Cases Please!
Added 2025-06-25 11:18:49 +0000 UTCHeya fam! Bailiff Jake here, to announce the Supreme Crit is convening this very afternoon. Please submit your brief (I beg!) case on this thread and we will bring you true justice.
Comments
To the honorable jakestices and bailiff whatshisname, I humbly bring before you the Case of the Dhampir Mutineer. A few years ago, our party was on a mission to cross the high seas and save our party’s Sorcerer after she was abducted. While she waited for her original PC to be rescued, the Sorcerer played “Maria,” an Artificer who was secretly half-vampire. One fateful session, my Paladin, who had been elected captain by the rest of the party, was keeping watch at the helm. When I asked the party’s Bard, “Trevor,” to take the wheel, Maria announced that she wanted to grab the wheel instead, prompting a contested Athletics check that Trevor won easily. Maria reacted by biting him with her secret vampire fangs. I tried to avoid full PVP by grappling Maria and asking for an explanation, but instead of answering any questions, she made her robot companion shoot me in the back. The party then collectively turned on her, and Trevor, convinced that she was a full vampire, finished her off while she was rolling death saves. After tying her up, we brought Maria back to life with a Revivify spell so we could get answers (and, out of game, to give the player a second chance with the character). For the next hour, we begged her to give any explanation about the vampirism or why we should trust her going forward, while she refused to explain herself, apologize, or acknowledge any wrongdoing. When our characters stepped off to the side to discuss how to proceed, she tried to break free of her bonds and escape. We knocked her back to 0 HP, and, seeing no other course of action that made sense in character, we ultimately decided to kill her. For additional context, this was not the only time that this player initiated PVP, but it was the only time that it resulted in a character death. Justices, were we wrong to kill our friend’s character twice, or were we justified in executing an unapologetic instigator? We humbly await your judgment.
Matthew J
2025-07-22 14:51:53 +0000 UTCI have for you a Dice Christ confessional! Despite my constant consumption of D&D shows, I’m still “new” to D&D since I never played as a kid and only recently bought the DMs guide. Admittedly, I believed I could wing it since I played with people I trusted that would help me out. Recently, my husband and I talked my sister into playing little one shots that we could string together where we switched off DMing. We all played as siblings. (A side note my sister’s first roll ever was a nat 20, that lucky bitch.) Anyway, it was my turn to DM and I had taken a One Shot Wonder and fluffed it up a bit, but when we got to the boss fight I misread the attacks. The book tells you the average damage but I thought that meant minimum damage, so I added that number to my rolls. I realized I was about to kill them and even fudging rolls AND knocking down the BBEGs HP, I knocked both my husband and sister out. Ultimately, I had the BBEG turn them into fish and they had to escape to then continue the fight after a rest, that the BBEG did not get. They won the fight and we wrapped the session. Later my husband was saying that fight seemed hard and I showed him the book, he pointed out my mistake. So esteemed folk of the cloth, can I be forgiven for my multiple sins?
April Johnsen
2025-07-11 18:37:37 +0000 UTCHey there, I come asking.. forgiveness? I am typically a DM and the last DnD campaign I ran was a group of children(including my 9yo daughter) at my local library I was volunteering at. One of the sessions I rolled soooo many nat 20s and the encounter was already a bit too strong for them so I fudged rolls and nerfed the encounter. Fast forward, I have been mainly running Monster of the Week that uses D6’s for over a year, so that D20 hadn’t been used for a year. I pulled it out of my drawer to use as a player in a Frost Maiden campaign I’m in. I rolled 5 nat ones in that session, but ended with a clutch nat 20 as a final roll. I was under the impression that fudging rolls on children is the one exception in dice Christ’s eyes, so why was I punished and did I deserve it? P.S: I have been in the Frost Maiden campaign for 3 sessions before that, but I used my NADDPOD Pawpaw dice. They treated me well, it’s just the dice I used to fudge rolls on the kids.
CrowsNestCraft
2025-07-01 17:30:32 +0000 UTCTo the esteemed judges, and court bird Jake Turkwitz. I recently started DMing a campaign for my roomates and few friends of mine, which has been going really well. Most of the players are generally new (a few had played with me in a campaign previously), so I’ve been trying hard to encourage role play, especially in their backstories. Two of the players, our Ratfolk Rogue named Scruff Danger, and Dwarven Bard named Roxie Ironstring established in their backstories that they are ex’s. It’s been amazing for role play (and to watch my roomates flirt with each other), giving players something to talk about, tension during battle etc. Recently, Scruff came to me to bring up the idea that he and Roxie had hooked up before the campaign, and that Roxie was pregnant. I was surprised, but figured if they had both agreed on it, I’d find a way to make it work. In the finale of our “season” (we’re taking a break because people are going home for the summer as we’re still in college), I subtly hinted at the idea that Roxie was pregnant, and the table LOVED IT!!! It was a funny moment, and we talked about it after the session for a while after. I thought all was good. However, Roxie recently came to me and told me that they had NO idea Roxie was pregnant. There has been a discussion, and its been revealed that there was a BIG (likely drunken) miscommunication on what the two meant by “hook up”, and we have decided to retcon the reveal and move on, laughing it off. Judges, is Scruff in the wrong for wanting to be a daddy?
