Cases Please!

Corrupt judges and Golden Mic winner, the pinch himself, bailiff Josh, I bring forward the case of Vidcen’s broken bow. A while back I was a PC in a campaign wherein the DM decided to make Nat 1s more impactful. A typical nat 1 would leave a PC or NPC prone or something similar. The DM did a really good job with this mechanic and it made combat more dynamic and funnier. The problem lies in the fact that our party had a halfling ranger named Vidcen. After dozens of sessions of re-rolled 1s, Vidcen rolled two 1s in a row which led his beloved, overpowered bow, “Mama’s Longbow”, to shatter. This revealed a crystal linked to his story arc which we never got to see because our DM moved to Denver but I’m sure it would have been amazing (we miss you Nic!). For some players this moment would have been awesome, however Vidcen’s player was quite upset about it as 1. Vidcen was A ranger and his slightly overpowered bow was one of the only ways he could have an impact on combat, 2. He was A first time player who should not have been playing a ranger as he was really into combat mechanics etc. the next character he made was a Druid, and then an artificer, both of which I think suited him much better and 3. Although he was all in on roll play, he didn’t seem too interested in this character’s story arc and just wanted to ROLL SOME GOD DAMN DIE. So, was the DM overly harsh in taking away Vidcen’s pride and joy, or was a broken bow a fair outcome for something that only happens 1/400 rolls?

Noah Muruve

Honorable Judges, I know this is usually more of a civil court rather than a divorce court, but I am in crisis and hope to receive guidance from your wisdom. Jake is welcome to pitch in if necessary. I've been playing with a group for a little over half a year now, comprised of some friends I've met through my roommate – they all know each other from college, and our DM was her long-term boyfriend when we first started planning the sessions. Unfortunately, he and my roommate since had a messy break-up, but I continued playing with the group. The problem is that my roommate and I have since started dating. I've spoken to the DM and he was very cool about it, but my girlfriend/roommate/best friend has a real problem with it. I totally understand that it's weird for her, but I love playing D&D and I have no other friends who are into it, and I don't want to join an online league with strangers. Am I in the wrong here? Should I stop playing D&D with my girlfriend's ex and find another way to enjoy this hobby? Or should I continue and hope she understands? I understand some members of the court have much experience with relationship advice, so I humbly await your arbitration, and thank you for the guidance.

To the Resplendent Judges and I think Bailiff Blake, I present a case/confession (?) of Bad Token Management. I am running a campaign directly inspired by Hot Boy Summer (thank you Emily for explaining all your mechanics in the Short Rests❤️). I have created created several battle maps from scratch because my players like to use Roll20, and I control the all the character tokens from my computer so my Players just tell me where they want to move. When the party was trying to sail through the magical storm and fighting the Henry Cavill bird, the bard named Ace (an intern for the Fantasy CIA who is in college to become a secret agent) failed a strength save and was blown by a gust of wind 10 feet in a random direction, which happened to push him off the back of the boat. However, after a full round of Ace struggling to escape a swirling whirlpool in the ocean and the other PCs trying to help, another player pointed out that Ace had actually moved to brace the mast of the ship on the turn before the saving throw, but I had forgotten to move his token on the map, so the 10ft gust shouldn’t have knocked him off the boat at all! I apologized but said we were already playing it out so it was too late to backtrack that much. In the end our monk almost drowned too trying to save Ace thanks to some bad dex rolls and the Druid had to shoot them with a grappling hook ballista at the last second to reel them in from the whirlpool, doing a lot of damage to Ace in the process. In the moment I thought it was a dramatic finale to the encounter (the gust was the final weather event before reaching the island) but after the encounter I felt bad that Ace had to suffer for my negligence. Should I have walked back a full round of combat to make up for my error in Token Management, or was I right to push on in my attempted drownings? (PS I love you all and wouldn’t have become a first time DM last year without this pod, so thank you for everything you do :)

