Soliciting D&D Court Cases!

Dear almighty and powerful justices and the swift hand of punishment Jake. I bring to you the case of the discord Prince. My group were playing every Saturday but some wanted to play during the week (small things here and there) so we started a discord channel. I couldn't join in because of work. Well two weeks later one of the other players turns out to be a prince. Wouldn't be bad if when faced with a challenge he tries to use his wealth or army to get out of it. Mighty judges I ask what do I do?

XaviorTheReaper

May it please the whole juicy court I was discussing with another player the possibility of riding the Artificer - Atillerist's Eldritch Cannon, NOT mounting it, as that comes with its own rules and the cannon is not a creature, merely standing on an object that is capable of moving, and this other player was disputing that it shouldn't be possible. Unless your weight overcomes its strength score (the rules say treat it as tho it has a 10 in each score for checks, provides no details about carrying capacity) surely it should still be capable of movement as you stand on it, which would be awesome and tantamount to riding your gun like it was a skateboard. The only benefit this would provide would be potentially increasing your movement speed by 15 on some rounds (contingent on item interactions), which hardly seems gamebreaking. I have been told by my detractors that "An object not being able to perform a task unless a rule specifies it can is literal RAW." tho there has been no quote detailing how that is RAW. I eagerly await your wise and fair verdict, the skeleton is in the mail from your last one

Summer Tribe

God I wished enter was just to separate a new paragraph. I'm sorry. Anyways who was right me or my party? I abided by the ruling to keep play going. We still have a great game going I just feel like my barbarian was robbed of his temporary immense strength. May it please the court, I would like to know if I need to confess my resentment to dice christ or if my interpretation of my strength staying at 23 for an hour was correct

Dylan Meyer

Recently in my campaign of acq inc run by my long term group, but new DM I acquired a potion of frost giant strength. We started to be attacked by Shadows with the drain strength ability. I drank my potion of frost giant strength assuming it would grant me a strength of 23 despite being strength drained by Shadows. My party and DM said I would go up to a strength of 23 but then could be strength drained from there. The potion definitely saved my barbarians life and allowed me to inflict some real damage but the lowered modifier stopped me from breaking through a magical glass door.

Dylan Meyer

Dear Almighty Justices and the one bailiff who is killing it, I present the case of the wasted potion of Frost Giant Strength.

Dylan Meyer

Dear all knowing and all wise Supreme Crit Justices and our lovely or lowly Bailiff Axford (not sure what type of day it is today) May I present to you the case of the bad attitude warlock For some brief context this story took place a few years back when I first got to university and joined the tabletop roleplaying club. I was really excited to meet new people and share the hobby that I love, but that all quickly soured. Through the club's discord I got placed into a campaign that had only been running for a couple of sessions that was GM'ed by the club's president. How exciting! I quickly made my character, a Fallen Aasimar Undying Warlock named Nickel, after chatting with my DM about his world and could not wait to play. When the day of the session arrived I was ecstatic I went out and bought snacks and drinks to bring so I could help make a group impression on my (hopefully) new friends. The previous session had ended right before a fight with some cultists in a cave so my DM said "You will be a passerby outside the cave hearing the fight and will run in to help the party" followed by having me roll an athletics check after initiative was rolled. I got a nat 1 which became a 0 due to my strength dump stat. My DM said ok you can arrive in the fight after 6 rounds. In response I said, ok I cast fly on myself to fly there quicker, and he simply said "it does not work like that". Not wanting to argue and slow down the session, I accepted slowly floating through the tunnels towards the fight. Finally I arrive in the cave with the party of 3 nearly dead surrounded by swarms of enemies. Ready to jump into the action, I start my turn by narrating how my pupils darken and my ashen skin glows with pale light as tentacles from the underworld sprout from the ground to attack the cultists and cast Hunger of Hadar. The cultists went next and a big chunk of the already damaged cultists took cold damage at the start of their turn because of my spell. The GM seeing that my damage would be enough to wipe most of the cultists said "Oh shoot I forgot that the wizard recognizes your spell and casts counter spell on it" This is the first time the wizard had ever been mentioned or even cast a spell in this combat that had been going for over an hour at my point of arrival. I was very frustrated at this point and asked my GM "why hasn't the wizard cast any spells until now?" to which he just shrugged. At this point I just gave up after using my all two of my spell slots for nothing and after the session told the GM I would not be returning because I think we have different playstyles. He seemed genuinely shocked and confused followed by trying to explain to me "if you had a better attitude and didn't have to be the main character maybe I would enjoy his games more." I plead the court, was this GM power tripping or was I a poor sport leaving the game after one session?

Ryan Van Geffen

Dear lofty esteemed Judges, and the amazing bailiff Emily, I present a question to the court. How many times must you pose a question before no answer is concidered acceptance? I DM for a party of 6, we meet on the first Thursday of the month. This last month we needed to move to the second Thursday of the month due to an event. I asked the group at the end of the first session, if that was OK for everyone, there were no objections! I reasked the same question the week before we would normally play, the week we would normally play, and during the event (The UK Games Expo 2023). Again no objections! Two days before the new date, 1 player said they could not make it, because of a routine dental appointment (booked many weeks before) and their partner - another player needed to drive them. Am I justified in my aggrivation? Should my other players suffer because of one person inability to look at a calendar? I humbly await the verdict from the court. Many thanks DM Alex

Lemonlimepickle

It's probably too late but just in case: Dear Supreme Crit Justices and Bailiff Axford, whose wisdom equals the heavens and is only matched by y'all's beauty. I beseech thee to rule on a case of corruption and persecution not seen since the trial of Socrates! Long story short I play a hotheaded but ingenious Fairy Artificer named Zorn who, in an attempt to free other members of the party from the clutches of a hag, offered to play a game of hide and seek with the hag where we competed to try and find a child she was hunting. I knew she couldn't find the child within the time limit but didn't account for the hag to grow frustrated and start attacking us. I managed to hit her with a suggestion spell and get her to take us to her bedside while she takes a nap. I then told my entire party to ready attacks for when she fell asleep so that we could take her out all at once and then loot the place. There was some trepidation as we all barely survived my last plan when we encountered a hag but eventually I convinced them. Unfortunately the Hag survived the onslaught and we will be starting next session in combat. One of the players has called for a vote to oust my character if anyone dies in the encounter because my previous plans have also had similar rough spots but I maintain were ultimately successful. Please judges, should I be punished for merely trying to help my comrades and enrich our pockets? Is not some sacrifice necessary for the greater good? I bow at your feet and beg justice be done.

Martian

Ayyyy can't wait to witness Supreme Crit Ify!

