of new players. They are so eager to play that we always schedule our sessions well in advance and are constantly able to play. One of the players even hosts the sessions in their much better house than mine. This is great! This case is a bit more about behavior above the table, though. Less than 24-hours before the session, the host player (let's call him Doug) texted me asking if I could help with removing a TV mount and also installing an entirely new lighting fixture. Judges, I do happen to be a skilled worker in those regards, and I had even installed the aforementioned TV mount before Doug decided to rearrange his living room. I demurred, saying that it was a lot of work to prep and run a session and would rather focus on the fun time we were all looking forward to. But I felt bad that I refused to help an otherwise helpless lamb in need. Judges, was I right to say no to free labor that included electrical work, or should I have been better about helping a friend out?

Hello. I need help. I play dnd with my sister and her friends. I play a way of mercy monk who is a doctor. She is blunt and rude and has little to no beside manner. Our Cleric finds this aspect my monk hilarious. He also keeps a quote book for his favorite lines from the campaign and over half of them are from my Doctor Monk. The Problem is the Paladin. Whenever he adds something I said to the quote book, the Paladin gets loudly jealous and interrupts the scene to spout one liners in the hope he adds them to the list. I need to clarify, I am not making any jokes on purpose. I will be acting in character and get interrupted by the Paladin saying something barely scene related before she turns to the Cleric and asks if he will add what she said to the quote book. It’s to the point where my Monk will be in a completely different scene than the Paladin and she will have her character interrupt and just announce she’s been there the whole time. She doesn't do this to any other player besides me. So what should I do? I don’t want to make anything awkward because these are my sister’s friends and I don’t really know them. I love my monk and despite this I’m mostly having fun. How to I handle this situation? (Info for Caldwell. She is a monkey. I am playing a Monkey Monk named Tupperware who is a licensed medical professional)

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 ?

May it please the crit. To the most beneficent justices and the probably-drinks-mushroom-coffee bailiff, I present to you the case of the un-Druided druid. Way back in the day, like 10 years ago, I was brand new to dnd and started a campaign with my then-boyfriend’s friend group. I was playing a Circle of Land druid. One time, our party encountered a big monster blocking our path across a river. We stopped before we were noticed, and if I remember correctly, the party was in a hurry for some reason. Reviewing my spells, I had what I thought was a brilliant idea. I summoned a horse at some distance away. My intention was for the monster to chase the horse, and for the horse to outrun it. I did a bunch of math and made sure to summon the horse (what I thought was) far enough away from the monster that it had a decent chance at outrunning it. The DM made a shocked face at my choice, and then the monster promptly pounced on the horse and tore it limb from limb. I argued my math, but the DM insisted that the horse had no chance. One of the other players was also shocked at my action, and even roleplayed standing there dumbfounded for a moment at what I’d done, while I tried to urge them along so that the monster didn’t notice us. The math argument was annoying, but what makes it really grind my gears even 10 years later is that when the party woke up after their next long rest, the DM informed me that I couldn’t access any of my spells. Apparently, “bringing a creature to life” specifically for it to be slaughtered by the monster as a distraction was so egregious that my spiritual connection to nature was severed and I would need to put concerted effort over time into meditating and reconnecting with nature to restore it I was (and still am) freaking miffed at this. It wasn’t my characters INTENTION to have the horse get slaughtered! I also tried arguing that it wasn’t a real horse because it was a summon. But the DM held firm in their belief that my actions were completely insane for a druid to do. Being super new to dnd and this being my first ever campaign, I was completely caught left field by this. It definitely ruined my fun, and I never really understood why it happened, and the campaign fizzled a few sessions later. Looking back now as a very seasoned player, I can see why the DM made some of the choices he made even though I don’t agree with them, and it’s possible my math was way off since I didn’t really understand a lot about dnd. Was the DM right to take away my spellcasting and class abilities bc of this summoned horse and what happened to it? Was that choice an absolutely wild choice for a druid to make? Or was it just a clever use of a spell to get around a monster encounter? I put my past self at the court’s mercy and beg your assistance in putting this old salt to rest

