D&D Court: Nasty Bards, Evil Dads, and Mustard Custard

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This is a Hidgum podcast.

Welcome to Dungeon Court, everybody.

Dun Dun.

We are your Supreme Crit Justices Murphy, Axford, and then, of course, the Lowly, Loli, Lowly, Lowly, Lowly, Lowly, Lowly, Lowly, Lowly, Lowly, Lowly, Lowly, Lowly, Lowly, Lowly.

But not too lowly because we're missing Justice Tampa.

Okay.

We need to step up.

I think actually, you should be a justice today.

Yeah, welcome, Chris.

Really?

Jake Krowitz.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I am so flattered.

And I, Jake Krowitz, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the players as well as DMs against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same, that I take the obligation of my own volition, and that I will well and faithfully embark on this noble pursuit of justice.

So help me, God.

Damn.

How did you have that on hand?

He hasn't.

Did you think we might do that?

I knew we didn't have a quorum with only two justices good for you he's prepared justice behavior i had it prepped aspirationally i was not sure if it was happening but i i thought there was a chance all right well as the i mean that's really i actually think we should make uh caldwell bailiff next time we come

let's face time him and see if he answers right yeah that's a good call yeah if he picks up we'll let him be a judge still all right with that let's throw to our uh newest justice uh jake hurwitz who still needs to do bailiff duties hear ye hear ye.

Crit is now in session, the honorable supreme crit justices Oxford, Murphy, and Hurwitz presiding.

That's right, motherfuckers.

Wow.

And our first case comes from Garrett M.

Garrett writes, to the illustrious judges and their foppish dweeb jort turd blitz, not anymore, dude.

Not anymore, dude.

Take that right back.

Unless we consider this part of like sort of the hazing process as part of bringing it on.

Well, I feel like I already took the oath.

I bet justices get hazed.

Sure.

Are you sure?

I present the case of the cheeky death saves.

After an encounter in my game, which saw aberrant zombies sacking a town, the PCs ran down an NPC secret agent who was trying to invisibly escape after helping incite the chaos.

The team took the NPC down to 1 HP and he surrendered.

The green scale shadow agent was ready to spill the tea when the cleric rolled to punch him in the face.

Nice.

It succeeded and the agent was reduced to zero.

Cool.

At that point, I began rolling death saves behind the screen as the team scrambled in real time to solve the problem.

I failed once and ended up rolling a NAT1 just as the cleric shouted, I heal him.

I had the cleric roll a religion check with a low DC, but he failed and my lore dumper died cold on the gore-covered streets.

My PCs protested and said the death saves should have started initiative.

I retorted that initiative isn't always required, especially when aggression is taken out of combat.

Do all death saves need to be rolled in initiative?

Or was I right to roll, albeit slowly and obviously, cheeky after an out-of-combat assault?

I feel like 2018 MRF would have sided with you, but new MRF, he rolls initiative for pretty much everything.

Yeah, especially whenever there's a high-stake situation, I feel like initiative is helpful just to

make sure everyone clearly and concisely gets a chance to do whatever they want to do,

but not too many chances.

Initiative is not just for combat, initiative is for any time people are racing to do stuff.

So, anytime there's a ticking clock, you do initiative to see how fast things happen.

There is no such thing as really like aggression outside of combat.

It's just if somebody punches somebody, that's they did that on their initiative.

You know what I mean?

Interesting.

I'm trying to see if there's like a precedent for if it is like death saves mean you're an initiative, but I think it seems that it's kind of dealer's choice from what I'm seeing.

Yeah, I mean, I do think it means you're an initiative, especially when you're, I mean, the players are trying to solve something within a time period, right?

And also, you can, it's literally in the rule book that you can have people do non-lethal damage.

They didn't want this person to die, so kind of twice over this NPC shouldn't have died.

Died by getting punched in the face.

Yes.

You can die.

Obviously, you can die from getting punched in the face.

I do respect the cleric for wanting to do that.

Yeah.

I love when a spellcaster just takes a swing.

Yeah, just gives him a wallop.