Sean Smith
2025-07-01 02:48:42 +0000 UTCTo the magnanimous justices and mischievous bailiff. Not so much a case as I had actual jury duty this week. People are wild, and I’m not even talking about the defendant. A brief demographic survey (Name, age, occupation, marital status) quickly became a full blown dating profile for several people. “Hi I’m Joe, I like long hikes with my dog and am currently single.” Then, while we’re going through everyone’s dating applications, a defendant in the courtroom next to ours escaped custody as he was convicted (https://www.kare11.com/article/news/local/man-escapes-hennepin-county-courtroom-after-receiving-prison-sentence/89-17afcec4-04a7-4d03-b549-b3887f01c647). Like I said, shit was wild. Curious if you guys have ever served on the lower courts or reserve your opinions for the Supreme Crit? Objectively yours, Tom
Tomallama
2025-06-30 11:26:34 +0000 UTCTo the sweeties and cuties and Jake This is the case of the wrongly exploded dynamite. The party's barbarian fairy has recently acquired some cursed gloves that turned the end of our battle into pvp. In an effort to knock down the barbarian, my emo angsty boy light cleric (who worships the god of dads) cast fireball. This knocked the barbarian down, ended the effects of the curse, and I quickly stabilised the barbarian with spare the dying so we could figure out what to do. This was fine until the barbarian out of character said 'what about the dynamite?' wr had just left a town where we had acquired dynamite for our next task (blowing up a cursed altar) and the barbarian was holding 3 sticks when i hit them with fireball. I panicked but then looked at the spell card and was relieved to tell everyone that fireball doesn't ignite things rhat are being worn or carried. As the dynamite was being carried surely it wouldn't explode. My dm and my party overruled me. The dm said that the number one rule is the dm gets to set the rules and that he changes things all the time to make our lives easier. We ended the session on this cliff hanger and our barbarian has prepped a new character for next session just in case. No one is irl mad but I want vindication that I'm right. Please justices, intervene and save not only our barbarian but also my cleric who might be ruled to be in the blast radius when they go to cast spare the dying
Charlotte Glance
2025-06-30 01:14:06 +0000 UTCTo the bone dry justices and the slightly soggy bailiff, I bring to you the case of the OP spider. I’ll cut straight to the point. It was our final session. I was playing an Elven Warlock named Alanis, as it is a dope ass name and whoever came up with it is quite cool. We were trying to finish up the quest we were given and had ended up in a field equidistant from a wizard tower (our end goal) and a random city. So we determine to go to the tower. This was apparently contrary to what the dm had planed. The DM moaned a bit about us not going to his cool city, then got a funny look in his eye and narrated my character’s shoe getting stuck in the mud. So I narrate taking my foot out, pulling out the shoe, and then putting my foot back in. SURPRISE! In the shoe was a spider that then bit me and poisoned me without a save. That poison PARALYZED ME INSTANTLY and the DM was adamant that I would be unable to move for the next three days. And that’s how the campaign ended. A full year of play finished with my character paralyzed in the mud with no story arcs completed. So I ask you this, was the DM right to “railroad” us in such a way? All in all it doesn’t really matter, this is just a thing that will come to mind every once in a while and I’ll get pissed off all over again. I await your response. PS: I have many examples of this dm being……interesting in his rulings but that is a case for another day
Rebecca
2025-06-27 08:25:49 +0000 UTCHi all! I bring you to you the case of the railroaded cannibal. I joined an online dark A Game of Thrones style game with a group of strangers. I played a former crusader with ptsd named Sir Casimir. I established he had done terrible things in the war that got him cursed by an enemy wizard, but I left it vague. After a few weeks the GM ran a one on one flashback of Casimir's time in the crusades for me. Long story short, it ended up me being captured and the GM narrating at me that I was cursed, which turned me into a cannibal and the GM narrated how I started eating people including children. Justices, I am not squeamish, or even object to the idea of playing a cannibal. I just would have you know, liked the chance to CHOOSE to be a cannibal. I rolled with it as best I could going forward, but it really shadowed my enjoyment of playing Cas. There were similar instances of the GM railroading people into doing things without them choosing to do so the year I played with this group, but that was the worst. In the end, I left because the GM insulted me for not following his extremist hateful politics. I am glad I got out of that game, and I know it was a bad group, especially the GM. But sometimes I still miss Casimir, and when I think of him, I wish I didn't think of him as a cannibal. Anyways. Can you punish my former GM?
Ken
2025-06-27 01:42:45 +0000 UTC
