D&D Court: Snitching Ponies, Wingman DMs, and Surf & Murph

This is a head gun podcast.

Welcome to Dungeon Courts, everybody.

We are your Supreme Court justices, Murphy, Tanner, sort of, Hurwitz, and the tentatively beautiful, talented bailiff, Axford.

Hey, yes.

Come on, Murph.

Have Have you ever seen

beautiful pegs?

Yeah, he said beautiful, talented, and left it at that.

That was taking me down a peg.

Thank you.

Wow.

And I'm only sort of a justice.

She's so quick.

She's so quick.

She is quick, but so is this justice over here.

I'd say we're, I think we're all great.

And with that, let's move into Crit.

Here ye, here ye, Crit is now in session.

Honorable Justices Tanner, Hurwitz, and Murphy presiding.

Thank you.

Damn, she is good.

Our first case comes from Andy W.

Reasonable unrespected justices.

I have a simple but important question for you.

How many potatoes can a goblin carry?

I was DMing an encounter for my level one players.

They were to escort a cart of potatoes from town A to town B.

Believe it or not, a band of goblins ambushed them along the way and tried to steal some taters.

During the epic battle, a goblin warrior managed to down the monk while two goblin twerps carried off a large sack of Murphys.

In parentheses, potatoes.

I guess that's a tire for potatoes.

I specifically said that they had to work together to carry the sack.

The party accepted and saved their monk.

However, when they arrived at town B, they found out that they were missing 200 patatas.

This led to an aggressive and violent IRL argument because they'd been told

they would be fined a copper for every missing spud.

They vehemently claimed that there is no way that many tubers could even fit in a standard issue sack.

Now, Justices, I will be honest.

I did pull that number out of my ass, but I still feel this is entirely reasonable.

The logic of a hundred tatoes per goblin is sound, and I feel that everyone knows it, but keeps arguing because I am outnumbered.

I have absolutely no care about the two.

two gold pieces, but it is very important to me that my party admit I'm right.

Please pass your sentence.

Okay, Florida.

You know, so much.

That was so much math.

It's really quickly.

So hard that AI has taken over because I cannot get a quick answer about how much of your potatoes.

That was very well read, but like, fuck you for that Murphy fact about potatoes because that just threw me.

As soon as you said that, I'm like, is that really slang for potatoes?

And apparently it is.

I did not hear the rest of the case because I was just focused, laser focused on the fact that potatoes used to be called Murphys.

Did you know that?

It might just be a type of potato.

You know how there's.

Murphy is my favorite food.

I don't know about you guys, but I don't have a tasty murph.

I love eating Murph's ass.

Potato or otherwise.

Oh, it is a slang term or informal word for potato.

This is great.

That's not a slang when you add stuff to it.

Next time I go to a restaurant, I ask for Murph and Turf and get so mad when they don't know what I mean.

Wow.

I want lobster and mashed potatoes, you fucking moron.

What's up, Mission Chip?

It's Murph and Turret.

Hot butter in that Murphy's ass, please.

Am I?

What is what is happening here?

Everywhere I'm looking, it's like a hundred count size, 100 potatoes in a carton weighs eight ounces.

What does that mean?

Like, that's not real.

Yeah, 100, how much does a fucking potato weigh?

A potato weighs half a pound.

Yeah, and they weigh a lot.

Yeah, I'm looking at

one large raw potato is 0.81 pounds.

One medium, 0.47.

So let's go medium.

Yeah, yeah.

So it says

0.5, half a pound, half a pound.

Half a pound.

Half a pound.

100.

So 50 pounds.

Each goblin.

That's not nuts at all.

I honestly, guys, I carried 50 pounds the other day.

Yeah, because goblins are smaller than us, right?

No,

you cannot get into this fucking.

This shit is not how D and D works.

Literally, a halfling with a 20 strength score can carry more than a Goliath with a 10 strength score.

That's just straight.

Is there a carrying capacity that is calculated based off of strength?

Because we could look at a goblin twerp.

This is something that we just do not deal with at all in our game.

So I'm just going to look up what this rule is because I don't know it.

This is the crit.

This is the crit.

This is the supreme crit, and we still must weigh in.

We must weigh in.

Okay,

400 episodes into the show.

How does carrying capacity work in DD?

I am looking at a goblin cap.

Happy eight-year anniversary, dude.

It'd be goblin warrior, they were saying.

No, they said goblin twerps.

Goblin twerps, but they also said goblin warrior stole stuff.

Is goblin twerp a specific?

This is like a murphy potato thing where you're just adding stuff.

Not potato, pizado.

Potato, murphy, potato.

You can carry up to 15 times your strength score in pounds.

Okay, well, this goblin has minus ones.

But what's the strength score?

So nine,

eight, eight.

Okay.

Eight times 15.

Eight times 15.

Yeah, that's easy.

Everyone knows the answer.

Everyone knows the answer to that.

It's more than 50.

Yeah, it's 120.

It's 100%.

Yeah, it's so much more than.

Yeah,

each Twerp could have carried both.

Yeah, I think you're right.

This is pretty freaking open and shut.

Okay, open and shut.

You are correct.

They could carry.

They could absolutely carry.

They could absolutely carry.

Yeah, well, I think the punishment, they should have to hoof Murphys like

a hill.

Ooh, yeah.

I'll send them potatoes.

I'll send them 50 of my potatoes.

And those are big potatoes.

Those are real Murphys.

They're not the Google AI potatoes that weigh half a pound for a hundred ones these are massive murphys yeah

big natural murphys come your way these are my big naturals

you are

so lucky to get my husband's big naturals

you wish you could merpenter my husband's big natural plump natural full of eyes

good lord uh yeah

this is this is what happens when people get we a long time ago, I remember we got into this thing of like, this halfling would never be able to do this.

And it's just like, haha, that's literally not how the game works.

I gotta say a halfling warrior is, or a halfling fighter has more strength than a Goliath wizard.

Sorry about it.

I gotta say, I'm kind of impressed that

there was a carrying capacity based on stats that we could just find out exactly how much these goblins are.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

And I'm surprised it got violent at the table.

Yeah, this seems like a real open and shut case.

It could have been a quick, I won't call it a quick Google because it doesn't work anymore.

Wow.

Okay, so a quick Yahoo, maybe.

And ask Jeeves at least.

Andy W does say it's very important to me that my party admit I'm right.

They so I think that's our, that's the punishment, right?

They got to admit you're right.

Yeah.

They got to prepare you a murph and turf.

They got to take you out.

They got to take you out.

Take you out for Murph and Turf.

It's Murph and Turf, which is like upsettingly huge amounts of potatoes and not enough lobster.

I would say it's like a full mound of potatoes and then like one lobster tail on top.

Isn't the surf part?

Isn't the surf part?

Wait.

You guys are doing this wrong.

Surf and turf.

Turf is the cow.

Wait, what are we saying wrong?

We're saying

surf rib and turf.

You got it.

No, surf and murph.

Surf and murf.

We pointed out where we were.

Let's just retake the episode from the beginning because we've been talking about this a lot.

Yeah, now you want to surf and murf.

I wasn't recording.

I figured that was recorded.

Oh, good.

Yeah, yeah.

No, yeah.

I guess there's a trial beginning.

That's the beautiful part about it, though, is you could have surf and murph or murph and turf.

Yeah, but I think surf and murph sounds a little worse.

Yeah, surf and murph is A, funnier, and B, it's way funnier to have way too many potatoes and not enough lobster than to have a bunch of potatoes and steak, which just sounds pretty good.

And I guess you got to soak those potatoes in brine to

pocket them like real wet.

Ooh, you could also do kind of a a trompe l'oe thing where

you make the potatoes, you put the potatoes in the lobster shell and act like there's more lobster there and sort of carve the potato, the mashed potatoes.

No surprise, it's potatoes.

Yeah, and you act like it's like an elite culinary move, but you're just trying to say money.

Yeah,

we're having lobster tonight.

Stuffing a lobster with mashed potato is really funny.

Ah, boy, potato lobsters again, mom.

That's a good punishment, too.

You guys go to red Lobster, but your lobster is actually just full of potatoes.

Whoa, it's just all shell and

lobster tail is just mashed potatoes

in a lobster tail.

Got them.

So ordered.

So ordered.

Our next case comes from Romy S.

To the honorable Supreme Court justices.

May I present the case of the conflicted lover.

Okay.

