Calling for Cases!

DM blatantly in the wrong

Summer Tribe

healing people who are still up during a fight is pretty suboptimal and in this case needlessly selfish, what an odd play. is it supposed to be part of their character's RP that they're a dick?

Summer Tribe

could have*

Summer Tribe

If it may please the magnanimous justices — and if I may extend my greeting to the illustrious Jill, the wonderful Sarah, the delightful Sydney, and the dashing Tucker… I present to you a case of possible DM favoritism and request your counsel. My DM invited his girlfriend to play with us around the start of this year, joining a campaign that we’d been playing for almost 2.5 years. We were at level 11, so naturally my DM started her character at level 11 as well. However, her character was also the apprentice of an extremely powerful NPC and possessed several magic items, when the party had accumulated only a handful over the course of 2.5 years and came from humble beginnings. She didn't know how to play D&D, which we were understanding of, but my DM would shush the entire table when explaining combat to her, even side conversations at the far end of the table. She also gets tired easily and will put her head down to nap or completely zone out for long periods during sessions and often has no idea what we’re doing. She does have ADHD so we don’t mind, but we’ve had other players with ADHD who’d use their phones or chat when their focus dipped, and the DM has called them out on it. She has been playing with us for over half a year now and hasn’t quite grasped the rules or what to roll and he will repeatedly explain that she needs to roll a d20, whereas he’s gotten impatient with other newer players who didn’t know all their character abilities. She's really sweet, but I can’t help but feel a little irritated that my DM allows what would be seen as poor player etiquette as long as it’s his girlfriend, especially when he has called out said behavior in other players. I come before you all to ask: am I right for thinking that he lets too much slide with his girlfriend, or am I just drinking the koolaid? If so, is there a good way to bring it up, if at all? What would you do in this situation? I await your great wisdom.

If it may please the ever studious high crit justices and the ever smelly and down-trodden bailiff, I present to you, the PC who was stolen by the party. I am currently playing a 5e Wild Magic Warforged in a pre-spell plague world. My character does not have memory of where they came from or why they were created, and the wild magic surges manifest as glitches in his programming. My issue comes from a place of frustration as I feel my character is being taken from me by my party. I came up with a fun backstory and even worked on a voice for my character but anytime I try to speak for my character or have a moment of trying to find out more about my character's backstory, my party seems to talk in their best impressions of my characters voice and speak for me. Other members of the party tell my character what spells he should take because, "it fits the character more" even though I enjoy the spells I pick myself. Whenever the DM asks me/my character a personal decision of any kind at least 2 different people give an answer for me and it feels like I don't have any agency within my own actions. What do I do? I feel like relinquishing the character and giving him to the DM so people can just do what they want with him...I leave the decision up to you oh mighty judges.

May it please the court, and displease the bailiff. I present the case of the human high jump. Just earlier today we were in the middle of an encounter where a witch was in a floating skull turned upside down, forty feet into the air. She has come down from the skull and our entire party wailed on her and she hastily retreated back up to the skull. Right now I am playing an echo knight, and the max range to summon the echo is 30 feet. I remembered from when I read through the players handbook, there was a place with alternate movements, or something along those lines. In that section there is “high jump” which would allow a player to jump 3 + their STR modifier upwards. I argued that if a part of my body was within 30 feet of the floor of the skull, I could summon my echo in the skull. My pc is 6’ and jumping the 6’ with high jump would put me at 28 feet away. My dm replied with “No you can’t, I would like to see you jump six feet into the air.” I then pointed out the section in the players handbook and he refused. I ask the court: Am I in the wrong for trying to use all the rules at my disposal, or is my dm in the wrong for trying to give a more realistic experience. I await your response with humility, regardless of the decision.