Martian

To the band of babes… and the bailiff… I am a DM for a group of mostly new players my brother, cousins, and a fella we all know. This fella call him Cubby (nickname) wanted to be a half orc barbarian named Fat Bastard. Excited to actually get them playing I didn’t do much more than hunt strongly that if he wanted to eat children as if they were Minnie me it might cause trouble with the rest if they players. Long story short the player willingly succumbed to berserker axe and engaged the party in conflict ending in the party killing Fat Bastard. I have to admit I planted the great axe in the hopes that this would happen. Everyone still had fun but now fat bastard keeps texting me that he can’t wait to cause the party more trouble and wants to kill the other player who landed the killing blow on home. It hasn’t ruined the vibe but I ask you this. Was I wrong to orchestrate Fat Bastards death or Did Fat Bastard get exactly what he asked for. “Get In My Belly!”

Jesse Dunlap

Not a question but just wanted to let you know I gasped out loud when I saw the guest. I can’t wait!!!

tacticalgrandma

To those sitting upon high seats, and low stoops alike. What doth it do? I present the case of a spicy player or an overly sensitive DM? I am a new DM, running a campaign with 4 similarly un-seasoned players. In creating my world, I have done my best to craft an engaging setting with unique characters, encounters, and rich locations. Things have mostly gone over well. But there is one thing that irks me. Every time I try to describe a situation, one of the players dismissively says, "oh this is basically x in Harry Potter, or y in Lord of the Rings." etc. And each time I describe a new NPC, the same player says in character under their breath, "this person's a moron / an idiot / incompetent" - even if the npc was not presented as such. (Note: player's character is not superior in intelligence to any of these NPCs). And when the player inquires about motivations / choices by NPCs, they respond with an unconvinced, "sure". As a DM, I find this very irritating. I want to create a world that my players find immersive and enjoy, but I can't help but feel this player is critiquing my efforts, and their repetitive offhand insults towards my NPCs feel like insults towards my attempts to build believable characters. Am I being too sensitive? Or is the player being rude? How should a conflict-averse DM deal with this situation?

House of the blessed zest

Virely, to the ever stepping southward judges and the beautiful and bubbly bailiff. I come to you with a most perturbed dm vs a demeaning player/dm. I introduced a new player to DMing and played with the same people that we just did a 2 shot with. He wanted to try DMing after that (to my forever DM delight). The problem came when 1 of the players, a chaotic character and a more poignant player. When his character drank a case of firebrandy and woke up the next day hungover, the new DM said that he had level 4 exhaustion for drinking all night. The player argued that "it was roleplay more fun to drink yourself to sleep than to just fall asleep", to which the NDM argued that "this is what happens when you drink for 8 hrs". I spoke up to say, that exhaustion 4 is a bit harsh, since it was just 1 night and it will take a while to get rid of. His reaction was surprise, not understanding how exhaustion worked, he thought it was just a status (like exhaustion 1). The player just said whatever and took it, the rest of the game felt very passive aggressive from both sides. I ask, do I need new friends? Was this just a big misunderstanding of New DM trying to Punish the Player for role-playing? I leave a bottle of firebrandy at each of your feet and await your judgement.

Olaf Dies in Frozen 2

I missed it again 🥲

To the powerful and rad bailiff Emily and others- I have the case of The BM Bugbear. Short debrief: this is one of my first sessions- my brother was the DM, and we are all level 1. While exploring a cave, our party came across a bugbear. During this altercation one of our adventurers went down. Instead of trying to directly attack the bugbear I decided to try taunting them and use thorn whip to pull them off of a bridge that resigned in the cave. Instead when trying to goat the bugbear away from our downed friend, the DM instead had them agro on the downed player. While our party is still kicking and death free since 93, I'm interested if you find it odd to target downed players in DND or if it's just something that all DMs do. None the less, I humbly wait for judgement :(

Hello my friends, my sweeties…my esteemed judges. May it please court, I present the case of RAW vs Rule of Cool. I DMed for a level 6 party consisting of a Warlock, a Barbarian, a Rogue, and a Fighter. In one particularly dicey combat situation, the Barbarian found herself down and with two failed death saves, with a marauder willing to Jill her if the party did not capitulate. The Warlock on his turn said that he would like to cast Misty Step on the Barbarian, pulling her out of range. I ruled that because it had both a range and target of Self, that it couldn’t work that way. The Warlock (who is also my best friend) cheekily looked at me and asked “can we do it anyway because rule of cool?” I laughed and declined. I do still wonder though, was this the right call? Or did I deprive my Warlock of his heroic moment?

Cameron Davis

to the esteemed court and the cooler bailiff emily, i present the case of the the betraying cleric. i play a forest gnome rougue in my campaign and i’m one to steal from nobles and kill ones who are abusing their wealth for nefarious means. on a train from one town to another me and another rogue stole a lot of magic items from a blacked out wizard. when we arrived in the town, the cleric said to me “relax on the stealing or i’ll turn you in” now i took this as a complete betrayal and now am seriously considering either defecting from the party or worse. my question is, should i have acted more calmly or was my reaction justified? i humbly await your judgement.

alex s

to the grand court and emily!! hope the new job is treating you right xxxx I present the case of spell swapping!! I play a herongon druid in a mythos campaign. the world tree was in danger and we were underground at its roots. We had just taken a long rest and i had completely forgotten to take plant growth. i hadnt cast any spells yet, but when it came time to realise i needed plant growth, i simple said "i stocked it" and used it. I had the slots, hadnt cast anything yet and my dm didnt question me. but the change weighs heavy on me, did i do the right thing? the world tree is thriving now with the boost of life and no one doubts what i did i take any and all repercussions you may throw towards me 🙏

sarah may

To the grand court and super cool bailiff Emily, I present the case of being a baby face player. In a recent session one of our party members decided to investigate a room of an inn by herself. When it seems like she's in trouble my pc gets up with another PC to rescue her from getting caught. However, they look at me and point in my face (irl) and say quite sternly stay. They keep saying stuff like you would to a child who's not listening and as someone who has a baby face I got a little heated. They also tried to scoop my PC up. The rest of the party says it's cause his character is nobility, and doesn't know how to treat people. What could I have done to not let my own feelings transfer to my character? Was I really so wrong to get heated about being treated like a child?

Olivia the Enchanting Bard and Jarod the soap opera cleric who are playing Stick it to the Man (down with the monarchy)

may it please and slay the court during a fantastic pride month, i bring you the case of the weighted pastry. this was some years ago when i had just gotten my friends into DND, we were two sessions in and at a town. a player wanted to pick up pastries for spell components. I of course said yes but then he asked how much they weighed! i a new DM said “oh it doesn’t really matter weight isn’t that big of a deal” the player then got upset with me! after some light razzing from the rest of the group we went on. After that the player no longer wanted to play and left the discord all together 1 or 2 months later. to this day the pastries come up when talking with friends about dnd. was i in the wrong for not knowing the weight of some pastries?