So this one is actually kind of treading into a territory I'm going to call, I just came up with this name, if I were you

oh wow interesting

take a little bit of real life advice okay yeah if I were you yeah

that's so unique I love that

if I Murphy

okay

my party's barbarian went through a breakup with his long-term girlfriend not a player but a friend so this is our real so the this

okay so you got a real person this question is referring to everyone ask their DD class.

But we are talking about the girl broke up.

No, no, no.

This is outside of the table.

Okay, wait.

A friend, not another player.

Wait, you broke up with a friend?

No, no, no.

They're saying it's not another player at the table.

Okay,

broke up with somebody.

Yes.

So the barbarian at the table had a girlfriend outside of the game.

I feel like this could have been described.

This could have been described differently in a clear way.

You know, we're having fun.

And so is Rome.

So they broke up a couple months ago.

Now, recently, my party's bard started dating this very girl and is unsure of when and how to inform the barbarian of the news.

In initiative.

We haven't.

Wait.

Hang on.

Is this in real life or in real life?

I'm telling you, we're using DD classes, but it's about real life people who are not at the table today.

We're through the looking glass.

Bard and the barbarian.

Okay, I'm not.

The bard and the Barbarian.

There's no DD game.

There's no DD game.

There is a DD game.

Okay, so let's give an example, Murph.

Before you

take up time, I'm being confused.

If Murph were you, yeah.

Caldwell.

Jake, you understand what's happening?

Murph?

Absolutely.

Caldwell, let's say Caldwell is dating someone in real life.

Yes.

The four of us played together.

Caldwell's dating someone.

He breaks up with that person.

Later, I start dating that person.

What?

So we're at a table together.

did you say this?

I am reading this word for word.

I don't know if I haven't had enough coffee or what's happening.

Okay.

Is anyone else confused?

No, I got it, but I see why Murph was confused.

Yes, okay.

I think we're all still thinking about potatoes.

Yeah, this is.

Yeah.

Yeah, you got Murphy's rubber.

Yeah, she's

okay.

So, all right.

So a bard at the table started dating.

It's simple, and it's been overexplained.

So within a DS.

Here's how I would describe it, right?

Did you play at a table?

Did you play at a table together?

Barbarian in real life dated someone.

Now the bard at the table is dating their ex.

That's what's happening.

Exactly.

Yeah, great.

Damn, unfortunately, it's cleaned up.

Yeah.

Yes.

Okay.

Okay.

Cool.

The breakup was relatively amicable, but remains a touchy subject for the barbarian.

We have a session coming up in two days.

What I am seeking to hear from the honorable justices is when the best point for him to deliver this news would be.

I worry that telling him before the session would sour the mood, and I feel that he deserves some time to brood over this.

At the same time, I feel strongly that keeping it from him would not be fair either.

Additionally, I would like to request a ruling for the two players involved regarding the future of the campaign in case the barbarian decides he no longer wants to continue playing with the bard and the party.

I patiently await your fair judgment.

Okay, so I know that there's been a lot of confusion about IRL and in-game, but I don't think that this is the DM's responsive.

Yes.

Yeah.

It's so funny to take this out.

Yeah.

My advice is to cancel the game.

My advice is that you should not be at the table when these two people find out.

Realistically, though, you're taking this DD part out of it entirely.

Realistically, though, if you have it coming up in two days, do you think, what do you think is the window of tasks?

Do you have to ask a bard

in a real person?

and say tell the other person that you're dating their ex.

Right, yeah, because the bard doesn't have a phone.

Maybe the bard has a speaking stone, but

you have to imagine as well that, like, I mean, everyone is on social media.

I have to imagine they probably have heard like murmurings.

There's probably the barbarian must have some there's gonna be an impossible under another IRL fight at a table

the fact that it's called i would say like i don't know maybe this would be salvageable if it was a situation where they weren't like, together, but they, like, date, like, quote unquote, went on a few dates or something, like, they dated or something like that.

But the fact that it was called a breakup means that it was, like, an exclusive thing where they were actually dating,

which means this probably isn't going to go over super greatly.

It doesn't, it sounds like it's all very recent.

Do it before the session for sure, but like way before the session.

Yeah.

You don't do it before.

I think

it's the DM.

They're supposed to stat out goblins and figure out how many potatoes they can carry.

Oh, yeah.

No, I don't mean the DM.

I mean the bard.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The bard needs to tell them.

But this conversation needs to happen ASAC.

Your job as the DM is to try to have people not get into a physical altercation at your house.

Yeah.

Technically, you're like hosting a party kind of thing.

I think you need to text the bard and be like, hey, let the barbarian know that you're dating their ex, and then we'll decide if we still have a D ⁇ D group.

We don't, but we can decide if we do.

I would say even that is forward.

That is a very like bold strategy.

My thought in this would just be to wait until they say it out loud and be like, oh, wow, no, really?

That's crazy.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Pretend you didn't know.

Yeah, maybe the thing is you need to reach out to the bard and be like, hey, have you considered telling this person?

Do they already know?

You have to, you have to just tell the bard to tell them because you're, you're also going to get yourself in trouble because your friend's just going to be like, you knew that the other person was going to be aware of that.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

We were all hanging out together and you were just keeping it quiet.

You knew this happened and you still planned a heist.

Yeah.

Do you think they need to Hamlet this thing and have like a mirrored

encounter?

They need to

be saying, you know, in Hamlet, when they put on the play, they put on the play to like try and indict the uncle, I believe.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because in the play, like, mirrors what's happening in real life.

The DM means to give the barbarian a girlfriend, and then the bar takes, but this time at the table, and say how to Murphy feels.

Would you be theoretically cool with this?

I think, yeah, just like perfect parallel to what's happening in real life.

And just see what happens.

You need to pull the rip cord and get the fuck out of this situation.

Well, they do.

This is above your pay grade.

This is zero dollars because you're just DMing it for your bench.

This is way above your.

You know what?

This is above your potato grade.

Yeah, this is.

I will say that they actually also asked, I would...

like to request a ruling for the two players involving regarding the future of the cam pain in case the the barbarian decides he no longer wants to continue playing with the bard in the party.

I have to make it clear, that has not happened.

They are not saying that that has happened.

They are just hypothetically thinking, is there, is there a friend?

If you like them both,

if there's a friendship breakup because of this, who gets the D ⁇ D campaign?

Well, the barbarian.

Stop focusing on the campaign.

Yeah, I did say that.

That's true.

That's true.

Yeah, I'm sitting.

Yeah.

It's starting to suck me into the language of it, but Jake's absolutely right.

This all has just nothing to do with anything.

Yeah, this is bigger than the campaign, if you can believe it.

Everybody roll some new characters and let's go ahead and, you know, do an old-fashioned, you need a new, you need a new D ⁇ D.

It is like worth saying, like, if in the event that they're like, I'm not playing with them anymore, then I think you're like, cool, the two of you can decide who stays in the campaign.

Sure.

You could also, I think that it's like totally within your wheelhouse, totally viable to just text the group and be like, oh man, work's been crazy crazy this month.

Can we postpone?

I mean, postpone it for like two months to see how many

until the bard tells the barbarian that he's staying in the wrecks.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Just keep kicking it down the line.

I mean, you can like, you play other games.

If you kick it down the line long enough, the bard and this person might break up.

So then you avoid the issue altogether.

Okay.

Yeah.

Just start a Blades in the Dark game with other people, I think, is really the point.

We just got to get the bard to do the work here.

Yeah.

He's on the bard.

The bard has some confessions to make.

Yeah.

Okay, so I guess we're going to punish the bard.

We're going to be hard on the bard.

It's kind of a wild move

to not say anything.

Kind of like, if you think about it, though, I know that technically it didn't happen at the table, but it's like kind of heartbreaking that the bard stole the barberry.

Yeah.

If this was an in-game, it's actually

their ILL persuasion is higher.

With that, I feel like I'd have more power to weigh in.

Yeah, I guess the, yeah, what would the bar

take the barbarian out to

the surf.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And

order yourself.

They can have the surf and turf, but you must have the surf and turf and turf.

Surf and turf.

Yeah.

Which is just all mostly potatoes and shell.

Yeah, yeah, and you got a crunch on the shell.

It's potatoes and shrimp tail.

Lobsters and crab shells are a really good way to hide messages because like, you know, you just like ream those things out, fill them with potatoes and put a little fortune cookie message in there.

You could spell out in chives.

Yes,

she took your girl.

Mr.

Steele Yo chicks.

Say it with potatoes.

Your side piece is now my main sweetening.