But if the players wanted this NPC alive for lore dump reasons, they should have A, been able to do non-lethal damage.

That's just straight up in the rulebook.

You can just declare non-lethal damage, especially with like a strike.

And then B, if they're trying to figure it out, and if it is a thing of like, what happens first?

Does the character die first?

Or does the cleric get off the heel?

That's not a religion check.

That's an initiative role.

That's, we roll initiative now.

You know what I mean?

Also, what is around?

Around is six seconds?

Yeah.

So then that would technically be 18 seconds.

Sure.

Right, but 12 for this one because there was a nat one.

But I feel like if you punch someone and you were like, oh shit, we got to bring them back to life.

I feel like realistically that would take less than 12 seconds.

Yeah.

I think so too.

I mean, unless you guys like really panicked.

If your players really were like, yeah, fuck them.

Oh, wait.

Do we need a, you know, like, I guess there's like aversion that it really wouldn't feel like,

I guess.

But, like, punching him in the face doesn't feel like I'm trying to, trying to, like I'm going to inadvertently kill him.

That's

there's just like so many steps that this DM took to punish the players unreasonably, I think, including the fact that you can't roll slowly and obviously and also cheekily.

Oh, wow.

They admitted to rolling cheekily, but they're saying they were doing it obviously, but I don't think you can really do two dice rolls.

Yeah, cheeky and obvious.

No,

you know you were being cheeky.

I think they must know they were being cheeky.

I think it's also, I mean, I think you kind of have your answer right when the,

unless the players are being ridiculous, if you end your session with like an argument, then

the moment didn't land, right?

Like if

it always feels better when you get an above-the-board whomping.

When that happens, then everyone's like, oh, I can't believe that happened or, you you know, whatever.

And I don't think this is particularly egregious.

You gave the character a role and stuff, but the rulings were pretty arbitrary.

I feel like it's all right there in the book.

Like, they could have done long lethal damage.

They should have rolled initiative.

There's a couple reasons I think your players are right here.

Also, I mean, take the compliment.

They really want your lore.

Yeah.

Yeah.

They love the lore.

They love the lore.

They want more of it.

And you deprive them.

Maybe they're edging.

Right.

They're lusting after your lore and you're trying to edge them.

This game game sounds awesome.

Is anybody on the other side here?

Nah.

No,

I think we go ahead and we offer a cheeky punishment for this DM.

Actually, you know what?

Should we weigh in with...

We could do a Caldwell take.

Just weigh in.

Okay, so I'm going to do a Caldwell take.

Okay, but what if the cleric did like a super punch that was like a powerful anime punch that actually sent them to another dimension?

So you'd need to do like speak to death in order to talk to them.

You'd have to plane shift in order to talk to them.

Okay.

And I'll do the Justice Murphy response.

Okay.

What?

All right.

Although that does bring up a fun thing, which is that maybe now this crew has to bring around this dead body and try to speak to it.

Try to speak to it.

How can you cheekily carry around a dead body?

Interesting response, Justice Tanner.

Nah, but I think, yeah, we're on the player side here.

I also, here's the deal.

It's a double-edged sword, right?

Not rolling initiative and just being like, whenever people shout stuff, they can do it.

That's a double-edged sword to establish as a DM because that's going to get your BBEG whomped while they're giving their opening speech.

So just tread so carefully.

It's way better to roll initiative.

Maybe since you did cheeky rolls, now cheeky rolls are just up for grabs.

Cheeky rolls are up for grabs apparently.

So while you have NPCs talking, like they could cheekily roll multiple attacks and then be like, while that NPC was talking, I did seven cheeky attacks, three cheeky crits.

You really don't want to introduce cheekiness to this.

This is going to just hurt you as a DM more than it's going to hurt the players, honestly.

Yeah, what were you thinking with these cheeky rolls?

They were way too cheeky.

Oh, so we had to, we had to punish the

DM.

Yeah.

So we are on the player's side here.

I think we've already come up with the punishment.

Your players now get cheeky rolls.

Yeah.

Right.

You've opened this cheeky Pandora's box of cheekiness.