Gavin Lippitt

(I forget if this is also the place for Confessions? if not, double forgive me) Bless me, oh most holy magi and zhrets of Dice Christ, for I am surely cursed. In my life, I have played in 10 campaigns, none of which has lasted more than the 2nd session. Each of them has either fizzled out or exploded in a grand dramatic fashion (leading to the dissolution of a friend group). Noting, I’ve never been part of the drama, only a horrified witness. Enlightened God-priests, do I bear a black mark on my soul? Is it my fate to only *see* the promised land of epic adventures and growing friendships, but never to experience it myself? Am I a chaos particle that should be weaponized to destroy toxic D&D groups? Or is this Dice Christ calling me to become a DM myself? Amen.

Bryan Cash

The Case of the Transporting Tarrasque Tummy May it please Emily, and only Emily. I come before you to ask: Where does a creature end and their stomach begin? I was the DM for a longtime group, and as part of the finale to a 4 year campaign, I threw a genetically engineered Tarrasque at them. Over the course of the battle, the party’s Fighter was swallowed. The Cleric’s solution was to cast Banishment on the Tarrasque, claiming that the Tarrasque would vanish and leave the fighter behind, as the spell only targets one creature. I claimed that even though he was only targeting the Tarrasque, the contents of its stomach would go along, as they’re inside the banished creature regardless of his targeting. This spawned a table-wide argument for about 15 minutes, before I put my foot down and ruled that Banishment would send the Tarrasque AND its stomach contents, which caused some grumbling all around. I ask, was I right? Should a banished creature lose the contents of its stomach when it’s transported? Or would who/whatever’s inside go along for the ride? I await your honorable decision.

Emma

May it please the court, exceptional judges and temporary bailiff Axford alike. This is the case of the Unavoidable Surprise Round. I am the main DM for a party of 5 , but much to my delight one of my players has been starting to run some one-shots for our group. Playing as a PC in their games, I've noticed a pattern in the encounters where no matter the circumstances surrounding the start of a fight, the hostile creatures ALWAYS get the first attacks on the party, basically a free, monster's only surprise round. The first encounter I noticed something strange was when our group was investigating an apparent ritual sight and I crit on a perception check specifically to determine if there was anyone waiting to ambush us. The result of the check was DM: “You feel like someone’s watching you” Me: “What gives me this feeling? Do I hear something? Do I notice movement?” DM: “You just feel like someone’s watching you” After a few more investigation checks by other PCs we were ambushed by a corrupted dryad and her blink dog minions, with them being given a full surprise round on our entire group, despite my character's guard being up and “knowing someone was watching”, whatever that means. In the most recent example, during a long rest, my rogue succeeded on a check during his watch to perceive a displacer beast approaching from the trees above. After being told of the incoming threat, the DM asked for my reaction (not yet calling for initiative), I said I call to warn/wake my companions, and then we entered initiative. I had the highest initiative of the group (including the displacer beast), but our DM began the fight with the hostile creature getting a full round of attacks on me anyways. On top of that, despite having raised alarm prior to the initiative, my companions all lost their first turn to wake up, giving the beast in total , 1 surprise round on my character, and 2 surprise rounds on everyone else. As for the case of the party sneaking up on a monster, I don't know if they would rule similarly, as in every encounter thus far, the party has not been able to detect any trace of the monsters we are about to fight until they hop out of nowhere and whack us around some. Judges, am a being too knitpicky about the handling of the entrance to initiative, or should I step in and give this new DM some DM to DM advice that the monsters don’t have to , and shouldn’t always get the jump on the party, especially if they succeed on rolls to know they are coming. I await your ruling and pledge myself to dutifully ensure your punishment is delivered , regardless of the recipient. Respectfully, Carlton Winslow King (possibly, but not definitely the third of his name)

These better be the horniest cases ever

Olivia Francis

IFY!!!

SpillboBaggins

Nothing to add except this is so fucking exciting

Grass

intro free 2023 Am i the asshole? I was but a young ox-man with dreams and ambitions, such as holding onto a mechanical dragon despite it being a terrible idea, which ultimately led to my incapacitation atop a mountain as while i had expired, i had not let go of the vicious beast! Now with my main character off screen and possibly dead, I made an elderly druid who also worked for the evil empire figuring i wouldnt play her for long. Well once the party found my main pc, the grandma was to take her leave, but unfortunately my party did not agree :/ despite showing them the way to their comrade’s unconscious body (me), they had to bring her back as prisoner due to outstanding agreements with our allies. Deciding to roleplay, I threatened to kill our party’s companion, a small frog boy by the name of Pim, knowing he was fragile. They did not give in. Three rounds of combat and they did not believe I would do it. But that is would my evil druid grandma would do. So i fried the dm’s faithful froggy friend with one bolt of lightning, and the deed was done. Who was in the wrong here? ps. The Dm asked me to be an evil pc after i said I didnt want to be an armadillo, which was his first suggestion.

Hi sweeties One of my friends used to be a DM for me and two of my work friends. He said it was a political campaign but then he got frustrated when we kept solving problems without fighting like when we used the fire to Keep the Wolves Away, the gnome bard pacifying the monster so we could collect the mushrooms we saught with out killing it, feeing the gnomes home land when their leader was killed in a public execution. I had a warlock with the mask of many faces i wanted to infiltrate the empire's slave trade and take it down i make a high elf cover identity and roll low on deception have to escape with thunder step. The rest of the party finish the job of getting our fighter into the underground fighting ring. I create a new cover identity try again to infiltrate this new location the boss has a guard with true sight next to him. And i try to escape end up shackled and i try my best to grapple out and the other two blend with the crowd. My character was to be sentenced to fight some monster to the death. Then the DM decides work is too much for him to keep putting effort into DMing and the campaign ends on a cliffhanger. He said something about making sure other have have fun as well i assume he was talking about himself. I feel like i was trying to play a pollitcal canpaign AITA?

Morgan

to the juiciest of judges and the vivacious bailiff: the party i dm for was arrested in a war-torn town, the factions made up of werewolves and grungs vs sprites & bullywugs. they befriended two of the werewolf guards (armin and armon) and promptly became invested in their torrid love triangle with a third werewolf named kyle, who canonically looks like matthew gray gubler. it's now two years later and the party managed to get out of town before a full-on war broke out. however, in a recent session, our monk/barbarian (who joined the party after the above event) who is from the war-torn area narrated in a dream sequence of the ensuing battle, in which he fucking punched armin, armon, and kyle to death in one fell punch. the party is asking how to make this action against the geneva conventions, thank you