Oh, right next to the lemon squeeze.

That's perfect.

That is good.

That is good.

It is

that this was presented as a D ⁇ D problem.

Imagine having this awful conversation when somebody's wearing a lobster bib.

Oh, put it on the bib.

That's perfect.

They unpeel their bib and it says, I'm dating you.

Yeah, how mad can you be at somebody in a lobster bib?

I'm so fucking sorry.

I think it's although, no, you know what?

It's actually a multiplier.

I think it would make me, if I was endeared by someone and they were wearing a lobster bib, I would be 10 times as endeared by them.

And if they made me furious, I'd be 10 times as infurious.

That's

actually dangerous.

Yeah, and there are a lot of like stray crab claws lying around that you use as weapons.

Yeah, be so careful.

So that was a little

segment called If I Were You.

Wow.

That was crazy.

It could really work out on podcasts.

Yeah, I think that could be our new segments on the show.

We get spitted off.

Okay.

So ordered.

There's going to be a confession via potatoes and a red lobster between the bard and the barbarian and not you.

I think this is a whole business for red lobsters.

They can just start doing confessions in the shells and whatnot.

It's true.

Look at people back in the door.

Next case comes from Seaweed.

To the judges, Murph the Mercurial.

Actually, Seaweed, Surf and Murph.

Whoa, wow.

A seaweed salad.

We're on

to the judges, Murph the Mercurial, Carlo the Quick, Jake,

and

Bale.

Come on.

Oxford.

I present a case of equine intervention.

Picture the scene.

Adventurers trekking their way through dense jungle on a journey to unravel the mystery of why they all washed up on an island and to find a gem they'd been asked to acquire for passage back to the mainland.

We came across a combat, a dwarven mining crew clear-cutting the jungle, and a group of triants defending the jungle who we decided to side with.

At the end, the triants decided to finish off any survivors, but we, not being monsters, untethered their surviving ponies so at least they could get away.

Eventually successful, discovering a prophecy and picking up a newly formed demigod, we got back to town, but we discovered there were wanted posters of all of us for the disruption of mining and murder.

Investigating this, we found out that not only had the ponies made it way back to their camp through the dinosaur-filled jungle, they'd been questioned by someone who just happened to have speak with animals and the ponies described us so well they made full sketches on posters three days later.

The kicker was this was used to remove our leverage, negotiating our way off the island and completely negate the abilities of our dedicated negotiator.

The defendant, our GM of six, stands accused of unreasonable levels of horse snitchery.

Does this court concur or are we overreacting to our surprise witnesses?

I want to hand it to them, but I feel like you probably needed to do at least like one roll for this.

I feel like the horses needed to make like a history check or something.

I think if you check speak with animals, it might have some definitive rulings about how smart the animals are when they speak to you.

I think this is this is like maybe rule of cool gone too far, but I like it.

But I do feel like there needed to be maybe like one role in front of the table here.

I will read speak with animals.

You gain the ability to comprehend and verbally communicate with beasts for the duration.

The knowledge and awareness of many beasts is limited by their intelligence, but at minimum, beasts can give you information about nearby locations and and monsters, including whatever they can perceive or have perceived within the past day.

Day, so not, wasn't it three days?

Yeah, but it's also the wanted posters with like perfect pictures of those.

Really funny.

I feel like this is just a matter of it.

Seems to me like the DM had in their mind that the players would either side with like the miners, the people like stripping the land or whatever, or the treants.

And if they sided with the treants, there would be repercussions and came up with like a bad

fallout from that.

It would have been so much easier to just be like, Yes, someone saw you.

Like, there was

other people around.

It didn't have to be a horse.

Yeah, just have other people nearby.

Like, why did they kill every single miner at the site?

Did they slaughter every single person?

Like, have somebody run away?

Yeah.

No, no, no.

What happened was the horses came back, a druid awakened the horses so they had advanced intelligence.

Yeah.

And then the horses did a sleight of hand check to to sketch in charcoal.

Yeah.

Picturing a horse with its hooves drawing is this to me, like the consequences make sense, but the smoke and mirrors of it is very not good.

Yeah, right, right.

A wanted poster showing up of you feels like in line.

If you're having a battle out in the open, like if you're not assassins that are like quietly going through and getting rid of people, if you're just in having a battle, it makes sense that there would be people that saw that happen.

And they're like, okay, this faction, this faction hates people now, or hates the party now.

But yeah, this as it is explained is dubious.

Yeah, I would say the wanted poster is maybe the only thing that's a step too far for me because like you are adventurers.

You're definitely flashy and gaudy as hell.

You've probably got identifying clothing and wardrobe on you.

It would not be a huge stretch to say that the horses like clocked one feature on each of you.

And then maybe if there was like a wanted poster that just had text describing you, I'd be okay with that.

I think it is just like the perfect description that the ponies gave.

I feel like

a pony could be like, if you had like a goblin in your party, a pony could nod at a nearby goblin.

Although then it would just look like the pony was saying they did it.

This is why you can't trust ponies, right?

No,

I think this is dubious.

I think with some work, the DM could have explained this better.

It does sound like maybe the players had had run-ins with this crew before.

So it is possible that you could say the ponies just had some identifiers that would identify these characters

and the people recognize them already.

They're like, oh, that crew of five people.

That is a halfling, a dwarf, an elf, in a robe.

But picture how funny it is if you get caught and you're doing a police lineup and the pony is just like in the witness box.

Yeah.

I actually think they could have done that.

Yeah, that's right.

I think they could have done that, even though it sounds insane.

Or if the picture was what a horse kind of thought they looked like, like how a horse would have described them.

Yeah.

I think this is ever so slightly wrong on the DM's part, where I'm like, this kind of makes sense because there was nothing said here that was like, we were super careful and we did all these stealth checks and everything.

There wasn't anything like that.

So you assume like, I don't know, this was done kind of out in public.

It was like a mining site.

You'd think someone would see it.

Yeah.

But for them to describe the ponies having run back to their

to bring the horses into it.

To bring the horses into it.

It's just tacky.

Frankly, it's crass and it's tacky.

Is there, just to give a generous read here, is there a chance that these were Shadow Facts level ponies?

That these were like really Shadow Facts would never be described as a pony.

Shadow Facts would never snitch either.

Yeah, for sure.

Shadow Facts isn't a tattle horse.

Yeah.

So we think we we want to give the DM maybe like a slap on the hoof for this one.

No.

We have to go full on.

Nay, you mean?

Nay.

Thank you.

There you go.

That's awesome.

That's why she's the bailiff.

Yeah.

Yeah, so it sounds like you guys are going to punish the DM.

Yeah.

Okay, so we have to punish the DM.

Something with Murph and Turf.

Something Murph and Murph.

Something.

Oh, we could eat the DM's horses.

Oh, wow.

You know, that's true.

In-game.

Yeah.

Uncomfortably descriptive.

Different kind of turf, but it is still kind of turf.

Yeah.

Technically turf.

It's uncomfortable.

I don't like it.

But

I think that's what I'm saying.

But can you beat it?

Okay, okay, yeah.

They're at the Red Lobster.

Something with...

Tread carefully, right?

There's a barbarian kicking the shit out of a bar at a table table.

I was going to say after

you'd have to go sit with those two at their table at Red Lobster.

After this episode comes out, Red Lobster is going to be like, oh, I was looking over the numbers.

Hey, we got a bump.

We had a bump.

We got a huge bump, but we also, like, lots of costs and damages.

People got to be like, also, people were having really cheap meals because they were saying, can you hollow out the lobster and fill it with potatoes?

They were negotiating with the medium.

I mean, here's that.

We saved endless shrimp for them is the thing.

If you fill the shrimp with potatoes, you really can make it endless.

So they should be thanking us.

A good punishment would be you have to wait on the table of the bard and the barbarian.

Oh, I like it.

So you're going up like, do you guys want popcorn shrimp?

Why is this guy crying?

Yeah, okay.

You have to be a really attentive waiter to the barbarian and the bard's table.

Yeah.

Our waters are full.

Please.

All right, so ordered.

Perfect.

Next up, we've got jelly to the distinguished sweeties.

I play at my DM's house and they have a Belgian Malin Noir guard dog.

It is not well trained.

One of my fellow players brings their two medium-sized dogs to each session, riling up the DM's dog and causing it to bark and be extra aggressive.

Oh, he's riled up the dog.

The player with the two dogs hasn't gotten the memo not to bring them every session, despite the DM hinting at them being unwelcome.