To the honorably Justices and jak-jak their laundry boy 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 my question is should I have made a big deal about it? it still comes up from time to time

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

To the illustrious judges and that guy who played Tread Nevers, I humbly come before you with the case of the Level 1 DM. After learning that several of my fellow cast members in a community theatre production of Hunchback of Notre Dame were also fans of DND (shocker) I got everyone's numbers and made a groupchat for a one-shot, planning to DM something related to the show. A guy from the group created his own separate groupchat (with all the same people), said he would be DMing, and started organizing details. I assumed I hadn't been clear enough that I had hoped to DM and said nothing. He asked us to make our characters level 1, knowing two people in the group were first-timers. We had a goofy one-shot, mostly silly conversation and one combat with our level 1 characters. We all agreed it would be fun to play again — several of us, with more DND experience, suggesting that we play at a higher level next time. He is convening the next one shot in the group chat and I asked if we could be level 2 this time. He said no, we're only playing at level 1. (He is new to DMing and there are 7 of us playing, so I assume he is worried about us whomping his monsters, but couldn't he just give us harder challenge ratings?) Am I right to be frustrated with this DM, or should I chill out and just enjoy the chance to hang out with cool new theatre friends? -riley, friend of Sammy (she/her)

May it please the Crit, To the honourable Judges, Axford, Murphy and Tanner presiding and J dawg, he knows how it be. I present the case of The Drow that makes no deals I am in an online 5.5e game with some great buddies roughly 6 sessions into a big Faerun campaign centred on Netheril. Among our number is a Drow Sorcerer that recent started taking Paladin Levels but lacked the stats to wield a weapon and doesn't want advice on character builds as the choice to multiclass was for RP During a quest in a sewer, she discovered Blackrazor, an Artifact level Weapon, big deal! Prior to that she found a Finger of Death spell scroll (7th level) she decided she needed Magic Items that would boost her stats so she could wield the blade and SMITE Judges, I believe she wanted to have her cake and eat it and too. She asked if we could use the party's funds of 3k gold to fund her exploits. She was passive aggressive as soon as it was suggested she trade her own loot as part of the trade (7th level spell scroll specifically). So, my PC bargained for her, setting up a decent deal where we would provide food and drink everyday, give the scroll and become regular customers of the Merchant, for a clean trade of the scroll and none of the party's hard earned gold! JUDGES, the merchant was a magic man that said "ok but if the deal is broken, there will be consequences!" He stuck out his hand to seal the deal. The Sorcerer was elated, she deviously exclaimed "Haha, I'm gonna get the gauntlets and if something goes wrong you have to pay!" to my Pugilist. The Merchant / DM said "No, you are the beneficiary, you make the deal" Judges, she was not happy. She said "I don't make deals, I don't want to be indebted" and so, another PC made the deal for her / removed the long term consequences. Was she wrong to be so indignant or were we a fool for doing her dirty work at all? That's right, I'm Steely Dan! PS, she later eagerly attuned to Blackrazor (soul devouring sword, sentient and evil) later in the same session. I humbly await your judgement.

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.

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.

For the cool cat justices and dodgy dog Jax, I have a case for you that may be Cold, it still makes my blood run HOT! The case of the DM who didn’t understand 5e poison mechanics. Once we had an encounter where we were ambushed and there was 12 assassins so they all got a surprise round with advantage and sneak attack and most of our party was poisoned and immediately went down to 0. I and one other person was still up and I had goodberrys for everyone already so we spent our turns administering good berries and he said okay then when we got to their turns he said the poison would take down at the start of their turn so their turn was just death saves and if we didn’t bring them back up it would be one failed death save automatically but no matter how much we brought them back up for they would go back down because it’s “ongoing poison damage” I argued if he was gonna be this fucking brutal he best let them take a full fucking turn before going back down because they’re just sitting there for like 90 minutes with nothing to do. Unsurprisingly, it was a long 3 hour session that was punishing as it was unfun and it was also our last session with him. Yes we also stopped being friends with him (two of the players being his boss and bosses wife) Please take the moment to shame him if you’d like or maybe tell me I’m wrong and he’s a good DM (LOL). What say you justices?