May it please the always extraordinary crit justices and above average bailiff still better than jake interim bailiff emily. i bring the case of chat gpt and logic dm vs rule of cool and normal dnd. set the scene our dm tried to run a seisson through chat gpt, ambitious but could have been cool. It crashed halfway in and upon reloading things got changed like town and character names causing confusion. Getting past all that confusion we run into a hard encounter for 4 or 5 level adventurers. Fighting our way through multiple higher than normal cr bandits. We come to a path and a bear trap in the middle waits. I suggest we spring it and use it later. As we decide should our rogue do it or the artificer the rogue tries first. Being a swashbuckler the flavor was he was going to use his rapier, the dm said if you really wanted to. This prompted more discussion and the artificer threw a rock in it as we didnt want our rogue to lose his fingers. The dm ruled the rock wasnt big enough. The artificer then took a staff they had and jammed in it. The dm stated that the staff broke in half and the rapier wouldve to as the force of the trap exceeds a rapier and staffs hit points. Our artificer asked what information the dm was using the dm replied google. There is a very distinct difference in the bear trap used and the beartrap stats in chat gpt or that our dm looked up. The party seemed to have a negative vibe for the following hour and seisson ended without finishing the quest. Did chat gpt let us down? Did our dm think to logically and stick to closely to real world like chat gpt maybe did or am thinking too much into this and it was just a bad run with a basically new mechanic implementing chat gpt. I love our dm hes a good friend and has an amazing adventure we are podcasting currently. This seisson however caused the group to split and our Sunday games are now in two different groups while the podcasts still go on Monday. So i also ask was it wrong to abandon so quickly, and a sidenote they made a separate campaign several months ago that was beyond tomb of anihaltion difficult taking three seissons of combat to kill our first creature. The podcast world runs fine so far but i fear if they get to ambitious and logical again the podcast will fizzle out and my friend group will be fractured. Am i worrying too much overthinking are these just bad concepts that didnt work well or is their genuine fear that the dm thinks to real and can ruin the fantasy i humbly await your verdict and advice.

DOOFINIUS

May it please the court, To the Honorable Justices and the animoprhs loving Bailiff Emily, I present the case of The Trauma, The Flirt and the Wardrobe. (sorry there’s no actual wardrobe). It started out as a group of friends roleplaying as a silly crew of pirates set in space. The DM exclusively relied on the lore one of the players had written and elements from their favorite media for world building. It was the first time playing d&d for several players, and the DM assumed no one knew how to roleplay so he did not allow many opportunities. Without bothering to check in before or after, the DM prioritized heavy trauma-based scenes, often leaving players emotionally distressed. Whenever players brought up concerns they were dismissed or ignored. Half-way into the campaign the DM became more interested in flirting with PCs rather than running a fun game. New players and plot lines were based on who they liked, resulting in comedic plot lines being sidelined and PCs reduced to “stupid” one-dimensional unreliable characters in favor of the “main characters”. For example, my character (a half orc eldritch knight fighter) and my friends’ character (a fire genasi barbarian monk) had a recurring bit of a “prank war” where other characters from the crew were happy to be involved. It was a break for us from the more heavy elements of the campaign and it was fun to roleplay. However, midway through the campaign our characters were dismissed as stupid and unserious. In future missions our characters’ abilities were often questioned, despite our previous capabilities shown. The DM showed no initiative for future sessions and their frequency dwindled despite players trying their best to schedule them. The campaign disbanded soon after that. Since it’s ended we’re reflecting on how things went down. Honorable judges, do you think we were overly critical of our first campaign or are we right to feel like he failed us as a DM? P.S. It turned out this DM was actually a terrible person and not just a bad DM so we are not friends with him anymore lol.

May it please the honorable and good-looking judges as well as that one lady who was on Adam Conover's show once I think: I present to you the case of the doomed table. I have been wanting to dm a game with a group of my friends for a while now. I have spent quite a lot of time building what I think is a rich and interesting world full of opportunities for adventure. My friends have been very excited at the idea of playing, but some trouble began during the character creation stage. My players (all first-timers) are a little insane. I'll just rattle off some character ideas they had one by one: 1. A changeling princess named Mary Mistyfart 2. An earth genasi druid with a miniature Shaquille O'Neal as his familiar 3. Coolio but 8 ft tall 4. My actual, real-life father (this was my girlfriend's idea) I ask the court, should I accept their suggestions and try to build a fun game, or should I (as justice Murphy often advises) simply get new friends? Thank you for your consideration.

The Daddy Killing Patreon 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 play 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. 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 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.

Darkrisky

To the princely court, newly appointed Judge Nwadiwe and noble interim bailiff Axford, I come to you with a simple question: can my monkey stab people? I’m building a Beastmaster Ranger with a Flying Monkey beast companion. Since monkeys have hands and a Beastmaster’s beast companion “obey commands as best they can”, I want my monkey to hold a dagger and attack opponents, using the wording of “Ranger’s companion” to add my proficiency bonus to its attacks and applying poisons to the dagger to do extra damage. However my GM won’t allow it. They say the monkey wouldn’t know which way up to hold it and could stab/poison themself in the process. I humbly ask for your judgement: can my beast companion wield a poison-tipped shiv? I await your judgement with bated breath.

Eilidh Maclachlan

May it please the ever Honorable Supreme Crit Justices and Jack’s new replacement, Ellen, I bring to you today the case of the overpowering DMPC final battle. As a short preamble, this case hails from a Curse of Strahd campaign that i was a player in. The final fight was not against Strahd, but rather my former PC that the DM controlled after he had succumbed to the dark forces As the case title suggests, the trouble comes from multiple very powerful NPCS. During the start of the battle, my character, a warforged named GOMO, had begun the ritual to begin turning into a vampire and only needed to complete the final step, “Die a violet death at the hands of someone who hates you”. Just as it seemed this was about to happen, three NPCs bursted through the front door of the temple we were in, gleaming with holy light prepared to kill GOMO. After they did so, he came back as a vampire after about an hour (one short rest) and was swiftly killed by the NPCs, as they were nearly all higher levels than our other PCs (They were at least 13, 11, and 8, while we were level 10 and almost completely out of recourses) After this cold murder of my now ex-character, the leader NPC decided that in order to rid the lands of evil, he needed to kill us as some PCs had accepted dark gifts that morning. So I ask you, judges, am I wrong to be ticked off by this deus ex Ryan Urphy, or should i wallow in my dead vampire robots now useless sheet? I humbly await your just ruling.

My dearest bishops and clergypersons of Dice Christ, (may she bless us this day). I come to you with a confession. My group I play with is generally quiet and it usually takes a moment of silence before anyone speaks. I always wait for someone else to pitch in but I usually end up giving my idea of what to do/how to proceed in-game. That sparks some conversations and we proceed with fun options proffered by the whole party. I play a cleric with high wisdom but low intelligence. I have been told that I play too smart and should dumb down my game play to fit my character's 8 Int. Have I sinned by playing too smart or does my wisdom score allow me to make smart moves?