Last session, as I was arriving, the DM's dog bit me and left bruise.

Oh, Jesus.

They were very sorry, but I don't really want to play in that setting anymore.

The problem is the DM is the one with the huge DND setup, custom table, lights, et cetera.

Am I wrong for thinking that this dog is a big deal?

Should the fellow PC get the hint that we don't need extra dogs during the session?

I mean, it's a guard dog.

Just like, put it out front.

Let it guard the house, right?

Yes, that way it'll bite the children that pass by the house.

Yeah, you got to give the dog a job or something.

Like, put it in the backyard and like make it sniff.

You ultimately depends on how awesome this setup is, right?

Yeah.

yeah because you have to decide if you want to get for it that's what happens it's not it's not that awesome if there's a dog that i don't know i mean like the setup isn't ideal

specified lights custom table lights etc i get bit for a fog machine

right

i actually i have a friend whose dog sometimes bite bites a little bit but love bites yeah i always just i always just come up with an excuse to use the bathroom i know where the neosporin is and then i go back out yeah i i am not the right person to defend this case because like I'm looking at this dog.

It's clearly like a German Shepherd adjacent dog.

I think if I saw this dog and like jumped up on me and gave me like a little nip, I'd be like, oh, it likes me.

Yeah.

A nip is fine, but it sounds like

they definitely.

Yeah, it sounds they're writing in a D ⁇ D chord.

Right.

They're not getting nipped, I don't think.

Do you think maybe they could bring the dog a Murphin turf?

True.

Can't you just maybe say something?

Well, it's the other person.

It's the other dog.

Yeah, it's not the DM's dog.

No, no, no.

The DM's dog is the one biting people, but it's because the dog is riled, right?

Riled up by the other dog.

Some dogs are pretty territorial and they don't like other dogs, and it sounds like that's the situation.

And there's two other dogs being brought.

I think if there's one dog, you can just put that dog like in the bedroom or something like that.

Well, it sounds like the dog is like fine if it doesn't have the other dogs riling it up.

Right.

It feels like if you are bit, then you are allowed to bring this up.

Like, I would say

it should be addressed.

I do think that weirdly, this is kind of the DM's

realm, not because they're the DM, but because it is their house.

I think if their dog is going nuts because someone else is bringing dogs to their house, they do have to tell the other person, hey, your dogs are driving my dogs nuts.

You can't have that here.

Is there a possibility that the dogs are playing some sort of form of canine DD that involves them getting all riled up and fighting?

Shoot, so, and maybe they're in a violent IRL fight because of a rules dispute.

And like the specific odors they're presenting, the pheromones, that's how they roll dice and stuff like that.

Well, either way, we got to kick out these dogs that are causing problems at that table.

They're probably dating each other's exes and whatnot.

They shouldn't be here.

We got to send these dogs to Red Lobster.

No, it's

bringing two dogs.

Dogs got to go to the lobster.

Bringing not one.

Bringing not one, but two ill-behaved dogs

to a friend's house that is doing work is a move.

I will say that.

It's such a faux pas.

It's such a faux pas.

Yeah.

If I were the person that brought the dogs and some dog bit a friend, I would volunteer to stop bringing the dogs.

Yeah, seriously.

It is, I guess.

I would kind of take that on me.

I guess it is ultimately on the friend that brought the two dogs.

It is kind of everyone's fault except for this person that Rose got bit.

Yeah, I was going to say, I do think that like the DM, I think I understand why the DM doesn't feel comfortable saying it.

It is struggling to say something, but they're fully within their right to say, hey,

the dogs can't come here.

Or if they come, like, maybe they hang out in my bedroom.

Yeah, it is funny because the other two dogs aren't the ones biting people.

It's the first dog gets riled up by the bad influences.

They're just stirring them.

And then

he makes the dog bite people.

It is awesome.

And then this DM's setup is so sick that this person's like, well, maybe it's worth getting.

No, they've got a window surface, one of those big screens that's a table.

It's just, it's really sick.

There's built-in snack trays in the table it's absolutely epic i mean the fact they said lights makes me be like oh okay there's lights happening while like there's music cues that are coordinated this bite

this bite is the perfect excuse to get these these two bad influence dogs out of here and also maybe you could score like a legendary suit of armors because the dm can use the dm can use this right so the dm can be like hey so my guard dog's getting riled up without the stuff.

I think we can't have other dogs there.

My dog

bit one of our flyers

because of your bad influence dogs.

The DM might not want to say anything until you tell the DM that you didn't like when the dog bit you.

Then the DM can be like, oh, I don't like when my dog gets riled up.

Now I should say something.

That's a quorum of people that don't like the two trouble dogs.

I like how we didn't get breeds of the trouble dogs.

There is clearly the person wrote in with a bias for like pro the guard dog.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, I mean, I'm looking at pictures.

It's a very cute dog.

Yeah.

Okay, so who are you guys sentencing?

I'm sentencing for sure the player bringing the two dogs that just like notices the barking and the madness and is fine with it.

Yeah.

But yeah.

Counter to our previous argument, I do think that the DM has a responsibility in the social setting here to make it safe because it's your home.

Yeah, it's their home.

So I sympathize.

I think that we should go light on that TM.

Yeah.

That is awkward.

No, let's punish everybody

except for the player that got bit.

Send him to the lobster.

The order is double dog owner, single dog owner.

Yeah, okay, yeah.

Yeah, you get a punishment for each dog you have at this section.

Hey there, Nad Poles.

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okay so what's their job at red lobster then i guess you have to bring your dogs to red lobster

i i also can't imagine how it goes because i feel like i have a group of friends that always brings their dogs and most of our conversation anytime we get on a conversation not about a dog a dog does does something, and then we just start talking about the dogs again.

Right, yeah.

So I don't understand how you play D and D because it feels like when dogs are around, the conversation is dogs.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, the dogs are just going to be like grabbing lobsters from the tank and just like running away.

Ooh, no.

That's so scary.

Oh, wait, no, they have little

bands, so it's fine.

It's fine.

Yeah.

Don't worry.

The lobsters are helpless.

Yeah.

It'll be like that scene in Annie Hall, but with dogs.

Okay, Okay, okay.

Yeah, you might just have to start running this game at a red lobster, is what the DM should do.

Because a red lobster has custom tables and lighting.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It has lightning.

And you could use lobsters as minis.

That's cool.

Don't do that, actually.

As I say that out loud, I don't want that.

No, no, you just need to put your table underwater so that the lobsters are.

Oh, okay.

That's fine, actually.

That's fine, actually.

And then you let them go.

Because I think their tank is pretty sad.

Anyone has ever made a used an aquarium to make a underwater uh battleground set

battle map have to hope oh have to hope someone out there has done that and that's beautiful if you had metal dice you could like roll them into the aquarium and see how they landed yeah then you could use magnets to move them

let's in general not use animals as minister

we're not talking about animals no just underwater like an underwater battle that is yeah yeah yes right yeah well you'd have to empty all the fish out of the aquarium so you could put them on the floor

Although, it could be a fun like agent of chaos if, like, the fish nudge your dice and change the number.

No, you don't want to be putting your goddamn hands in the fish tank.

I kind of, you kind of like that idea.

You use a net, you put your mini down

to put your mini down.

Right, if you have super long

prongs, if a fish knocks over your mini, then you're dead, then you take falling damage.

Okay, yeah, right.

That's good.

Okay, so you have to have sterilized,

like, uh, yes, prongs to put your minis into a deep deep fish tank.

Yeah, and then you can move them around for your underwater fight.

That's a good idea.

Let's do a live show at Red Lobster.

Yeah.

Hollywood Bowl is cool and all.

But let's go to Red Lobster.

Let's go to Red Lobster.

Does Rainforest Cafe?

They're the one that have like the big aquarium.

Oh my gosh, this is a Rainforest Cafe.

The Rainforest Cafe rocks.

Oh, man.

Nad Bob Live at Rainforest Cafe.

And those are animatronics, so we don't even have to.

We're focused on the aquarium.

You're focused on the animals.

Can you just focus up?

Can you fucking focus up on the branding here?

The world's first underwater D and D show.

Yes.

Shit.

I do.

I'm getting available dates from SeaWorld.

I'm sorry.

Yes.

SeaWorld.

No.

You can't collab.

You can't ruin us.

We're out.

Okay.

So not ordered.

So not collab.

Not collab.

Next up, we've got Shang Q.