Andy H

May it please the extremely hot Bailiff, and those judges too. I present the case of Bard left to die. During my first ever in-person campaign, our party found themselves taking a job to clear out some nearby bandits. In a lapse of judgment and mistake on the part of a few new players, we decided to go in without doing any investigation. This led to us getting into a pretty difficult fight for no reason which resulted in my bard going down, now being the only healer this seemed pretty dire but luckily we had a paladin who hadn't used their healing hands yet! But instead of bringing my pc back, he was on 2 death save fails, they instead opted to use his entire pool on himself. I was quite sad to see my character die but didn't press them about how they could have healed my character, after this they proceeded to never talk about this again and if it was ever brought up they would pretend it didn't happen. I ask the court: Were they right in healing themselves in an effort to beat the fight or should I of asked for him to heal me instead? I await your judgment. (P.S. This Paladin was not in any danger of being killed.)

May it please the court and tickle the Bailiff's fancy. I present to you a case on behalf of a friend of mine. She is part of a long-time campaign with her roommates. Her and one other player had characters from an old campaign that they grandfathered into this new one: a pair of pirates, captain Indigo (played by my friend) and her first mate (played by the roommate). During their most recent game, my friend's character went down in a tense battle. While recovering in her quarters, her first mate came in and killed her in her sleep. The DM not only allowed this, but revealed after the game had ended that the roommate had only agreed to play the game if he got to kill my friend's character. At no point was any of this, the plan or the possibility of pvp, discussed with the party as a whole. Now my friend is considering leaving the campaign entirely. I ask the court: is my friend in the right to be so upset about this occurance? Is leaving the campaign the right move?

May it please the court and tantalite the bailiff. I present to you the case the fire mage Ezekiel. Several years ago I was playing a evocation wizard focusing only on fire named Ezekiel. We were playing a campaign in which we were fighting giants and ended up in a Volcano against fire giants. This part of the campaign was supposed to last a few sessions but ended up lasting 12+ 5 hour sessions. Everything we were fighting was fire proof or resistance so I was useless. I understood it was a chance for the DM to nerf me but after a month and a half of IRL time (7 sessions) of being useless I decide to kill my character off and build a new one. The party agreed the DM dragged out this part of the campaign for to long, however the DM said it was my fault for being OP for to long. Was I wrong for building then killing off my character or was the DM wrong for extending this part of the campaign on purpose. I humbly await by your response.

Jeff_Plagues

Hail and well met honorable justices and also honorable but less so bailiff jake. I bring forth the tale of Space, the player who refused to level up. I run a campaign in the Ravnica setting where a fungal dragon has been released and intends to mulch the entire plane. We are reaching the end of the story and I wanted to throw so beefier monsters at the party so I made up a “super serum” of sorts that will jump the players from level 13 to 15. For dramatic effect I told them the drug was experimental and psychedelic because it used the dragons spores that Space themselves brought to the lab. All the players were going to experience a unique vision from their characters memory, make a few low DC saves and then level up twice. When presented with the drug all the players jumped at the chance to level up but Space was hesitant and while the other players took the super serum they swiped theirs off the table. They then burned luck points until they got a high enough roll to not be seen. When the head of the lab noticed the drug was missing they called Space on it as they were the only one in the room besides them. They then burned ANOTHER luck point on a deception check and got a nat 20 prompting the lab director to put everyone in lockdown fearing a spy for the dragon got in. In response to this Space casted plane shift and asked to go to the 9 hells, but this is Ravnica and the hells do not exist so I had them roll on a list Magic the Gathering planes and they landed on an inhospitable maelstrom. They then shoved a portable hole into their bag of holding to escape and had to roll again dropping them into another random plane. The session ended shortly after with everyone bitter as this ate up the last half hour of game time and everyone wanted to test out their new powers. My question is, did I handle this correctly or was I too harsh on poor Space

I love everything about this situation, and I am screenshotting it to use in my own campaign!

TubaGinger

May it please the court and put a bee in the bonnet of the bailiff. When I was but a humble beginner DM, I once created an encounter for my players built around a magic ball that would suck anyone who touched it inside and could only be released by a magic pass-phrase. During the encounter, my party’s Mage decided to pick up the ball with mage hand and chuck it at the mini-boss I had painstakingly written for them, ending the fight before it even began as he got sucked up into the ball. I accepted my whomping and allowed it to happen. My question arises from the following; the party’s barbarian then suggested the mage use mage-hand again to put the ball in a satchel so they could release the mini-boss as a weapon of sorts in their next encounter. I allowed this, but when they released the mini-boss in the next encounter as they planned to I simply had him attack them almost immediately, absolutely clattering the healer in the process and nearly causing a TPK. My players argued that he would have been confused and attacked the new enemy that they were fighting, but I argued that trapping him in a ball would only have made him more mad at the party. Was I in the right? Or have I just condemned myself to being trapped in a ball? Many thanks.