Dear my lowly lowly lowly lowly Judges and the most honorable and yoked Baliff lover of caw caw, I present to you the case of lantern hijinks. My yuan Ti Rogue in our first session decided to steal from the jewelry store in a place inspired by galaderon, he then ran to the lower levels of the city to try and pawn off the stolen sapphire jewelry, but he was stalked by 4 bandits, he rolled a nat 20 on his perception and had a surprise round to act first, he removed the hood from his lantern, lit it with oil, then poured water on it and threw it and the bandits, killing everybody including him. Flash forward to our session yesterday, and he was trying to make his bullseye lantern fire an explosion in a specific direction. I shut him down saying no, he began to argue and tried to compromise saying he could blow a concentrated bolt of fire like a dragon with the lantern. I shut him down saying that fire and explosions do not behave like light, he ended up settling on some Molotov cocktails. Was I in the wrong for denying him a portable cone of fire lantern? Or was he overstepping his boundaries? I await the bailiffs judgement and maybe the justices or whatever

A hearty greeting to the eloquent and all knowing Justices and a passive aggressive cough for the bailiff who is wearing way to much sex panther cologne. May it please the court, I think one of my players is suffering from main character syndrome and I don’t know how to alleviate their symptoms. I have a very large party (8) and I try really hard to make sure everyone gets a turn in the spot light while also keeping the rest of the party engaged. Usually it isn’t a problem, people are content to wait for their moment. However recently one of my players keeps butting in to senorios and conversations that don’t center their PC. The most recent offensives were them taking control of an investigation that a player with a PI background was leading because he “wasn’t doing it right” and also talking over conversations that a different PC has with their childhood friend to insult her because they think “she’s a huge bitch”. I’m not sure how to fix the issue with out sounding like a huge bitch myself but I trust that the court can deliver either swift justice or a soothing balm to my table 🙏

Marge and in charge

A Dice Christ Confession A year ago, my family asked if I would run a D&D one-shot for them. My brother has watched some Critical Role, but his fiancée and our parents know next to nothing about the game other than the fact that they know how much I love it. I decided to run A Wild Sheep Chase, the first game I ever played in as a player. We got to the first encounter, and they were all rolling terribly before I rolled a nat 20. They continued to roll terribly and I rolled a second nat 20. And then a third. Not wanting to spoil their first time playing D&D, I fudged the second and third nat 20’s, making my bad guy roll with disadvantage despite the fact that he was supposed to have advantage. But when it came around to the second encounter, Dice Christ came through for my fam. The druid cast Pass Without Trace and no one rolled below a 15 on the die, gaining stealth checks of 25+. The rogue got a 21 Thieves’ Tool check to unlock the wizard’s door, and then they decided to lock the door behind them to keep the guards out. With their continually high stealth checks, they then tied up the wizard so he couldn’t even get initiative started. They managed to bypass the entire final encounter. I hope Dice Christ can forgive me for fudging those nat 20’s, but I thank them for the incredible rolls they gifted my family, even though I don’t think any of them rolled a single nat 20. Because of this blessing, my family looks forward to playing again.

Peter Mundell

Dear universe 7 gods and the lowly bailiff who cleans their shoes, I bring you the case of the absent saiyan and namekian I made a home brew DBZ campaign that runs through the whole arc of DragonBall Z and Super including the movies and making it to where everything is canonical well everyone picked their race and a lot of these people are playing DND for the first time so I made it extra fun and exciting for all the players so our saiyan has been absent for every session all the way up to going to namek so like 10 sessions! On the 10th one where they finally start to face freiza I killed off his character and the namekian character for they were both absent because they decided to and I quote go see DR Strange 2 cuz they thought that would be more fun so after informing the other players of this I decided out of spite to have frieza death beam them and mercilessly destroy them in front of everyone and had a mini joker moment and the 11th session not only did the namekian showed up but the saiyan showed up for the first time so I told them sorry your characters have died but their is hope if the players can collect the dragonballs and revive you then your characters can come back so they had to watch a 4 to 5 hour boss fight without participating so I ask you am I being a little too petty for not having them play during an amazing boss fight or did I have a right to destroy these characters after I put so much work into this game that they deemed “not fun” I humbly await your judgement