Shang Kyu writes to the honorable judges of the Supreme Crit and the ever-noble bailiff that I slipped 20 bucks to as a bribe.

It's okay, it's coming out now.

It's coming out.

I bring to you the case of the boy who cried unfair.

For the past few years, I've been DMing a fairy tale-based campaign with my partner and close friends.

Nice Shrek, got it.

Yeah.

It started off as a few sessions, but everyone enjoyed it so much that it's become nearly a 50-session high-level campaign.

Awesome.

It's the best campaign I've ever run with an eclectic party of Little Red, Puss and Boots, Hans the Hedgehog, Jack of the Beanstalk, and the Boy Who Cried Wolf.

Me and the Boy Who Cried Wolf player have been close friends for years and have been playing D and D together for almost as long.

However, as we've gotten into higher levels, I've noticed that he can trivialize a lot of combat, which makes it difficult to balance.

The Boy Who Cried Wolf is a rogue/slash shepherd druid.

So sneak attack mixed with hordes of summoned snakes that have 40 HP makes it hard to create balanced encounters.

So I've started directly targeting him in combat more than the other players.

High-level enemies using area of effect spells to try to hit more of his summons or strong targets that target directly him to make him break concentration.

This all came to a head in our most recent combat where they were fighting a campaign-long villain.

Through a mix of breaking concentration on haste, which causes targets to lose their next turn, and rounds spent in death saves, the boy who cried wolf was basically inept for five plus rounds of combat.

He brought this up to me saying that it upset him that he was being targeted so much.

But I rebutted that because he's such a strategic player with a strong character, enemies in the campaign would logically think to prioritize him as a target and I, as a DM, needed to account for the encounter-ending shenanigans, but still, I feel bad knowing he's stressed by this targeting.

Judges, am I in the wrong for targeting this player, or is it fair to have my enemies play smart and go after a big threat?

P.S.

Totally not relevant to the case, but the boy who cried wolf's player was actually a bartender at the D20 Madison Square Garden after party and talked to Emily for a bit about our party's little red.

Oh, whoa, wow.

Okay, so we do have to rule with that.

I am going to rule with the boy who cried wolves because what's up?

How you been?

I think this is more of a, this is less of a targeting problem, and this is more of a, it absolutely sucks ass to sit there for five rounds and do nothing.

It absolutely sucks.

So I don't know.

I think this is one of those situations where the player is upset about a particular encounter that sucked for them.

That doesn't necessarily mean that you can't take into account the fact that they're a strategic player in the future.

I mean, I guess the question question is, though, I think that a lot of enemies wouldn't know that they were the biggest threat until a couple rounds into combat.

I mean, if it's a high-level campaign where they're going for 50 rounds, and especially in the realm of fairy tale, they would have reputations.

Certainly.

Like, I mean, think about our most recent, like, long campaign was campaign three.

All of the bad guys had like a connection to you guys at some point.

And it was like you guys were, you know, public enemy number one.

we had wanted posters yeah you had for sure had wanted posters and they would noties ratted us out were those done by horses i can't remember now

was kugrash a uh shepherd druid yes yes so like you know a little bit about it i feel like the conjure animals thing like do those get their own initiative when you conjure them i don't remember i don't pretty high level kugrash is not like crazy powerful so i am kind of shocked

i am wondering if there's like a misreading of the rules here because uh circle of shepherd is not known as being one of the more powerful uh druids but maybe at higher levels it is yeah if i'm playing the devil's advocate a little bit here giving the generous read uh the sinnerous read perhaps uh i just feel like i wonder if this person is also monopolizing a lot of table time because like they're going all of their familiars are going they're kind of like you know doing that kind of like long-winded spiel where they take a ton of time to like describe their turn that's maybe a bit cruel of a read to them, I think.

I think that they're just trying to have fun.

Yeah.

Well, but they did bring up, I've been, they've, they know that they're being targeted in multiple combats.

Yeah.

Yeah.

To a degree, I feel like the DM just kind of has to, they got to take their womp because it is like a high-level campaign.

Like, your players are just insanely powerful at this point.

Yeah.

But yeah, I don't know.

This is a tough one.

The boy who cried woof, more like, right?

Yeah.

I think it just, I, I think it just absolutely sucks to get knocked out and stuff.

Totally.

So I think this player just had a, essentially a session where they just sat on their hands, which absolutely sucks.

I think, like, maybe the solution here is more like you knock them down for like one or two rounds, and then that gives the other players a chance to shine and help the druid get back up on their feet.

And then, like, that's when they wamp you.

I feel like you, like, no, you don't, you don't balance encounters so that you get whomped eventually.

You just play the, you just play the fight.

Like, I wonder if you like, you can split things up so like there is something that this shepherd is focused on, and something the rest of the party is focused on.

Oh, I like that.

Yeah, then there's other people are dealing with one threat while the shepherd is dealing with another.

That's a really smart idea.

Is like, oh, is like instead of just battles being getting people to zero, if you start thinking of battles that there are objectives,

then sometimes the hit points won't matter as much.

And you can send really powerful stuff after them, and they just have to survive it to complete the objective.

Right, totally.

I mean, every DM does this to a certain extent as well.

Like if every single encounter is the player is beating the shit out of the bad guy, you realize you have to give your monsters, have them do more damage, have them break concentration, have them do all of that stuff.

There is a level of it that is metagaming.

And, you know, when you get to combat, sometimes you're just kind of playing Warhammer with each other.

That is just kind of how it is.

It sounds like this player said something to you, the DM, and you, as the dm responded with a pretty solid response so that might have landed for them they might be like okay i guess i am just i'm a i'm a threat your response was great when i go to the boy who cried well don't doubt it at the after party uh they were not upset they didn't bring this up at all

yeah not complaining

you know so i maybe maybe you feel worse than they do yeah i think i would just think that this might be more of a uh this session sucked for them which sometimes a session sucks for you like it's it's very easy to just get like sometimes if you get knocked out at the beginning of the battle and your friends like don't bring you up, then you just don't play that time,

uh, and that sucks.

But I do think DMs are allowed to play to like the top of their intelligence, not completely, like, you shouldn't know everything about the other player, but it's like if you've got a wizard or something like that, like they'll shoot a fireball if there are 10 snakes coming at them, you know, you're not going to sit there and try to ping them down, uh-huh.

Yeah, true, Yeah.

Yeah.

I think going after the snakes makes a ton of sense.

Yes.

Like every bad guy would be like, cool, we got to get rid of those snakes.

I know if I were getting attacked by a bunch of snakes, I would target the snakes.

Yeah.

Also target the snakes.

I guess I would encourage you as the DM

to think of this like have monsters have like reactive things that they can do to deal with this player, but they shouldn't know everything that the player can do, right?

So if this player is stealthing and a bunch of snakes are attacking them, they don't necessarily know, like, oh, the boy who cried wolf is a druid rogue multi-class.

So, they must be hiding in the bushes there.

So, I'll do an area of effect thing in these bushes.

It's like, no, they would see the snakes, they would attack the snakes with like a cone of cold or something like that.

There's nothing wrong with being strategic that way.

I wouldn't metagame to the point where you know, like, the stats of the player character, if that makes sense.

Are there any monsters that can steal summons?

Ooh, Charm?

Anything that can charm?

Yeah, but it'd be cool to be able to steal the whole swarm of snakes.

So you're saying to target this player harder is what I'm saying.

It's like steal a spell.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Steal a spell someone else is concentrating on.

Could these snakes be lobsters?

Yeah.

That would make me understand a lot better.

40 HP lobsters.

You have to imagine, though, like in the war room for like the big bad.

They're like, we got to get rid of the snake guy first.

Priority number one is get rid of those snakes.

Yeah.

So I guess I would say unless it's a big, bad, evil guy or like one of their minions that has personal knowledge of these characters, I would give your monsters tools to deal with multiple enemies and stuff like that.

So everything's not a cakewalk.

But I wouldn't have them know all of the players' abilities.

At that point, that could be annoying to just be like, they're sitting on a counterspell because they're waiting for you to cast a spell like from the bushes because you're hiding and they know you're a rogue.