And long may cheeky rolls for NH2 Payball, unfortunately.

They could do cheeky, cheeky sleight of hands to just steal everything

and no initiative.

No initiative.

Just you.

No initiative.

Everything is cheeky.

Everything is shouting.

Technically,

death saves aren't contested, right?

So actually, I think that sleight of hand can't be cheeky, but I think attacks can be cheeky.

Sure, yeah.

They're going to be cheeky and they're going to be sneaky.

So ordered.

And our next case comes from Z to the ever increasingly effervescent judges and my guy, Jarsh.

Jars?

I'm actually one of the effervescent judges now.

Yeah.

And I'm not Jarsh.

I'm

Justice Jarwitt.

Justice Jarsh.

That actually does work.

So I'll accept Justice Jarsh.

I present to you the case of the questionable plane shift.

During COVID, my brother and my dad and I started playing D ⁇ D as a family.

Cute, right?

I was really getting into it, playing a nasty little bard.

A nasty little bard.

Talk to me.

Sing to me.

Nasty little bard in front of my dad?

My dad made a classic wizard who shot magic missile and almost did nothing else.

We were having a great time.

That is, until one battle when the last goblin standing opened a portal that sucked up all of the PCs and transported us through the tunnels of flashing light and booming sounds until my brother slaps a big box of magically gathering cards on the table.

Apparently, the bad guy had transported us to an alternate reality where the laws of magic had changed and to defeat him, we had to play by by the new rules.

Okay, okay.

Look, I understand this is incredibly disruptive, but I think for the lore of magic, this actually works because in Magic the Gathering, technically, you're summoning creatures, so you could summon from sure

for some reason.

When I said that, my Zoom started.

You started giving balloons because you were throwing out the peace sign for some reason.

You want to do quotations, quotations, okay?

Right.

Laser.

I can't.

I am drowning in balloons.

Peace sign means balloons.

We can't do visual humor.

All right, fine.

But everybody at home, just imagine that it's happened three times since you started talking about it.

Just imagine just balloons showing up non-stop in Emily's quadrant.

Okay.

Turns out my brother just wanted us to play a Magic the Gathering with him the whole time.

The whole time.

Okay, yikes.

So this was all a long con.

Yeah.

But since neither me nor my dad had any interest or really knew how to play, we started to get up and walk away.

My brother all but flipped the table.

He was so mad, and he never DM'd for us again.

My question, judges, is, should we have humored him and learned how to play a whole new game on the spot?

Or was my brother overreacting?

I leave my fate in your capable hands.

Okay, let's dissect what really happened here.

Was the brother like, damn, DMing is a lot of work.

Yeah, well, it sounds like

the brother just wanted to play magic, didn't want to play DND.

The brother was like, I don't have the capacity to plan this anymore.

The brother thought your bard was a little too nasty, and the brother was annoyed by your dad's constant spamming of magic missile.

I think you should have humored with one game.

If it was like a mini-game, I actually think this could be very fun, you know, to be like, you got transported into this.

Obviously, you would be setting up a crazy multi-planar universe in which

some planes of existence feed card games and another plane of existence.

However, I could see someone making that work, but I mean, just fully transitioning to Magic the Gathering is kind of a big ass.

Especially if

you don't want to play and you don't know how to play.

And so you're all also keep in mind, we play D all of the time because it is our job.

So imagine you're really excited to play D and D.

You're especially, I think they said right that they started during lockdown.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

So imagine you're just so eager for human contact and everything and playing D ⁇ D and then you show up.

You're finally connecting with your father.

Actually, we're going to play a different game.

That would be extremely upsetting.

That's just going to entirely throw out your character.

I have a question, though.

Did they make thematic decks for your characters?

In which case, that is very sweet.

I don't think it doesn't sound like they did.

It doesn't sound like there was a ton of thought there.

I think you got to ask your brother, hey, were you just kind of like tired of DMing?

In which case...

Sounds like the brother just wants to play magic, doesn't want to play DD.

I think I need to abstain because I just like magic too much.

Yeah, I think check it out because because so these people don't want to play magic.

Imagine it was Uno.