To the adequately punned and exalted judges and creatively insulted Baliff: I present the case of the Bitter Bitch (Me) I have been trying with limited success to be a part of a regular campaign for years, but rarely do the start align. At the start of a fresh new year at work, I messaged our new cohort of employees asking if anyone would like to start a campaign, explaining that while I did not know how to DM I would be willing to learn. Several players took me up on this offer, but in the time it took to schedule, get a story together, and fully learn to DM, all of my players had either dropped out, or worse, joined a concurrent campaign started by another employee that I was never asked to join or told about outside of gossip. I was so bitter and salty that I remained upset for the entire year and lamented my tail to anyone who would listen. When told I should just ask to join the campaign, I told them that the proverbial ship had sailed and they had every opportunity to ask me to join, considering I spent an entire Slack message begging for a chance to play a game. Am I right to be bitter? Was this just...really rude and inconsiderate? Or am I just remaining a bitter bitch. Justice Murph: I did get new friends, and I no longer work at this workplace. I await your wisdom. Edit: one minute has passed since submission, and I fear I did not explain enough how upset this made me. I am filled with a rage that requires a Wisom Saving Throw. This happened over a year and a half ago, and I am currently worked up about it just thinking of it.

To the very real and fleshy judges Axford, Tanner, and Murphy and to the AI generated bailiff Jake.exe, I bring you the case of the contested kill stealing. My party likes to keep track of who gets the most kills in my campaign with the paladin having over 200 kills and the cleric having less than 20. My party was in the Feywild fighting a hag made out of a hundred hands and a blighted unicorn. During the fight, the cleric surrounded the hag with a wall of fire. When it became the paladin's turn, he decided to pick up the nearly dead unicorn and chuck it at the hag. I allowed it as an improvised weapon. Since he chucked it 30 feet at the hag, I ruled that it would be similar to fall damage, so 3d10 bludgeoning damage for each of them. This did not kill the unicorn, but it did fall in the fire from the wall of fire. At the start of the unicorn's turn, it took the fire damage and perished. The paladin argued that it should've been his kill since he placed it there, but I gave the kill to the cleric because he caused the wall of fire to appear. The paladin now claims that his kill was stolen. Was I wrong to give the kill to the cleric instead of to the paladin? I await your wisdom.

vinicius fernandes

Dear honourable Justices and then Bailiff with incredible calf's, I present the case of the discord prince, So me and a couple of friends, one of which is my gf started a weekend campaign. Everyone but me was new to the game and I'm still learning, we were playing on DND beyond and through discord our first session or two all was fine, but people wanted our characters to be doing stuff while not in session so we introduced a new discord for doing side activities/downtime stuff like working or just chatting so we could get to know each other. Well because I work a lot I couldn't do this throughout the week. My gf and the DM would RP all week together though. Well when I came back to the next session they inform us that her character is a prince of a long lost city, which at first I was like oh...ok but later when we needed money she was like oh I'll just dip into my cities funds. When we had to fight a dragon she summoned her army (we were like lv5) turns out the bbg was an ex lover who wanted the kingdom that the player now ruled, it started to cause issues between all of us and the party has since broken up. I ask is this my fault for not playing in the RP chat and just going with it and forgive are that they just new players who didn't know what this would do overtime? Also it was only four of us three players and the DM the other player who wasn't the prince turned out to be a vampire with a basement of bodies because she was killing of npcs in the city...that's a whole nother story though....but it was chaos.

XaviorTheReaper

To the regal judges and Trevor's girlfriends husband. May it please the court. I bring you the case of my first major womp. I have been DMing a game in the eberron setting for 3 years now, my party were hunting down a necromancy cult and found their way to the cults hideout. One of the main encounters in the dungeon was a set of necromancers who were working together to summon an extremely large horde of zombies. To make the combat simpler I made a hoarde stat block for the zombies that did more damage the more health they had. During the encounter out cleric used destroy undead in the hopes of wiping out the whole hoard, however the stat block for the hoard was about a CR 10 so I told him they would only be turned not destroyed. But he loudly protested that they were all zombies so should in fact be destroyed. After about 10mins of heated debate I made a compromise and allowed him to instead deal a metric shit ton of radiant damage to the hoard, resulting in the encounter being significantly easier than it should have been. So I ask the question, should I have stood my ground? Should I have allowed destroy undead to work? Or was my compromise adequate? I lay myself before the court.