Like that's bullshit.

yeah so i think don't don't strategize but give the uh npc's tools maybe yeah this is a great idea like create a minion uh that is like a circle of the aquarium druid uh that summons lobsters and those lobsters are going to instantly neutralize all the snakes yeah so then there's like a side battle going on between snakes lobsters and snakes which what like it's kind of the age-old battle we've all been wondering right will prevail right and there was a group of horses that drew all of these snakes so the lobsters know exactly what the snakes look like the animal kingdom is dramatic

i actually think this one i can't fully weigh in on i feel like we don't have enough information because we don't know how hard this rogue was targeted i'm siding with the boy who cried wolf because we go back i think that was

yeah

so i think we're lightly siding with the uh boy who cried wolf mostly just because we've he makes the boy who cried wolf in real life um but really i think there's no uh there are no bad guys in this story.

Right, right.

I think you, as the DM, have a-there's just a lot of snakes.

I think that you have the right to strategize unless you were really like

metagaming to the point where you knew all of their abilities and stuff like that, and were just like sitting, waiting for them to do stuff.

That's no fun.

But if you were just like, this character is clearly the most powerful, all our guys are going to shoot fireballs at him.

That makes sense to me.

And yet, I also understand why the player would be bummed that they didn't get to play.

Are we tossing it out, or are we like saying that maybe they just need to continue?

I think they got to go to Red Lobster and they get Murph and Murph.

That's where you get no surf or

share one potato, a friendship potato.

And since we know the boy who cried wolf, the boy who cried wolf is allowed to have turf or surf with their murph.

But

the DM gets murph and murph.

Yeah.

I think maybe sort of like a baked potato flight could maybe bring you guys back together.

because there's a lot of really fun toppings and tell the kitchen to get creative

say say challenge us um

we'll actually be splitting the murphs on parade yeah

so i think i think your punishments are and this will bring you closer together is to go to red lobster say we'll take

not referring to anything on the menu yeah make it clear you have not looked at the menu just sort of double tap it with your double tap it with your palm is the way to approach us say we'll have the baked potato flight

the murphs on parade we'll have you gotta order we'll have the murphs on we'll have the murphs on parade order it by name in parentheses and you gotta wink

you gotta wink at them feel free to get creative challenge us

okay

so ordered

fun up fun up so much better than having to camp in buffalo in the winter yeah

Okay.

So ordered at Red Lobster.

So ordered at Red Lobster.

Merfs on parade.

Merf's on parade.

I had to save that.

Okay.

Next up, we've got Sammy.

Sammy writes to the esteemed justices and the saucy bailiff, Emily.

Or if it's that other guy, sup.

I come to you in the case of the inept wingman DM.

My friend Riley asked me to DM a one-shot campaign with some of her friends, including our mutual friend, Ingrid.

Riley wanted to use this one-shot as a way to play matchmaker for Ingrid and one of her friends, Carl.

Ingrid did know of these matchmaker intentions and was fully on board.

Okay.

Okay, cool.

I'm a relatively new DM, so I ran a pre-made one-shot, and it was a lot of fun.

The players all said they had fun, and I enjoyed DMing.

Great.

Here's my case.

What did Riley do?

This was designed to set up Ingrid and Carl.

Oh, no.

But that effort utterly failed.

The adventure was sort of puzzle-based, and there wasn't a lot of time for the characters to interact with each other, therefore, little time for Ingrid and Carl to get to know each other.

It didn't help that Carl's a very quiet dude and didn't speak much until directly asked to in character.

I did let Ingrid's character shine in the final boss battle by putting the boss in the perfect position for her monk to flurry of blows it to death, but other than that, I feel like I let my friend down as a DM wingman.

Should I have done more to throw Ingrid and Carl's characters together, or did I do enough by DMing the adventure and trusting Ingrid to work the magic of myself?

You failed.

There could have been charcuterie, there could have been cheese and wine.

Why was there not wine?

Did you even hire a string quartet?

Was there mood lighting?

It should have been taken place in a burlesque sauna.

Oh, this makes a lot of sense.

This is a disaster.

I'm appalled.

I actually have a different opinion, Jake.

I actually think

you handle this perfectly.

And Carl, maybe wisely, just figured out it wasn't the best place to flirt.

I don't know, at like a DD table with a bunch of people.

Interesting.

That's ugly.

As someone who can be extremely loud when he's on his microphone on his podcast,

but also extremely quiet sometimes in social situations, I think that

I would have a much better chance of coming out of my shell if I were solving puzzles with people.

I think that actually is the best move that you could have done is to have a lot of out-of-character stuff because ultimately, like, I don't know, having them flirt as fake characters isn't necessarily going to lead to anything in real life.

You're more likely to find common ground, I think, if you're kind of solving something in real life.

And also, as someone who can be kind of introverted, the idea of first meeting someone by being like, I'm an elf and I'd like to talk to you about elf stuff right now.

That's a mighty fine bow you have, lady.

I can't even

imagine.

I bet, you know, that's a really compelling argument, but I am still with Jake.

I think that the puzzle.

Would it kill you to light a candle?

We don't know that he did it.

It doesn't sound like how is the puzzle solved with a kiss?

Then you failed.

Oh, yeah

that's really i do for poor carl carl's is like quiet getting setting up with

yeah i think maybe you could have like taken a step further where like the villain is like making everyone do icebreakers to like say like two truths about themselves or something like that be like ah what is your greatest strength you tell me you the player

i think solving i think presenting people with puzzles to solve together is a great icebreaker.

I think this DM did the exact right thing.

And Carl, let's face it, maybe just wasn't feeling it.

Or maybe it was just being shy.

Or just feeling like that.

But you also might have just lit the spark.

Like, you don't know how long this, how, how long the tail of this relationship could be.

That is true.

Sometimes it's like, oh, we saw each other in passing here, there, here, there.

And then finally one of us made a move.

Right.

I think that, yeah, like the machinations have just begun.

I think you got to full-on parent trap this.

Yeah.

I think you got to do like two more sessions, two more one-shots.

Then like the third one, everyone's getting together.

You're like, oh, gosh, man, I didn't have time to prep.

We're just going to watch a movie in the dark, except I'm going to light some candles.

And I've got ideas.

DM me.

Yeah.

Yeah, I honestly think that there's kind of no one who did anything wrong in this situation.

I like your friend's idea to be like, oh, this is kind of a fun way for them to meet.

And then I think you gave Ingrid a chance to shine.

Ingrid was on board.

I think everyone was just having fun and maybe planted a seed.

You gave them the best possible chance

of talking to each other by presenting a lot of puzzles and metagaming stuff.

The idea of taking a shy person and being like, flirt in character, dude, go

is what a nightmare.

What an absolute nightmare.

Could have shucked some oysters.

Oysters are an aphrodisiac.

Right.

Ordered them at Red Lobster.

You know where they sell them.

Yeah.

It's like, I don't know what you wanted to happen here.

Do you want them to leave halfway through the session?

They should have been fucking on the table by the end of the session.

I think they wanted the PCs to flirt or something like that.

Which like I yeah, I don't know.

I would never do that.

Yeah, I think Matchmaker, all you're supposed to do is introduce two people.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And light a candle.

Right, yeah.

And yeah, light a candle.

Put out a plate of oysters.

Yeah, just a small plate of oysters.

But some music.

Yeah.

Sometimes

best laid plans of snakes and lobsters all fall to the wayside.

I think puzzles are perfect.

You figure it out together.

Everybody's brainstorming.

I do have a friend who was like, every single first date I go on is an escape room.

That's cool.

And she was like, it's because you really find out about a person and how they handle shit.

Well, she was also like, also, I want to go to escape room.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

One thing you'll know about me is I like doing escape room.

Yeah.

You learn a lot about a person, whether or not they like escape rooms.

Well, no, but you also learn a lot about like if you like work together if anyone's like weirdly competitive or anything like that.

Yeah.

But then if you don't like the person, you are trapped in a room with them, which is that actually is a really good point.

But then it's only

monitored.

Those rooms are usually monitored.

There's like a panopticon in the escape room.

Oh, yes.

You could always just say, hey, this isn't working out.

Yeah.

And hey, maybe you fall in love with the person who's on the microphone, but you can't see.

Who's saying, have you checked the book?

Yeah.

Yeah.

If you go to an escape room as a date, make sure that the person you're there with isn't going, hint, please, in a really sexy voice.

Yeah.

Because then you're in trouble.

Make sure they're not flirting with your God, Mike.

All right.

With that, we have to punish.

No one.

No one.

I think no one.

We have to let

Bloom.

It sounds, well, this DM, okay, this DM feels like they failed everyone, but they didn't fail anyone.

So we have to punish Daniel.

Let's punish their self-defense.

Let's punish Carl.

Let's punish

him, Carl.

What they are doing?