Yeah, just imagine if Uno's fun.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, but imagine if that would be such a downgrade.

Yeah, okay.

So, yeah, so imagine you're supposed to go to a D ⁇ D night.

You don't play D ⁇ D as your job.

D ⁇ D is just a fun thing that you're very excited to do.

You show up and they're like...

You spent all week with like a character.

You made your bard so nasty.

Yeah.

He's so filthy.

You have stinking cloud.

You have all the nasty hits.

And then you show up and then the person's like, what's up?

I got a GameCube and we're going to play Luigi's Mansion.

And you're like, okay.

Yeah.

I don't, I don't know.

That would be whiplash.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

I mean, it is that level of whiplash.

It's a completely different game.

But if your bard was named Luigi and that's a mini game,

you got transformed into a TV.

Right.

Also, in this analogy,

you have to actually have shown up several times at that friend's house and had a great time playing.

This brother had been DMing and they had been having fun.

Yeah.

So I feel like this Magic the Gathering curveball, while annoying, is still only one instance of an otherwise good time.

Yeah.

And it's ruined the entire game.

I think a very practical, functional sentencing for this brother is just go to a game night.

You want to play Magic the Gathering.

Your brother and your dad want to play D ⁇ D.

You can have it all, right?

Yeah.

Sit it down.

You are a woman

with shoulder pads in the 80s.

You can have it all.

You can have it all.

You guys can carpool and split up.

I mean, I'm sure this is just for brevity, but it does say that they just got up and walked away.

So I will say, I do think you should have played one game.

I do think, well,

not even played one game.

I think you could have just had a talk and just been like, I don't really want to play magic, though.

That's kind of if you didn't want to DM, you could have just said you didn't want to DM.

I think they should have played one game.

Yeah, they should have been the question of judges: should we have humored him and learned how to play a whole new game, or was my brother overreacting?

And the answer is yes to both.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But I think the brother's the bigger thing here because I do think it's a weird, it's a strange move to be the DM and then just bust out a different game, just bust out Settlers of Catan.

Zooming all the way out is like, if you wanted to play magic, there was a better way to do it.

Yeah, they were already sitting at the table.

They were down to listen to you.

Also, just like to have it be so heightened and be like, oh no, what's happening to our characters?

This is going to be crazy.

I bet we're setting off on an entirely new adventure and taking out magic.

I would like to force you to play magic with me.

This is a cry for help.

This is a cry for

help.

This is a cry for magic playing, which I understand for sure.

I, I, you know, this would be better if it had been you're at a casino or something, and there are people playing, like, or almost like this is like Gwent in The Witcher, where it's like, you can go play magic against people or something like that.

If it was an optional thing, it would be rad because everybody would be getting kind of what they wanted.

But it sounds like you guys don't want to play magic.

Your brother tried to mislead you into playing magic with him.

So we got to rule against you, brother.

Yeah, sorry.

Your brother's eating it this time.

Yeah.

What do we rule for him?

Because he's already been punished.

He had to, he kind of flipped a table.

Oh, what's a really bad commander that we could punish the brother to play?

Oh, what was the commander that you had that you were sort of as a joke going to make a Lady Orca?

Lady Orca.

Lady Orca.

I know nothing about magic, but I don't want to play Lady Orca.

Okay.

It's like a really ancient.

I found it in Murph's old

Magic the Gathering cards.

It's technically a legend, so you can play it as a commander, but it's terrible.

It's seven mana to summon for a 7-4 that does nothing else but have some pretty mediocre flavor text on it.

Yeah.

So she's technically a legend, but she does nothing and she costs seven mana.

So unfortunately, your brother has to make a Lady Orca deck.

And you don't know what that means because you don't play magic.

But if you tell your brother, your brother will be upset.

And that's

your brother's going to make the lady orca deck and sit down to play magic against me.

And then I'm going to surprise him and be like, actually, we're playing pickleball.

Whoa!

Yes!

That's

really good.

And then he's going to have to try to hit a pickleball with a magic gathering.

Yeah, you don't get a racket.