Jude Rollin

To the honorable Judges of the court and to the wrongfully disbarred former judge of Boston who hopefully will be deemed honorable once again in Bean Town, I present the case of the Patient DM and the forgetful wizard Player. I’ve been playing D&D since 2021. I had never DMed that was till the latest season of stranger things came out. Over the pandemic myself and the people I work with have become very close. They all asked if I could DM. I agreed. Since then we have played 7 games over the course of many months sometimes it takes 2-3 months per session but usually month to month. While none of them have played D&D before All of my players have really started to pick up the mechanics of the game except for my wizard. Before every session I text the group to look over their characters sheet, look at their character class in the players handbook and to review spells and a abilities so they ask me any questions before the game if they have them. I will even send D&D tutorial videos from YouTube to refresh them. I encourage them to listen to your podcast too. While my other players have questions here and there and I try to remind them of small things during the game none of them cause me an issue. Honestly I don’t mind helping with small things that new players are curious or don’t understand and if they have big questions for them to please just ask before the game so I can look it up. My wizard forgets how many spells he knows, he doesn’t count his spell slots, he forgets his subclass, he thinks he should be able to cast third level spells when he was a 3rd level wizard and in our last few games he started using hellish rebuke. After seeing hellish rebuke in action I thought I might pick it up for a curse of strahd campaign where I’m an arcane trickster bladesinger. When looking it up I found it was a warlock spell only. The wizard is a human wizard who has not multiclassed, taken a feat or has some racial bonus for the spell. I understand the mechanics and rules very well but not spells. Now this wouldn’t really be a big deal as all my players are still pretty new. Last session the players were discussing how much gold each one has. My wizard said don’t forget to add the one gold piece per diem we get each day. I was floored. I had forgotten in our first session (that was supposed to be a one shot I home brewed that we just continued from) I had mentioned that the NPC would pay them one piece a day for body guard work. When he said that I wanted to yell at him. Every session he is the least prepared and most forgetful player yet he remembers that super small detail. I have to constantly coach him. He remembered the one gold piece per day per diem that I had said just to get the party on the adventure for our first session. He is still a new player but it’s so frustrating every session having to tell him the basic mechanics of his class and watching over his spells when my other players are really starting to get it. I feel like I put a lot of effort and work into being a DM and he can’t even read over his class before a session. Really I was fine helping him every session it was the one gold per diem that just pissed me off and almost set me off. I will add he’s a good person, has a family, is a good coworker and a friendly person. I do need to be able to work with this person. He’s at least 10 years older then me. I’m in my early 30’s. He is not my boss. This is just background to help your ruling. I have to ask you judges Am I overreacting that he would remember about one piece of per diem or should I say something? Do I need to be more aggressive with him about the rules and mechanics or do I need to take a chill pill. How would you handle a player like this? I await your judgment.

TheDopeGuy

I am beneath even the Baliff, but my 2 cents is that if my player had been trying to get out of something for a few turns, then rolled a nat 20, I'd call it good.

Crescent Minor

May it please the Honourable Judges of the Court, and the guy you have to invite to a wedding because you’re friends with his wife, Jack. I present the case of the Love Stuck Hero. A few years ago, I was playing in a campaign with a few friends from college, and in Character Creation, told the DM that romance might be fun to try out. They agreed and we came to a conclusion on how it would look together. As the campaign went on, the relationship started mirroring my real-life relationship with an ex to a frightening degree. I tried to have my character break up with their partner, but the DM guilted my character into continuing the relationship. I capitulated because I didn’t want to cause drama. I kept trying to get them out of the relationship any way I could, only to find my character trapped every time. The campaign died out soon after, so I never got to say anything. I ask you, O Judges, what should I have done differently? Should I have just talked to the DM instead?