Ben Wilcox

Honourable and wise Justices, and the most excellent of bailiffs, I bring to you the case of the un-mended shoe. Our party (2 druids, a rogue, and my wizard/warlock) were inside a giant worm. A worm so big it could eat cities. Our mission - to retireve a magical artefact from a temple that the worm had eaten. We had a treacherous hike - which involved many hazards, dex saves galore as we avoided pools of stomach acid and moving debris. I failed a Dex save, slipping in the worms stomach acid and taking 5 points of damage, however, my character's shoe began to dissolve in acid. In a desperate attempt to save the shoe, I begged one of our druids to cast mending. Generously he said he would - only for our DM to declare there was not enough of the shoe left for the mending spell to work. (40% of the shoe remained, he said) I argued for the opposite - my character has small feet! RAW says mending can resort up to a foot of material! The DM said no. I aquiested, (let's be real , it's pretty funny) and now my fashion conscious wizard is down a shoe. I plead with the court - should mending have worked on a shoe that was being dissolved by acid? Or was my DM right with their declaration that there wasn't enough shoe left to be mended?

SusieQ

To the all knowing justices and the the feline saving Bailiff "Elizabeth", I present to you the case of the underwhelmed artificer. I've been running a home game for over 2 years with my wife, sister, and some occasional guests. My wife plays a Moon druid named Petry and my sister plays an artificer named Saleth. Throughout the campaign there has been underlying tension, causing almost every BBEG fight to end in a sour mood. Each ending with Saleth the artificer claiming to be extremely underpowered and that she had no chance. I have tried to rework the character, give a bunch of powerful items, and have even introduced fellow artificer NPCS to show her how they could be a strong class if played more strategically. Each ending the same way, her claiming artificers stink and me trying to buff her with homebrew. So judges I ask you, are artificers just bad? Am I a bad DM for letting my moon druid dominate almost every encounter? Or should I take off the training wheels and let them figure it out? I humble accept your judgement

Trevor Wurtsmith

To the most Honorable justices Murphy, Tanner and Axford and to the supreme new daddy Jake, I humbly request your input on the case of the Thri-Kreen circle of the shepherd druid and their telepathic speech ability. We are currently playing a waterdeep, dungeon of the mad mage campaign with Brutal realism *( i.e short rests take 8 hours and you only get a long rest if you spend a 10day outside of adventuring). When this campaign started Thri-kreen race was still a UA but is now in the spell jammer book. Their ability states they cannot speak any other language out loud besides their Thri-kreen language however they can telepathically communicate with any willing creature within 120ft as long as they speak a language. This has been helpful in the dungeon keeping us silent as we sneak, making my Character Elbee basically a switchboard, relaying messages and instructions into her groups mind so no one has to speak out loud. In the beginning when wild shaped my DM let her telepathically communicate but has since changed his mind stating she wouldn’t be able to use that telepathic ability while in the form of beast. I disagreed stating she has an innate ability to telepathically communicate and with her being a shepherd druid she is also able to communicate and be understood by beast, regardless of their ability to understand language. My biggest issue is this being brutal realism I only get wild shapes back after a 8hr rest which makes me loath to drop the form early. This is causing issues with group communication since I cannot give my input on decisions in the dungeon while wild shaped. I respect my DM’s as we have all been playing together for 10 years and friends for 15, and we all also DM our own campaigns for each other. I as a DM would have let the druid keep telepathically communicating when wild shaped but we all have our own styles so I am curious as to what the high and honorable court Justices and DM’s would rule. Your honors I am willing to take any punishment given, please please razz me to your hearts content, yours humbly – Ali, lover of druids and the weirder playable races

ali

I bring this case before the court and the honorable justices (and of course our intern Bailiff Emily), so I might finally find some peace. Today I bring the case of blight in battle. Our crew was playing in a tournament where we were fighting other adventurers in battle for the goal of winning a favor from the queen. I play a eladrin circle of dreams Druid. When it came to my turn, I knew one fighter on the other team was low on HP. So I decided that the blight spell would probably finish them off. I used my movement to just get in range of the spell(30 ft) and then used the rest of my movement to hide behind a pillar in the battlefield. My DM got angry and said that in the heat of battle I wouldn’t know how far exactly 30 ft was. I argued that my Druid should know how close she needed to be to make sure her spell worked. I should preface that this was the first time anything like this was brought up, and the other spellcasters were confused as well. So I ask the impartial judges of the court. Was my DM correct? I await your judgement and will except the ruling as the court sees fit.

To the honorable justices and improved bailiff, I present to you the case of the broken home. I've been DMing a campaign for my friends since 2021, there are seven of us all together and we have always played at the house four of them live in because it has always made sense that three of us would travel to the place that four of the party live. However, their household has become what some may call tense, recently two of them started dating eachother which is obviously no big deal but they moved into a room together almost immediately and sublet their extra room to their friend. The new housemate does not vibe with the two other original housemates and it's made their household much more tense and now all five seem to be on tense/bad terms. This tension is bleeding into sessions and absolutely harshing the vibe of what has been a pretty silly and goofy campaign. To make matters worse their new housemate who is also an avid D&D player sometimes stands in on our games as we play in the living room, and I say stand because they literally stand in the corner by the door to the living room and watch us play. I've talked about this with one of the players who doesn't live there and we've agreed we both find it pretty off putting but don't know how to mention it since he lives there too so it would feel rude to ask him to leave his own living room. I'm also unsure of how to bring it up to the four players who live there because of how tense their dynamic is at the moment because of the new house mate, I fear it may cause further arguments. My question is am I wrong for considering changing the location of our game to my flat? I live alone so there would be no room mate issues and my hope is that the change of location would reduce some of the tension but it feels rude to change a situation where less than half our group needs to travel to the game to everyone but me. I lay myself before the court a humble DM trying to get back the chill vibes of yesteryear and will accept your judgment P.S. glad that Jake could some time out to help Tucker while he's on paternity leave

Ally

Case Title: The counter spell that countered the counter spell that countered the original counter spell Good evening esteemed Justices and the replacement for the cowardly/heroic (Whichever fits this months vibe) bailiff Juke To keep this brief my normal DnD party is doing a Lvl 16 oceanic three shot, I elected to play a Fathomless Warlock. Considering the level of the three shot I knew at least one enemy would have counter-spell so I learned it for defense (you know to counter-spell the counter-spell). Sure enough, three ships on the horizon our Druid gets to cast first and sends a tidal wave at 2 of the ships taking them out of the fight while I was dealing with repairs below deck. I came out of the hold to see a ship approaching, I cast control water to split the water under the ship and it’s counter-spelled. In reaction I cast counter-spell, instead of doing a chain of counter-spells my DM said the enemy used three spelled slots to cast it three times and I could burn more then him to revolve my counter-spell. Honestly I think that’s a fair solution but as a warlock I really couldn’t and it was bad enough to use two of my three spell slots so fast anyway. I just said I use the one spell slot and let it go as we are just young adults having fun and it was the last ship my DM had for our first encounter. The problem is last session I was reading through some rules and saw that a character could only use one reaction a round. If that’s the case then he didn’t have a reaction to use after the first counter-spell and could only cast it once. So I ask, should I bring it up to my DM lightly and see if I can change their mind for the benefit of the main campaign or should I submit to a future of multi slot counter-spells. I humbly await your judgement.