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.

(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.

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 this is mechanically just a free always on surprise round he would become despondent for a couple minutes before moving ahead with the session. In these surprise rounds my PC was also 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.

To the Clunky judges and the Grisby-esque bailiff, I present the case of the horny NPCs: My most recent campaign was DMed by a friend of mine and set in his homebrew world, and was overall really great. However, I noticed that a lot of NPCs tried to flirt with our characters. Like, almost every session, usually multiple NPCs a session. Nothing ever progressed to actual in-game intimacy, although not for lack of the NPCs trying. It wasn’t really the vibe I wanted in a campaign, so I mentioned to my DM that while I didn’t mind the occasional flirtatious NPC, I’d prefer not to have that be such a part of the game for my character. He apologized and said he’d tone it down. After that, NPCs stopped flirting with my character for a while, but it was starting to happen here and there again. We haven’t played for a few months since we took time off while one of the players had a baby (in real life), and I’m worried that with all the time that has passed, my DM will slip into his old ways. Can the DM’s NPCs be tamed or should I just let this campaign fizzle out?

May it please the court and the croissanting bailiff Jake I present “The case of the campaign ending roll” I was a forever DM until a friend offered to run a campaign so I could finally play. I made a bard, Beauty Montgomery, a cryptid-hunting YouTuber who was secretly two kids in a trench coat as my first pc ever. The campaign was frustrating because the DM often tried to TPK us and never made the goal clear. In our last session, we were in a labyrinth that changed mechanically without warning. Even though my bard had high passive Perception and we said we were mapping the maze and using the message cantrip, the DM said we were suddenly lost. I asked why my character wouldn’t have noticed the maze shifting without a roll. The DM got angry, rage-quit the call, and later said they had handled things as well as they could because they wanted to surprise us. The campaign was canceled, and I haven’t been able to play that character since. Was I wrong for asking for a roll that ended the campaign?

To the illustrious justices and bailiff, is it Tucker? I present a scholastic question rather than a case. I am currently DMing the module Vecna: Eve of Ruin, where without spoiling too much, a relic called the Crown of Lies comes into play. A specific property of this relic has become intriguing to me: RAW says “any lies you tell always seem to be true, no matter what magical or mundane methods are used to detect the falsehoods”. My question is this: how would it measure up against Zone of Truth? I find it hard to believe one of the properties of this wondrous artifact could be completely neutralized by a second level spell. Oh wonderful justices, please come down harshly and with impunity upon this theoretical case.

Dear mighty Just Justices and the pretty cool bailliff Jak I submit The case of the Far Futured Fanfiction I dm for my wife and her friend, a small two party game in a fairly magical setting Not long after we started playing, my wife informed me that her friend, WF (Wife's Friend from here on) Was writing a little story of their PC in the distant future, XX years in the future as they're an elf. I was immediately a little sus of this type of thing, but after some back and forth and hearing a section of the story read aloud to me, it was a very low magic meet cute between WF's PC and a disciple, turned slow burn romance. I reluctantly gave an okay, as it was small scale and just her PC, and I didnt want to take personal expression away from them, a slippery slope i acknowledge The issue lies as WF has not only kept writing for the last 12 months continuously in this continuity, they also have been reading the fic to my wife, and this has resulted in her mixing up npcs, as my wife's PC is also referenced and apart of this fanfic Recently they apparently wrote a touching moment with their character's father recognizing their growth for "the first time", who I've been trying to set up for a confrontation with as their father is the reason they started the adventure. However WF was recently having irl issues with their father and a lack of communication, oof. Judges i seek collaborative story counsel, do I tell them to cool it? Do I just keep going and pretend I know nothing, grimising through my wife being my informant for what is going on and pretneding and hoping they take it as an alternative future? I plead guilty to allowing it in the first place, but I stand by the desire to want to do creative things with a character you spawned

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?

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

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

To the Hallux Jake and the Judges, 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 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.

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!!!!