To the honorable Supreme Crit Justices and the Bailiff, who’s as good as the char on New Haven pizza, I present to you the case of the Dubious Drowning. The fateful encounter took place along a narrow passage between a cave wall and the subterranean lake. My cheerful but oblivious goliath cleric was knocked into the water by a creature on the path, where in full plate armor I quickly sank 25 feet to the bottom. Upon my turn my DM informs me that I will have to make athletics checks to try to swim to the surface otherwise my character will drown in only a few turns as I didn’t get a chance to get a full breath of air. My first role is a 4, which even with my +7 to athletics keeps me firmly on the bottom of the lake. The next turn I roll a 19 (12+7) and I’m still unable to swim. On the third turn, following the DM’s hints, I try to find the wall of the lake to climb back up. I roll a natural 20! My DM tells me I make it 10 feet up the wall, but if I fail again before I make it to the surface, I will sink to the bottom. Lo and behold the next turn I fail my check and slide back to the not-very-deeps. My player ended up drowning as I couldn’t roll above the DC 25 athletics check enough times in a row and my friends were unable to help me in time (they were in combat and unable to see me in the dark waters). Was I done dirty by the destructive and displeasing DM? Or am I just a pouty player paying penance for poor planning? Note (if the Bailiff determines it relevant): We were not a serious group. In the previous campaign, of the same vibes, we had players named Boop and Poob, and a lizardfolk monk that seduced (and satisfied) every serious NPC she could.

Penfield

To Bailiff Jake (who is my favorite), and the rest of ya: I present the case of the chatty Firbolg. I’m currently running a Wild Beyond The Witchlight campaign with some friends. One of them is playing a Firbolg Ranger named Rue, who’s had her ability to smile stolen. This was my first time running a game for a Firbolg and didn’t know much about them, but i thought, “Hey, it’s core dnd content! How much different could it be?”. Things were going great until the group was attacked by brigands with a giant snail carrying their stuff. Once the brigands were bested, Rue approached the giant snail and used her racial ability ‘Speech of Beast and Leaf’ to ask the beast of burden to lead them to their hideout. As the module had not planned for a PC to ask this snail anything i brushed it off and said the snail hid in its shell. Later this line of questioning continued with random toads I’d mentioned when describing a swampy ambiance, some sad trees, the birds in the trees… all attempts ended about the same. None were helpful. I spent all my time researching the actually sentient creatures and their whole deal, you can’t expect me to give a personality and motive to every living thing this Firbolg steps over! After the session the player asked me privately if she was using the skill wrong, and i said no, but she seemed a bit defeated. Was i in the right to keep the story moving forward, and prioritize names characters in my story? Or did i step on a players attempt to use a cool ability to solve a problem in ways i hadn’t thought of?

Taylord

You guessed it! The DM was my fiancees best friend since childhood. That dude really did not like me. 🤣 They're not really close anymore, but not becuase of this. I think this was just the nail in the coffin.

Bukvar's Assistant Isy F

What the actual F 😂 your DM ignored you?! I bet you are a woman and a DM is a man?;)

Polina Milashevskaya

I have a dice Christ confession - or a witnessing?? I was DMing newbies through a homebrew version of Jurassic Park II: The Lost World and they were at the part where they were trapped in the trailer by two angry TRex. Now I thought they would remember this part of the movie because it haunted my dreams as a child, but they were adamant that the best way to deal with this was to stay put in the trailer with barred windows, even as the TRex were knocking it around. I was quietly freaking out because we were heading for a TPK for my bb newbies when one of the PCs (Ian Malcom) remembered they had a "Chaos Roll" once a day. (Basically if they roll high enough, I tell them what's going to happen. He definitely has it in the movie). Just as I was bargaining with myself what I would give them for what roll, the player rolled a Nat 20 and they were able to escape before the TRex sent the trailer over the cliff. I am convinced they were only able to do this through the power of Dice Christ and his Light. For in his Light we all walk. Amen.

Epilogue

To the judgmental judges and Schrödinger’s bailiff who both is and is not Jake until the box he is kept in between cases is opened, I present the case of the Exploded Healer. I joined an elder scrolls themed campaign a few months ago. During the last session I was in, the party had a random encounter with a mysterious keyhole in the side of a hill. Up to this point, I had been making small but annoying asks that were getting on the DM’s nerves. For example, when I put a stick in the lock and got shocked, I replied, “But wood is not conductive.” We briefly argued but I conceded and took the damage. After some time investigating, we opened an opaque portal. Half of the party, myself included, went through and left the other half behind. Once there, we encountered a Daedric god who hosted a tournament. I wanted to get the rest of the party through the portal through an in-game means, so I tried addressing the god to see if they could send a message to another member who worshipped Daedra. The DM informed me my mouth had been sealed shut and continued talking about the tournament. When he said we would have some time to prepare, I asked how much time, hoping to get a long rest since we had already encountered several enemies. The DM then said, “This might seem rude to you,” then dealt forty points of damage with no save, and said (as the Daedra), “The next time you speak to me I will kill you,” so I said, “Go ahead and kill me.” He then blew up my character and I died instantly, leaving the other party members to pick through my remains for the health potions I had been carrying. I did not roll in a new character. My question for the court is; did my needling warrant such a reaction, or did the DM over-react? Also, should I have taken lightning damage through a wooden stick? I fling myself at your ankles to await your cruel and beautiful judgement.