I think

Riley.

No.

That's interesting.

Let's punish the DM to run another one-shot and see if love can bloom on the battlefield.

Yeah, a one-shot can it turn into a forever shot?

I think they, yeah, they wanted them to flirt in character, which is such a nightmare for an introvert.

I don't trust them.

I do think you got to have more like downtime.

Like, literally, take a break in the middle, let everyone like grab a drink and chat a little bit, have some time up top so you can get to know each other.

Yeah.

Just under plan, honestly.

Or, yeah.

Plan a session where Carl will shine so Carl feels comfortable.

Carl's chatting.

Carl sounded like he didn't like when the spotlight was on.

Carl sounded like maybe he didn't even like Dean Spotlight.

Well, you do a passive.

Carl sounded like a dud, okay?

Let's fucking see.

Look, Carl is clearly hot.

What do you see in Carl?

Carl is clearly hot.

He's clearly hot.

We know this.

He's hot.

That's hot.

We know this.

Has to be gorgeous.

Yeah.

A fucking shy introvert.

Look at that jawline I can imagine on him.

We can only imagine how hot Carl is.

Just rich inner life on this, Carl.

Light that candle.

Yeah, I would say a passive Carl session where you do something that might entice Carl to get more involved.

Yeah, bring the potato on a potato.

But

you don't have to be like, Carl, give me a monologue.

You could be like, Carl made his character a fighter or something like that.

So you do something with like a fighting pit or something like that.

But what do you even know about Carl?

He's such a beautiful, closed book.

That's what I love about him.

He's a mystery.

How can you possibly entice him?

Gotta crack those pages.

His pommade smells so good.

There's so much of it.

Everyone needs to apologize to Carl, I think.

That's a good punishment.

Yeah, that's a good punishment.

Everyone needs to be like, Look, we want, look, you, an introvert, we expected you to flirt in-game, and we would have taken that as a huge W.

And honestly, we were so off-base.

Just lay off, Carl.

Layoff Carl.

Wow, we really swung from punishing Carl to telling everyone that I never wanted to punish Carl.

Carl has been been set up.

Carl is getting punked.

Okay.

All right.

Just ask Carl out.

Somebody ask Carl out.

Please.

I'll do it.

What if everyone asks Carl out?

Yeah, what if you start next session by being

have a character?

This is what you do.

This is what you do.

All the characters meet in a tavern, right?

Yeah, great.

After they already met.

After they've already met.

After they've already met.

You say, we're going to reset clean slate.

Carl, you enter the tavern.

You walk up to the innkeeper.

Innkeeper says, hey, Carl, who do you like IRL?

And then you just

play,

you're the player, not the character.

That's really good.

The barkeep looks into the camera.

There's a camera here.

This is a prank show.

You have been punked.

Who do you like?

The walls of the room fall down.

Mission possible fallout style.

You reveal yourself to have been Ingrid the whole time.

Rip away your voice, strip, and mask.

Carl runs away with those little chops that Tom Cruise does every time he runs.

Runs with like a perfect perpendicular arms.

Wait, not to get too much more deep into this, not to go back into the waters.

Is it possible that Carl is not an introvert, but Carl's just so in love?

He's so bashmitted.

Just awestruck.

Fuck.

Wow.

I mean, imagine the internal monologue simmering under that beautiful shy face.

Yeah, that's what I'm wondering.

It's like, did Carl go home and be like, you fucked it, Carl.

You absolutely beefed it.

That was your chance.

Yeah, the first time Carl's ever been at a loss for words.

Oh my God.

Usually typically so smooth.

Yeah.

Anyways, let us know if Carl and Ingrid ever get together because that's

pretty invested.

We're very invested.

And if someone else gets together with him, right?

Because it sounds like he's a hot commodity.

Yeah.

Right.

Like this newly single barbarian.

Yeah, I do think you all maybe aren't the greatest wingmen, and I think it's maybe not for the reason that you think.

You might need to just do like speed dating where you're just introducing Carl and Inger to a lot of different people via DD.

Okay.

I thought we could do it at Red Lobster.

Yeah.

There we go.

We're dating at Red Lobster.

And I think double down on the puzzles.

Don't be afraid of the puzzles.

I think puzzles are a great way to do it.

Let's just go.

Okay, so I think we're sentencing you all to apologize to Carl, ask him out, take him to the business.

Figure out what Carl is really good at and focus the puzzles towards Carl so that Carl can like figure out the puzzles.

And then Inger can be like, oh my God, Carl, you're so smart.

But will Carl even like that, though?

Ah, who knows?

Will we ever?

Could we

know?

So aloof.

The pot smells so good.

So ordered.

Shall we step into church?

I feel like we got to be a church.

Okay.

Kingsley S.

writes: Confession

to the esteemed apostles of the most high rolled queen worm and that one guy who is a motorcycle now, I think.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

I bring you the confession of the unprepared birthday stats.

It was a Tuesday afternoon, and as I was preparing at work, I decided to text the group chat DD Saturday.

To my surprise, the chat immediately started blowing up with emojis and gifs to be seen everywhere.

One thing was clear: this Saturday, we were playing some DD.

Cut to Saturday.

It's like the start of a country music song in a weird way.

One thing's for sure.

We were playing DD.

Well,

cut to Saturday, four hours before my party members were to show up at my house.

I'm staring at a blank piece of paper, a blank map, and a blank encounter tracker.

I have not prepped a single thing for the session except for the story beats and milestones.

I decided to throw on one of the best podcasts ever, specifically a dungeon court episode for a little motivation.

Okay.

It was a very birthday heavy episode.

No!

Oh, wow.

Which reminded me it was one of my players' birthdays today.

Oh, okay.

Birthday focus.

You're not forgiving.

Now, I had a choice.

Spend the time I have prepping for this five-hour session or make preparations to celebrate Boreas the Wise's birthday.

My dear clerics of crit, I chose the latter.

I got a cake.

I made food i even texted the group chat to remind them it was the player's birthday this led to them bringing snacks drinks and gifts for boreas even though i did not fudge a single roll during the session i did fudge every single stat of every single npc they encountered i just went with my gut for whatever felt right adding between plus seven and plus thirteen to attacks and rolling twice the damage die of whatever my players did previously for damage.

Somehow, Dice Christ was still handing out the nat 20s to my players and shit rolls for me ultimately leading to my womping.

I don't really feel sorry for what I did.

This recent trend of people writing in to just tell us the fuck off.

It's not a confession.

This is not a confession.

You are not forgiven.

Serial killer energy.

I honestly don't even know if this is technically a sin in the dice church.

It was kind of stressful though, but luckily my players suspected nothing.

so like am i good ps everyone had an amazing time boreas was a very happy 25 years old that's great happy birthday boreas yeah i think obviously for home games when you're not like recording you don't have to take a ton of time you can just kind of make stuff up on the fly i will say this is a little too birthday focused for my taste and keep in mind okay you got a group well you got five or six people you gonna do every other session we having a birthday party is that what we're doing now I guess, I guess, because I guess we like Boreas the most.

I guess if the session aligns with their birthday, then yeah.

We are gonna get a DD court that's like, my DM planned a special DD birthday event for one of the other players on their birthday.

My birthday rolls around.

We show up.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Just bandits robbing us.

Although, I guess it helps.

It helps that it was on the actual birthday.

I think that's the one saving grace.

Yeah.

But now you have to watch over yourself.

Now you You got to watch out.

Make sure you don't do this again.

I think you're good here because

you didn't ask for forgiveness.

I know.

Yeah, but they did say, so am I, like, good.

I'm not forgiving them.

I'm just saying they're good.

I'm just giving them a pat on the head.

They're still going to hell.

You are like good.

They don't need me to say it.

Yeah.

They think you're good.

Yeah, sure.

You're good.

You didn't confess.

You don't feel bad.

You're good.

Yeah, you're great.

You came here.

You're good.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Enjoy hell.

You rock.

Yeah, I do think, yeah, okay.

So the fact that it is on the birthday saves it, but be tread so carefully with that.

Because

the last thing you need is birthday month stuff happening.

And then you bring new cakes to every session.

Come on.

I do love how cavalier they are about.

I just went with my gut for whatever felt right, adding between 7 and 13 to attacks and rolling twice the damage die of whatever my players previous

on night.

Just like living on the razor's edge for five hours.

He said it was kind of stressful.

Yeah, I was going to say, yeah, your butt must be raw from all the ass pulls.

Good lord.

All right.