I lay myself at the mercy of Dice Christ and confess my sins. I was dm'ing a campaign for a group of friends and was rolling unbelievably hot during the final fight with the BBEG. My players were not. They were failing saves on lair actions, missing attacks, and generally getting their shit rocked. The fight was getting very close. Two of the three party members were rolling death saves, and the last one standing was on death's door. The BBEG (a modified Raakshasa) was also pretty close. I knew that if the monk got in a few good hits, she could take him down on her next turn...if she lived to see her next turn. On the Raakshasa's turn, I crit on 2 attacks. I lied and said that one missed and only one hit (not a crit). This brought the monk down to 2hp and she was able to finish the fight on her next turn. Everyone at the table was on the edge of their seat, and cheered when the killing blow was delivered. This had been a two year campaign leading up to this fight, and we knew this was going to be the final session of this game (someone else was going to take over dm duty after this game). Was I wrong to not let the party die at the hands of the BBEG per the dice's will, or was it right to forsake the dice and let the campaign end on a high note? I humbly await your judgement.

May it please the court, and especially Jerry's replacement. I come to you with a case of egregious PDA. Our group has been running a Wild Beyond the Witchlight campaign for the last 8 months or so. My girlfriend is the DM and I am one of the PC's along with 4 other people (2 of them a couple and the other 2 are not). All of us are very comfortable with each other and it's always a good time and those of us that are couples don't do anything weird. That was the case until one of our single players wanted to bring his new girlfriend to a session so she could meet us. That's great, we want to meet your girlfriend. She even brought snacks. Once we got to playing is when things got weird. For the entire 3 hour session, there were countless "I love you"s thrown back and forth only broken up by quick makeout sessions. The rest of us, being polite, didn't say much but just gave each other that look. It's hard for me to RP a croquet playing dwarf when our gnome artificer is slurping on someone else's tongue. To top it all off, this was not just a meet and greet, she has now been to THREE of our sessions just to "watch and hang out" and they have all gone this way. I ask, am I the asshole for not wanting her around or is this really over the line? I need some help here, please help, please.

Chuck Mangione's Horn

Dice Christ forgive me. An npc I was playing should have got the killing blow on a vampire when I rolled a nat 20, but I lied and said it missed and a pc killed the vampire next turn. Was I wrong to shy away from dice christ’s light? Or was it testing me?

Myc Giaco

To the honorable Crit Justices and the honorary Bailiff Emma, I come to you begging for absolution. I played in a campaign a while ago that started with us in jail for various misdeeds. Our DM asked us if anyone wanted to stay awake for the first night to see if anything happened. Knowing how plot hooks work, my gnomish Bladesinger, Amonita Bavaria, took the bait. We found out that the guard shifts changed at 3am. Kind of lack-luster, but good to know I guess. Our DM then informed all of us who has stayed up (more than half the party) that we all had a level of exhaustion because of our sleepless night. No saving throws, no prior "are you sure?"s, nothing. For a wizard with 8 strength and no spell book, this made the rest of the session not very fun. Am I wrong to feel slighted by his harsh punishment for a hook that HE set up, or should I just go back to jail and wait for my parole hearing? Thanks sweeties!

Allie Rosner

good afternoon honorable judges and lovely bailiff, I present to you the case of the nat 20 insight check. A year or so ago, I played in a on-going campaign with a friend's husband after we both started to bond over D&D and being forever DMs. The campaign was in a fun setting of a modern day adventuring college and our student group that was put together to save the world or whatever. During our "summer project", we were searching for an object that was associated with a god of deception in a desert area. We found an NPC in an oasis bar who seemed to be the perfect cartographer to help us out given that the sands were said to shift to hide the temples to the goddess. As we were talking, though, I had my cleric/rogue (who was built to be a lie detector) roll an insight check. When My DM asked me what I was specifically looking for, I explained that I felt that I know how NPCs come into stories and everything but finding someone who could solve our problem so easily felt "a bit too good to be true". I rolled a natural 20 on her (with a modifier of +11). I was told everything about the NPC seemed to be on the up and up. Lo and behold, one session later, the NPC was revealed to be the very goddess of deception whose object we sought. The entire party made a bit of an uproar at the reveal and the DM defended himself by saying there wasn't anything around the disguised goddess to give her away, but that very instance led to the entire party never trusting insight checks again. After nat 20s, we had a running joke of saying "not like it even matters", much to the saltiness of our DM, who to this day will defend his call to not give anything away about the twist NPC, while the party argued that we should have been given even just a tiny hint that she couldn't be fully trusted. So, justices, I humbly ask for your judgement in the matter--was our DM right to stand by his plot twist NPC, or was I robbed of a nat 20?

To the most honorable justices of the Crit Court, I come to you as a humble beginner DM who started a campaign with my siblings who are all new to playing DND. The campaign I created is based off a My Hero Academia-esque adventure. They are all SUPPOSE to be heroes/vigilantes but here lies the problem. My sister is a human monk who worships the monastery of Beyoncé. She uses a melee weapon called “Queen’s Lemonade” and to my dismay, is a brutal vigilante who takes out justice on whom she sees fit. The first session, she went and brutally killed an intoxicated male NPC who simply greeted her. I mentioned that monks typically don’t kill innocents, she commented that Agnes was enacting Queen B’s judgement. She has continuously enacted Queen B’s punishment randomly throughout the campaign. The other siblings think her character is hysterical and are fine with the repercussions I have thrown their party’s way. I don’t want to scare my sister off by being to harsh with a punishment or take away their fun. It is nice to have the family playing every week. How do I stop her wild behavior without ruining their fun? Thank you justices! Oh, and I forgot about the bailiff…Jebediah?

hello honorable justices tanner, murphy, nwadiwe and the stupendous baliff emily. i present to you the case of the cube dicked rouge. it was our first combat of the campaign and our rouge was failing miserably (rolled a 1, a 2, and another 1). naturally they were disappointed by getting to do absolutely nothing in combat while my paladin and our bard beat up the baddie so they decided to find new entertainment. completely unsanctioned they announced they were going to “roll for dick size” they rolled a nat 20. now they won’t stop mentioning their 20 inch penis claiming that it is canon because they rolled for it and got a nat 20. they mention it every session even now claiming that it is 20 inches on every side and they have a cube dick. should this unsanctioned roll be considered canon to the campaign?

MJ Johnson

Intro free 2023 confessional instead of case, I had to get this off my chest: A couple years ago I was first time DM’ing a group of first time players over discord. A few sessions in the group had made it to the BBEG. An arcane wizard and his goons summoning a portal to the void realm to bring about an Ancient Void dragon. I had the encounter set for a certain number of rounds before the wizard completed his ritual. It was down to the last two rounds and the entire party was down save for our lone rogue and echo knight fighter. Amidst the chaos the fighter goes down to two henchmen. With one death save fail and it now being the henchmen’s turn, I fudged the rolls of their attacks on my downed fighter saying one rolled a nat 1 and a 2, and the other rolled terribly low as well, in hopes to give the rogue enough time to make a play. After all is said and done, the group came out victorious and the rogue had an amazing clutch save. Was I wrong to fudge the attack rolls even though they had advantage on the downed player? I await my penance.