Connor

Dear all y'all: I play in a couple campaigns with friends I met online during the early days of the pandemic. Our most experienced player keeps ditching his characters to play new ones, and it bugs me. I haven't spoken up about it, but I sort of want to. Is there an unspoken limit to the number of characters that you opt to ditch/play throughout the campaign, and should the DM have more of a backbone about it? I humbly await your ruling.

Kelsey Killoran

May it please the court as well as my favorite sometimes streamer / painter Jake. I was playing a home-brewed campaign as a void sorcerer. I had spent many sessions sacrificing role-play in order to learn void magic, as the DM said if I was studying I wasn't here. During a battle the party accidentally travelled through the void via a mirror. Once on the other side and out of combat I asked to investigate as I had not cast anything. I was ignored and the DM asked our barbarian to roll for an attack. He rolled and he passed. The DM informed us the barbarian had smashed the mirror and I could not roll for an investigation check. I ask the court, I know I am being taken to the raspberry patch 🤣 but was the Barbarian wrong to roll and go along, given I had clearly asked to roll and was ignored. PS: The Barbrian is my fiancee of 10 years and we no longer play with this DM, due to loosing interest as I couldn't actually play. My fiancee now DMs a new campaign for 4 out of 6 of the party members.

Bukvar's Assistant Isy F

Most Beloved, Honorable and Delightful Judges, and the other guy too I guess, I present to you the case of the Nervous Newcomer. I have been wanting to play D&D for a long time, being hooked on it from NADDPOD. I found a group through a new friend (my neighbor) and asked to join, they accepted me but asked I played a sorcerer, so I agreed. I was told the group was “broken” and needed to “break” the sorcerer just so I wouldn’t immediately die. The party is all level 4. My friend basically built my character, pushed me to take a level of cleric,(which i dislike for the roleplay aspects) and while I tried to be as honest as possible, he had me falsify some of my rolls, which I’m very uncomfortable with. I did get to choose my cantrips and four spells. He then was unable to make it to my first session, meaning I met everyone else for the first time alone, playing a class I knew nothing about and a character I didn’t have much hand in making. PS, I didn’t know I’d be going without my friend until a few hours beforehand. The game was at the DM’s house, and I hardly knew anyone’s names at this point, and I ended up driving someone else to their house afterwards that night. Am i wrong to be uncomfortable by the need to make a “broken” character, to the point of being told what class to take and having my rolls faked? Sincerely, the Nervous Newcomer.

To the honorable judges and to the bailiff that I have no strong feelings towards either way, I bring the case of the Poisoned Monk. I recently guested for one session in a campaign that several of my friends are in. During the game, we were in the middle of some pretty serious combat against some magic wyvern things which were dealing poison and piercing damage. I noticed that the monk was taking the full damage even though monks are immune to poison. (I play a monk in a different campaign.) I didn't want to say anything since I was a guest, and maybe this had been clarified at some point in the past when I wasn't there. I didn't think it would make much of a difference, since the wizard/artificer had cast Warding Bond on the monk so he was taking half damage anyway. However, in the middle of the fight the bard went down, which led to the wizard/artificier casting Life Transferrance, and they rolled exactly the amount of HP they had left and knocked themselves out, ending the Warding Bond, Rary's Telepathic Bond that the party was using to communicate, the Disguise Self that the wizard was using to hide the fact he was a warforged in a country that didn't like magic or warforged, and the Polymorph that was containing one of the wyverns. At this point I brought up the fact that they should technically have more HP, due to the monk taking poison damage when he didn't have to, but the DM ruled against it. The fight took a turn for the worse with two party members down, and the party ended up having to flee the wyverns. I don't know what happened after due to being a guest, but it seems to have worked out in the end. My question is, should I have spoken up sooner to prevent the fight from going so poorly or should the DM have given the wizard some HP back? I await your ruling. P.S. the whole session was EXTREMELY funny and there weren't any hurt feelings, I just love being judged.