So, kind of forgiven.

You asked for forgiveness.

So

it sounds like a good time, though.

So, congrats.

Yeah.

Question mark?

Sweet.

Thank you all so much for listening.

We're going to wrap this one up.

We've got more bonus cases over on our Patreon, patreon.com/slash nadpod.

That's NADD P-OD.

Don't sing yet.

Do not do it.

Don't do it.

Don't do it.

Does anyone have anything they'd like to plug?

We've got some more Dimension 20 shows coming up.

We've got July 20th.

We're going to be in Seattle, so be on the lookout for that.

And then in November for

Starstruck, we will be in Las Vegas.

So be on the lookout for that.

Wow.

Yeah.

Dimension 20 Live.

Yeah.

And me and Emily have sub stacks.

Yeah.

Equally.

Equally publishing on there.

Jake,

what have the recent

stacks been?

What have you been giving advice on?

What have the stacks been, Jake?

I know some of them, but I want you to highlight your faves.

Oh, wow.

Thank you.

Last week, we did a stack about breaking up.

Someone broke up and then asked if they could be friends with an ex because they tried to like get coffee and they said it didn't go well.

Wow.

So their username was barbarian.

That's so strange.

Yeah.

That's right.

Basically, we can we continue this show over on

TAD court becomes a real life court over on Jake's Substack.

Yeah.

So check out Jake's substack.

Substack.com slash at Jake Herwick.

Murphy Were you.

Murphy were you.

And you can follow us on social media that we may or may not use at Seattle's Me, at Callies Caldwell, at Yarkford's Emily, and at Shake Groups is Jake.

And you can talk about the show online using hashtag NadPod.

That's NADD P-O-D.

We are we are

youth of a nation.

We are we are the youth of a nation

dungeon

It's the end of our show, which means it's time to shout out our benevolent council of elders.

Let their names be read and thus praised.

Brad D., Jeffrey S., Lord of the Fjord, Later McSkater, Matt M, Cutter W, Jeff C., Daniel G, Danielle, the Dastardly Dame, Carpe Liam, Victor T, aka Balnor's Boy, Hoyt's friend, Justin Isaacs, Justin I, Danny Danster, TJM, Trele the Cray, Christopher B.

Damiel R., Jordan L., Cyberg version of Josh the Kobald, Targat, Stevie Wags, Hellish Rebuker, the NBDM, Ph.D.,

Princess Yar, Jory S, Jack L, Nicholas C, star of every film ever made in Bohemia, Mike H., Elka Smeltzer Plus, Great Value, Jimma, Tyler F., Carr Borough, Chapel Hill, FPV, Cece Lulu, Old Cobb's Dunkel, Older Burn, Hercules Plaulo, Zerabbet Folk Detective, Timmy R.

Jake's Jerk Jelly, Hashtag CCC, It Never Ends, and I hope it doesn't.

Taylor B, the vengeful one-winged angel, Cass, Strong Grinch, Steven, shout out to Boy the Troll, C.

Mike K, Nick W., William W.

Big Bad Beardo the the Mad, Anana Rama, Percival Fredrikstein von Musil, Klasowski, De Rolo III, Jay Dragonborn, Guardian of the Vibe, honoring the clock.

This isn't even my final form.

Bin A, Dave H, Dustin S, not that Nick, Danny F, Hawkeye Pierce, Book Farce Assistant, Izzy F, Big Bad John, DPC is awesome.

Shoan, the shade tree mechanic of Zebel Zebledar.

Summer Rose, aka Grandaire.

Mark, the Dark Lord's Taint.

Cat C, Misa of Hausenzunza.

Ariel, the occasional mermaid.

Selena N, aka Velaciraptor.

B, Perky Always.

Pat L.

Lauren H.

Serve 16.

Annie, the Faywild Therapist.

Pierogi Frenzy.

Connor S.

Salil.

BioQuart 7.

Amber Dextrous, Bean Rat was innocent,

hobdropper, Jack Hubert, king of the mole people under Iron Deep, dressed in blue and fighting his way through a bracket-style tournament, Valen, Paj, the bitch and bunny board, Druidic Peyton, Carlin C, Noah the Bullywog Boy, hashtag honor the cock, ribbit, James G, Everything Bago, the Eladron who just wants to hang out with his pet badger, Stripey,

Reverend Chatterbones.

Han

Eric B., Marcos, PhD student, like a wizard artificer, IRL.

Wow, make me a homunculus, please.

Learns the Balance Druid, Frida M, Maggie, Holly the Green,

laughing hyena.

Cal and her cats, Portland, Star, and Berlin.

Aaron B., Russell H., a monk named Dilgo.

Yes, the whole thing.

Yes, every time.

Cody C, Lorelai the Succubi, and Kira the Succulent Snack.

McKenna Stout, your friendly neighborhood yaunt and yunkle, Andrew and Sid.

John Adams, A Week and Be Done with Presidential Puns.

Meg, the male carrier of Bahumia, James F.

Austin S., Wayfarer, has to do something about the trolls to get rid of them.

Turn to page 42 to keep them.

Turn to page 69.

Oreo, Shane C.

Barpo, Good Barrel, Barbarian, Garrett G, aka one big curd, Charlie Brown's best friend, Renee, the monster captain, Olivia the Enchanting Bard, and Jared the soap opera cleric are now performing ballads from the age of stories.

Blue Ash, Fico, Garrett the Artificer, Anthony the raddest of dudes, J.

The fairies have returned to debauchery and must now go to the carnal corner.

Oh fairies.

Cantrip Dumbledore, the bare onesie-wearing barbarian.

Lexi H, MJ the BFG, Roger L., Nadrog, the pass-a-fist barbarian, John Luca,

Leon Komori, legendary hero of Bahumia from a future campaign, shenanigans O'Connor, Mios the Great, Joshua S., Alexander, Linz W.,

Sky the Wise, aka the lone dungeon master, Johnny Dude K,

the mischief of Nadpod's familiars.

Pavu Eskinor, the Goliath Paladin, providing service with a smile.

Kit and their cat.

Tim M.

Tiles Lamar.

T.R.

M L G Cheeto.

Shell Beacon as first favorite sprite girl.

Happy Pride to Fia Jins.

Welly, Moonshine and Beverly.

Pawpaw says, Rear, here, rear, queer.

Aw.

Jet S, Snailess, who's infecting Worcester for within.

A bone flute literally tells a story when played.

Jared, the soap opera cleric, and Olivia, the enchanting bard, who won a great Feywell bake-off.

Interesting.

Papa Skades, Mima Scote's, Megan N, Anthony B, Savannah H, Balnor's best friend, Steve, Stephanie of House and Zunza, Benjamin A.

Gimli the Corgi, Papa and Foster's canine friend, Mikel A.

Josh Hole, pilot of the Nightmareverse Flight, the two crew,

Blue Through, Jennery, Kelsey A.

Ethan the Mailman, Maple the Shy Bookworm, Ashosaurus, Billy Batson, Tori the tungsten dragoose, accidental sharer of recipes, Michael L.

S.

II, Carl B., Plumber of the Realm, Dex Riddlewell, Ace Drag's High Lord of Critzburg, Vin Diagram, Cadmilius the Consumed, Clinton P.

Cam the Frogman, Dean, Jake W.

Hi Mom, Tuesday Cross, the Interactive Fiction Designer, Steve L., Tyler M., Alex G., Zibbodibackery, Kaylee, Misty the Crispy Kitty, really hates flame skulls, Greg W.

There's so many of us now, but hey, you're doing great and we love you.

Baruch Thunderhelm, fifth generation Minotaur working as an abandoned labyrinth tour guide.

Chupagabri, Bony is dead.

Hacha-cha, the waterworth, Nick, Amy, Aegis Kunari, Ignition class pedal storm.

Holy shit.

Charlemagne, not the god.

DJ Dramameen,

Alrich von Zarevich.

Ooh.

My favorite patron makes me say penis on my show.

Ah, I'm so glad that that one's last.

Nobody else is allowed to join the council because that's the best one.

Anyway, thank you all so much for joining.

Again, you're not allowed to join anymore because we've got the perfect final one to end on.

If you would like to join this council, you can't, but if you would still like to try, you can go to patreon.com/slash nadpod.

That's n-ad-d-p-od.

You already sang, so don't sing again.

It's been a real pleasure reading these names off for you.

We will be back here next week with more fun stuff.

Thanks again for listening.

See you later.

Bye-bye.

That was a headgun podcast.