Cameron Davis

may it please the court, especially the intern baliff and special guest judge, i come to you with a semi-dice christ confessional. inspired by murph and his battle with the avatar of pestilence, i recently had a big battle where my bad guy (the main bad guy of the campaign!) cast maze on the party’s artificer. like with the beverly maze spell, the artificer had a familiar with them to give them advantage. however, they were unable to get out of it after 4 rounds of combat rolling their intelligence check with advantage and with their +5 bonus. i eventually had one of their npc allies in the fight use their turn to get them out, but that was after their artificer doing literally nothing the entire fight (their first turn they missed their attack and cast a spell the bad guy had immunity to). i gave them some background on their demon parentage in the maze (they’re a tiefling raised by a dragonborn couple), but i came out of the battle feeling like i underserved the artificer. thankfully, due to other circumstances that player had a second PC in the battle, so they weren’t out of it completely, but i feel really bad that i took their artificer out of the entire fight. i beg forgiveness for trying to pull a murph move, and hope that i shall be forgiven in the eyes of dice christ

Alex W

HI IFY! + rad judges -new dad Jared! I have a case for you. My friend DM'd a couple games for me, my bestie Dani and my (now ex) bf. We played in Dani's shared apartment with her sister who refused to play but who made comments the whole time. Ex-bf liked combat, Dani and I liked role-playing. We had two sessions of very little combat. We walked into a warehouse in the woods and tried to bluff our way passed guards by saying, "We know your boss". DM argued we didn't have sufficient info to say that, even though we previously had rolled a nat 20 when interrogating enemies. Ex-bf started an argument on how Dani and I always avoided combat by roleplay and it was our fault. I joked that it wasn't a big deal and everything was tense because Dani's sister's comments. Dani blamed DM for bad DMing and soon after ex-bf stormed off after another combat was avoided. I blocked any further attempts at any more sessions due to tensions.

itsellie

To the eternally 37 bailiff, and the wise and venerable justices who might even be 38, may I humbly present the case of the new DM and the Rolled Levels. A friend of mine, who shall remain nameless, was introduced to D&D by me and wanted to DM a campaign for two of his friends who had never played before. He asked me to join as an experienced player, as he had played only once, a sloppy oneshot run by me during a drunken night. I agreed and was hit with a curveball right off the bat. I was asked to roll a d20 to figure out my starting level. Already a little concerned, I videocalled him as asked and got a nat 20. I went about making my character with very little input, a tiefling gunslinger running from the nine hells, and the day before the first session was told to make a different character that was an beastfolk. Luckily I was able to call them a helllound without too much trouble. In the first session, we were joined by a cardinal with red dragon stats (either ancient or adult I can't remember), I was immediately attacked out of initiative, we got teleported to the nine hells, the new players were focused on mudering the npcs, and it ended after about an hour and a half. I was unable to make the next game as I had work, and heard after that the DM played my character for me, as in fully ran through combat and roleplay. Though it was a few years ago, it still sticks in my craw. Should I have stuck around and tried to coach these players and DM or was I right to bail?

Jules B.

may it cream the vestments of our holiest of disciples, i have a confession to make: first time Duncleing for some friends a few years ago, one shot, for the final baddie i stretched their hitpoints to build suspense and lo and behold.. all i did was kill the vibe of some players. i took the hard win > the easy win and potentially lost out some pals to future dnd magic. all wonderful good buds of mine to this day and played some campaigns w a couple of them after :) but the memory of my (cringe) failed edging haunts me to this day. may dice christ smite me from this godforsaken hellhole that is conciousness. amen

Kyle Coad

To the impartial justices and to the bailiff to whom I’m partial, I present the case of the unwanted night time visitor. I joined a play-by-post campaign run over discord by one of my long time friends. We were running tomb of annihilation and we had a solid 5 man group. I was reading Wheel of Time whilst making my character so I decided to go with an innocent Firbolg Ranger excited to learn about the outside world as my adventure hook; heavily inspired by Loial. One one of our first nights in the city that begins this adventure, we found ourself staying at a house of I’ll repute because the prices fit our measly level 2 price range. The other characters were all about it when NPC women came to offer their services. My character turned them down and decided to end the night by going to his room and reading. I didn’t want to spoil the others fun but didn’t want to participate. Well it turns out my DM had other plans. When we awoke the next morning he described that a woman had snuck into my bed. He insinuated through this NPC that there had been night time activities. I was shocked and outraged because it felt like my sweet little guy had basically been assaulted. I didn’t bring it up to the DM but I told the other players and while they generally agreed, I don’t know if they thought it was as big a deal as I did. The vibe of the campaign changed drastically as I grew disinterested and resentful. The campaign ended soon afterwards for other reasons. Justices I ask you. Was I right to be so upset about this event or should I have just gone with it? I humbly await your verdict.

To the Juicy Justices and Bountiful Baliff, May it please the court. It was my first time DMing a campaign and the second session. I trapped my players on a small planet that housed a large elephant sized green cat. To leave, the had to solve simple puzzles and riddles that aligned w/ each PC. Once solved they would receive the totem they need to go home. The cat was basically just a fun NPC I dropped in to help guide them and give them clues if need be. The session was very fun and light-hearted until the end when my players were about to head home. One player took out their gun and shot the cat dead. I was flustered in the moment and allowed the player to kill the cat (which only had 1HP as it was a cat), to the other players shock and dismay. The session ended on that note. Should I have raised my godly DM hand and smited that player for attacking a peaceful NPC? Or was my player simply frustrated by my puzzles and seeking a way to express that? I humbly await your judgement. Extra info if you need it/have time: This campaign was a test run for me to experiment with different types of session styles and to see what was fun for me and for my group(this was the vibe for the whole campaign, which had plot and story but changed formats while following d&d 5E mechanics) for ex. I had a complete dungeon session where they went through a 20+ roomed dungeon with a map and everything. This puzzle session. A combat session, a role play session etc. Also for murph: I am not friends with any of these people anymore.