Liam Derrington

Greetings justices Murphy, Tanner , Axford and the guest bailiff. I’m about to run a campaign for a couple new players. I rolled characters with them individually and rolled their ability scores. I started with 3 and they were happy with what they were dealt. We ran a quick pvp session to get a grip on the system and while I was flipping through the character sheets on Discord my wizard saw the rogues modifiers and rolled abilities. The rogue had rolled multiple double digit abilities and my wizards single highest stat was a 16. My wizard has approached me privately and has discussed his concern with the rogue being the main character. I told him to look at the rogues other modifiers and not to worry since not every check will be in the rogues favour. To no avail my wizard seems a little dejected and suggests everyone roll new characters. Justices am I a bad DM for going with Dice Christ? Should I reroll the characters before the campaign starts?

I ask that the brawny bailiff Josh delivers this case to your Honors Axford, Murphy, and Tanner. I am playing with a group of five other beginners in a run of Dragon of Icespire Peak. . We camped for the night and on a random encounter check were attacked by six goblins riding wolves. The attackers immediately focused their surprise attacks on our person keeping watch since he failed his passive perception. He went down and didn’t have time to warn us. We were outnumbered 12 to 3. They took all our money in exchange for our lives. Long story short we tracked them down after a long rest. In their lair, every time we defeated a group of goblins, one would run off and once pursued more would join in, getting surprise attacks in. Eventually, a group of “surprise” goblins that we couldn’t reach with our movement speeds destroyed a damn and flooded the cave. All but one party member avoided the tsunami of water. He was washed away. The rest of us were still in combat. The defeated/retreating eventually lead to the big boss. The rest of our group stayed in combat as it never actually ended due to goblins retreating to reveal larger groups of goblins. Somehow we defeated the boss and found our washed-away companion, no worse for wear, at the edge of the map after things had calmed down. Our DM chastised the party after the game for not going to check on the washed-away member, but they were unconscious and the party would not have known what had happened to them. Were we right to continue engaging the goblins since combat kept flowing from one battle to the next or were we wrong for not disengaging to check up on our water-logged friend?

Good morning/afternoon/evening beloved justices and bailiff, I present to you the case of the flaunted death. I have been playing a campaign in which the main focus is that our choices matter and that the world will not change to accommodate our experiences - it is what it is. My character, in a session, made a selfless decision to help our party and it resulted in their death. I was at peace with it, it was my decision, we moved on. Throughout the next few months of sessions, our DM would occasionally craft encounters with a specific component or two that could mostly only be completed by my (now dead) character. This has happened with another dead character before, and everyone was fine with it. For some reason, however, the DM is now ramping up the number of encounters in which only with the help of my dead character, would have been made a lot easier. When I asked her about this she simply cited the “actions have consequences,” but me and a few other players feel she’s being too unfair about all this. Should I accept it as it is, or ask the DM to change some aspects of the encounters?

To the honorable and Benevolent Brian, Exalted Emily, Clandestine Caldwell, and…is it Jacob? I bring you the case of the Irrational Ape. I’m a cleric multiclassed with hex blade warlock. We’re fighting on a pirate ship. My rouges evil brother is here and stabs him in the back. He gets polymorphic into a giant ape. We’ve had bad habits of not killing npcs in the past and it coming back to haunt us, so I go in for the kill. Apparently he wanted to talk to his brother, but because he is in ape form and can’t talk, he decides the best course of action is to yeet myself and our sorcerer who joined in the murder off the ship knowing I’m in chainmail. Unbeknownst to him I just picked up misty step so it was ok, but the player just laughed saying “I’m just doing what my character would do”. Am I right to be upset that he could of done a million other things to equate the point? Or should I just let it go since we all lived. I await your noble judgement