And I don't know how to play, but we're going to figure it out, Lady Orca style.

Live.

Jake's going to have a racket yeah

i get a racket you get a lady orca card because that's what you showed up with sidebar jake you don't know how to play pickleball you seem so because you're gonna get you're gonna have a pickleball phase i'm just waiting for it to happen yeah i'm surprised that it hasn't happened yet i've been avoiding it because i know that i'm prone to

get overly into like athletic hobbies and pickleballs are

it's kind of like an expensive and gear heavy hobby you have to lug around a net and you have to always beg people to play.

It doesn't seem like something I want to start doing.

I have to avoid it until I play with

the brother DM.

Yeah, it's pretty gear-light, I think.

Yeah, especially because the rackets are like really floppy.

I think we have cheap ones, but they don't.

Although

we don't play very much, we played like once.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The people I know have to, they lug around a net.

They set up their own nets in the park.

Oh, okay.

Okay, wait, New Punishment.

LA must have courts.

In LA, yeah.

You guys have a lot of land.

New punishment, this brother has to go to a tennis court with pickleball nets and just try to rent it.

Oh, talk to the tennis players and be like, we're transporting you to another world.

Pickleball.

And then you start setting up your own net in the middle.

There is genuinely a war going on between the tennis players and the pickleballers.

Yeah.

There is.

My dad was like on one side and then switched to the other.

It's a mess out there.

Really?

It's a mess out there.

Is he pickleballing?

He was like tennis but then they started converting all the tennis courts into pickleball and he was upset but now at in his elder years post knee surgery he's actually happy to have a little bit lower impact with pickleball hell yeah yeah all right cool well so ordered to play pickleball against me with a lady orca card instead of a rack

And our next case comes from Crispy P to the firm yet fair justices, that includes me, and honorable bailiff Jake, that's not me may it please the court my husband dms a family campaign another family campaign

we're getting family drama it is the it is two days after thanksgiving and we're getting

family hog drama

someone brought up hoglidays in the patreon comments and i totally forgot that we call the holidays the hoglids

and i'm so excited to have that back yeah the hogliday season is upon us anyways give me that hogliday drama where does the grinch fit in what does the grinch fit in he's the santa claus of the hoglidays Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right.

Perfect.

May it please the court my He's the Santa hog.

Sure.

He is.

Oh, Sam.

I'm getting the Caldwell street back from Murph.

Without Caldwell here.

I'm taking the entire product.

You're taking the heat.

Shit.

Call will get back here.

Dude, your paternity leave is up.

Murphy's getting snarky with things.

My husband DMs a family campaign for me and our 12-year-old twins.

Our party was sneaking into a dragon-borne war camp to rescue captured kinsmen of our daughter's character, a moon elf wizard.

Cool.

While stealthing into the camp, we decided to create a distraction and get a surprise round.

The distraction is...

This is...

This person is so unfortunate that Caldwell's not here.

Caldwell loves

more than anything.

I also do.

So this is, I think distractions are always fun.

If I were on watch, I would fall for distractions all the time.

This is the perfect Caldwell V Murph scenario.

A distraction at a war camp.

Distraction, you should just kind of never have a distraction.

You should always just kind of not make a scene.

I think it is.

You should definitely always try a distraction.

It should always be your A-plan.

Sure, yeah.

We decided to create a distraction and get a surprise round as the soldiers and warlord were sleeping in their tents.

Okay.

Our daughter used her pseudo-dragon familiar to cast lightning bolt in a line that hit the greatest number of tents, including the main tent where we knew the BBEG was.

I think that's just me being

a distraction.

That's rolling initiative.

Everyone fight.

That's not a distraction.

That's an attack.

Go on.

We were expecting to create chaos with the fire, do some damage to multiple bad guys,

and each of us get a surprise attack.

Oh, but.

If you did, this is the lightning bolt.

Yeah, if you distract them by attacking.

By attacking officer.

So I guess you can assume, dear justices, that is not what happened.

Uh-huh, right?

My husband said that since we couldn't see the people in the tents, they wouldn't take any damage from the lightning bolt.

No, and instead, the tents would just catch fire.