Kris ✌️

To the honorable crit justices and a solid improvement of a bailiff. I present the case of the owl familiar hawk. Recently I was in a campaign online with some people I haven’t met before and I played a level 1 fighter with magic initiate to get summon familiar. I was planning to take eldritch knight later and thought this would fit in with my characters background. The familiars name is hawk but I would summoned it as a different animal each session. Fast forward to session 2 hawk is an owl now and I send him to look around a cave before the rest of the party goes in. The DM tells me hawk doesn’t see anything and is fine walking around on the cave floor with an 18 on a perception check. When the party enters the cave after that we’re somehow surprised to find a pack of wolves ready to attack us at the entrance. I decided not to ask about it since they didn’t have a surprise round or anything and everything worked out aside from my character going down once. After the wolves were taken care of the party continued deeper into the cave until we came across the bend. I asked the DM if I could send hawk around the bend ahead of us to look. The DM got annoyed and said we’re not using hawk anymore it’s too much. I was surprised because had only asked if hawk could do maybe 3 things up until this point but again I just let it go. Then to break the awkward silence of the rest of the players the ranger said we would walk first past the bend in the cave. After doing so the ranger is ambushed by bow wielding goblins and is downed. The rest of the session played out pretty normally no one died but we never got through the cave all the way. The next day I get a message from the DM asking if I’m enjoying the campaign. I just say it’s a bit slow but I’m sure it’s gonna pick up later. The day after that the DM messages everyone saying the campaign is cancelled and the only reason I could gather after talking with the rest of the party about it is 1 player quit (not me) and the Dm got super mad about it. So was I in the wrong for over using my familiar or did the DM just not want to deal with my sometimes flying companion’s keen eyesight. I leave the the decision to the court. P.S. Hi Ify please beat Brennan the next time you guys are on Um Actually.

Xavier

Dice Christ confesion. I was recently invited to play in a campaign that my sister has long been a part of. While making an important attack roll towards the end of an encounter I rolled a Nat 20, but I was not able to tell the DM immediately as he was speaking with one of the other players. I used this time to gather my damage dice but in the process bumped my d20 causing it to shift to a 1. When the DM looked back towards me I stated that I had rolled a 20 however we were sitting close enough that he was able to see my dice and read the Nat 1 he proceeded to laugh and tell me that my attack would instead hit a player character who was next to the bad guy nearly leading to a permanent death. I did not want to argue due to shyness. Was I wrong for not correcting the DM?

Liam Cornell

To the Honourable Justices and bailiff Emma, I present to you The case of the polyamourous DnD drama. I am polyamorous and my girlfriend (of 1.5 years) has a husband. He's a great guy and we've bonded over our passion for TTRPGs - we've even attended a few one-shot sessions together, at the local games bar. The thing is, my girlfriend has never shown interest in his DnD and used to mock him for it. But now that I've arrived, she's suddenly interested and wants to come watch us play one time. He's upset that she's now only showing interest because I've arrived, and has banned her from coming. She says it's fair to come, because if *both* her lovers are going it must be interesting. Meanwhile, I'm feeling a bit awkward about initiating the next session... What should I do here? Is my girlfriend or meta in the right? I humbly await your judgements.

Nicholas Bassett

To the honorable justices and muthafucking IFY, welcome to the court!

Donny

To the honourable crit justices and the silly little bailiff May it please the court I present the case if the know it all paladin. I hve started playing a game with people from my university, its going well however i am on my second pc and when ever I mention an ability that i have the paladin googles it and reads it too the dm, as if i am lying about it. Am i being sensitive, or is the paladin a nosey nelly?

To the Honourable Justices and the much cooler bailiff I have been the DM for a 2 1/2 year in person campaign with people from my university's tabletop club. The party consists of 4 full spellcasters and two half-casters, so the players have a lot of fun coming up with insane combinations for their spells and abilities. Earlier this year, one of my players was revamping the discord and we all use for organising games. I suggested that he could add a "Schemes" channel to the discord that everyone except me had access to. This would be so that they could discuss all their insane plans in secret and later surprise me, because they'd previously joked that it was unfair that I knew all their plans. My players think it's a funny idea and add the channel. Over the next few months all is normal. Then, during a game one night, I notice that several of my party members are all on discord, and keep looking at each other to nod or make expressions. To my utter betrayal, my players had been using the channel to discuss various plans directly in front of me, and had been doing so for several games now. In that moment I felt a profound sense of injustice. They'd turned my gift to them against me, plotting and scheming in front of my very eyes. This in no way effected the flow of the game, but I was aghast at my player's boldness. I call upon to justices to come to a decision: Is it right for my players to not only plot behind my back, but directly in front of me? Or am I just a DM being confronted with my players ingenuity of modern technology? (please note that my outrage is purely for the drama, i think this is hilarious and am very proud of my players)

To the honorable Crit Justices and the rapscallion bailiff May it please the court Recently I was playing as a Divine Soul Sorcerer in a Curse of Strahd campaign. While we were fighting a vampire fledgling I elected to hold my action. Our paladin had the vampire grappled while prone and I wanted to attack with firebolt. Fearing for disadvantage while making a ranged attack at a prone creature, I decided to hold until the vamp stood up (I was late in the initiative and the vamp was near the top). A few turns later the vamp had his turn and escaped the grapple, I asked the DM if I could let loose my held attack but they said “no, the initiative started over so you’ll have to wait for your turn again.” My question is this, if initiative goes back to the top of the order, does that mean all held actions are reset?

gavin k

May it please the court of justices. Lawyer Isy F representing fellow party member Jay. We were playing in an entirely home-brewed campaign based off 5E. Rather than leveling up, we had pretty complex skill trees that we unlocked with points assigned at the end of each session. My client was playing a clockwork tinkerer who at the end of his skill tree, got a fully functioning mechanical man. Much like a familiar. The issue is, once my client unlocked this after approx 45 sessions, the mechanical man (voiced by the DM) immediately begun to tell the party all of my clients secrets, even ones that had happened in my clients childhood and backstory. As a result of this and some other transgressions by the DM, the party disbanded. We beseech the court, has my client been wronged? Do mechanical men have the knowledge of their forefathers? Prosecution rests!

Bukvar's Assistant Isy F

Greetings perfectly acceptable judges and the really cool Bailiff Emily, I bring you the case of Me Abandoning My Party Members and Leaving Them to Die. I was visiting a friend for a weekend, and they asked me to join a session of their campaign just as a one off. Theirs was a homebrew setting with Dark Souls like rules where if you die you come back just without your unspent XP. I didn't have a ton of time to prepare, so I just made a quick Bard to have fun with, and just decided they would be mysteriously androgynous because that's fun and hot. Big mistake. Within five minutes of starting to play my character was sexually harassed because they wanted to know if I was a boy or a girl. After getting them to back off, their next idea was to have me drink a mysterious potion from their last campaign. I didn't want to do it, but my friend, (the DM) made me roll a charisma save, which I failed. It ended up being something that turned me to stone and killed me immediately. I came back, but was not feeling any camaraderie to my new party. Anyway, after finally getting on with the adventure, we ended up in a pretty unwinnable fight, but the other members insisted we could win. I, being able to see the writing on the wall, quickly drank a polymorph potion I had found earlier. I turned myself into a bird, and flew back to the respawn area. Everyone else quickly died, and was pretty pissed that I left since they had lost a lot of accumulated experience. I felt that me personally and my character owed no allegiance to those rapscallions, and I don't feel bad for abandoning them. Judges was I right to leave my party to die?

Zerolott