To the deeply honorable and highly effervescent Justices Murphy, Axford, and Tanner, as well as , I present to you the case of the incinerated artificer.

Lorelei G.

To the honorable and handsome bailiff, and the low-down, dirty Jakes of the court, I present the case of Brick. I've had a regular game with a few friends that's been going on for a few months now. One of the players -- I'll call them Champ -- started a new relationship during that period, and wanted to include their SO in our game. Meet Brick. The issues began almost immediately -- despite having apparently already been introduced to the game, Brick cannot understand the basic concepts. Every time a die needs to be rolled, they pick one at random, without regard for side count. We had to explain numerous times over the course of the night that the "d" in "2d8" does not mean that you add 10 to your roll. This went on for several games. At first we hoped that they would learn the game over time with some extra help, but there was never any sign of improvement. We offered a compromise -- Champ would handle all of the mechanical details of Brick's character, and Brick would handle the general decisions and roleplay. Brick was upset at this suggestion, and insisted on continuing as normal. After the game, the other (3 out of 5) members of the group got together and decided that we want Brick gone (although to be honest, I was kind of on the fence). Despite not being the DM, I was elected to deliver notice to Brick and Champ. Please, wise court, tell me if booting Brick is the right decision, and if I must be the one to deliver the bad news. I accept the judgement of the court, and request the death penalty instead if I have to tell them. Love, When are you coming to Buffalo

m. white

Intro free 2023: There is an heated debate in our group that has me at odds with my (usually) loving wife, and it's over something as petty as the numbering of our sessions. As the DM, I write at the top of my prep notes in big, bold letters which session I'm prepping for. 5th get together, 5th session...easy, right? The players are aware of the numbering system and we use the numbers to keep track of how long we've been playing. The PROBLEM comes in the fact that early on in our campaign, a session ran long, and we ended up getting together the next night to finish up. This extra session ended up being the same length as a regular get together. My wife INSISTS that this was NOT a new session, and therefore SHARES a number with the previous session. I say that's ludicrous because that's not how counting works. Every game now starts with an argument over which session were about to play and I fear our marriage can take much more of this clerical pettiness. Please justices, help us put an end to this. P.S. This is all lighthearted fun, our marriage is rock solid.

Alec Posta

To the lawful (and sometimes chaotic) crit justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner, as well as the true neutral bailiff Hurwitz - I bring you the case of Accidental Murder by Sausage. My good friend and DM set up a fantastic campaign where our party of all Druids were unceremoniously beaten up and kidnapped by treant monsters. This left it up to our band of animal familiars (an elk, an armadillo, a talking donkey, and a wolf - played by me) to rescue our Druid friends. Some other animal familiars joined us on our quest including a panakeet (a flying frying pan) and a banjo-playing krill named Krill Bill. After one particularly difficult battle, Krill Bill was left close to dying on the ground. Earlier in the session, I had found a shed full of sausages (this became an issue as it turned out to be elk meat), and the DM deemed that each link of sausage equaled 1 HP. I therefore attempted to feed my Krill companion 10 or so sausages to get him back on his feet. My DM proceeded to narrate how my wolf-self dumped pounds of meat on my companion thereby squishing him into doing death saving throws. A year later, I still feel the pain of my wolf-self who was so traumatized by this incident. I would have liked to have narrated how I carefully chewed up and baby-birded the sausage to Krill Bill. Did I deserve the chance to narrate this action or was my DM right to decide that there was no safe way to accomplish my goal? We await judgment.. may it be free of croissants..

MyrMonkshood

May it please the both stunning and cunning Judges Axford, Murphy, and Tanner and, of course, cutie lil bailiff Jake, I present to you the case of Knowing the DM Too Well.

Space McMac