Furthermore, he said the fires alerted the enemies to our presence and had us immediately roll initiative, not allowing the rest of us to have a surprise attack.

Needless to say, we were not pleased.

And after some arguing at the table, the kids yelled, email Jake, in order to correct this injustice.

Jake and justices, who was right here?

We humbly await your decision.

P.S.

While the kids kids have heard several D ⁇ D courts, they haven't heard the main campaign yet because, you know, dragon pussy.

Right, yeah, that adds up.

Good parenting.

That adds up.

That absolutely adds up.

Okay, so good news.

Everyone's wrong.

Everyone here is wrong.

What?

Talk to me.

Why is everyone wrong?

Because as this was being read, I was like, of course this just goes into initiative.

You've just started a war in the middle of

the camp.

Of course, everyone's just going to start fighting.

You don't all then get to you roll initiative after the lightning bolt goes off the thing that i don't understand is why a tent would protect you from getting hit with lightning i think that's definitely not true yeah yeah so yeah so lightning bolt i'm gonna read the the description lightning bolt a stroke of lightning forming a line 100 feet long and five feet wide blasts from you in a direction you choose.

Each creature in the line must make a dexterity saving throw.

A creature takes 86 lightning damage on a failed saver, half as much on a successful one.

The lightning ignites flammable objects in the area that aren't being worn or carried.

The idea that you would just send a 100-foot-long lightning bolt through a bunch of tents and not hit anyone, but lighten their tents on fire just enough to alert them is.

It's a little far-fetched.

Yeah.

I'm

censoring myself because I assume the 12-year-olds are going to listen, but he's wanting to say it's bullshit.

It's bullshit.

It's bullshit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

12-year-olds can hear the word shit.

They can hear shit.

Bullshit's on TV.

That's on TV.

That's on TV.

Absolutely.

That's on USA.

Kids are always watching USA Network.

Yeah.

They're always watching the USA Network.

They hear bullshit all the time.

Yeah.

They hear bullshit.

Yeah.

I think, yeah, unfortunately, I really wanted to be on the side of this, but I just think that an attack can't really count as a distraction, especially with like a war camp, right?

They're on, they're ready to go to battle.

They're thinking of battle.

I feel like a distraction would have had to be less aggressive.

Yeah.

A distraction would be doing a bully wogo.

Maybe, maybe if the okay, maybe if the pseudo-familiar had flown up into the sky and made it look like it was lightning from a thunderstorm and just tried to light one on fire, then I would have let them make a deception check to be like, okay, but the fact that you tried to maximize how many people you attacked,

I think makes sense.

I mean, I think what you did was better than a distraction.

It was a really great direct attack.

Exactly.

And that was a surprise.

I feel like that should have been rewarded.

This is why i would say everyone is wrong because i think the dm is super wrong here to be like this lightning bolt that goes through the camp and even if you can't see anyone if there's a war camp like roll in front of the table be like on a on a um 15 or higher you hit five people on a 10 or higher you hit three people like you could do that and be like because we rolled so terrible on your luck check you missed everyone but i don't know i think within reason if you're like there's a hundred foot long five-foot-wide thing that you do through a bunch of tents, you can assume someone will get hurt, especially if all the tents have now lit on fire.

The fact that this was just used to then start combat is kind of BS on the DMs card.

Yeah, don't say bullshit.

Right.

Yeah, yeah.

Now we've covered it all.

Let's stop saying it.

I mean, FCG rules, right?

It's like you're only allowed to say it's not.

You're only allowed to say it in somebody's house.

We've said it nine or ten times.

Yeah.

Yeah, which is fine.

I'll dub it.

I'll dub in bull spit.

There you go any other time we said

I'll dub it in later.

That's bullspit.

But the other side of it that is bullspit is.

The other side of it that is fucking bullspit is.

What else?

No, it's fine.

It's fucking bullspit.

All right.

So the other side of it that is fucking bullspit is that the players think that they're going to be able to electrocute the whole war camp and then get a surprise.

And then get a surprise round on top of that.

Yeah, what should have happened, if everyone wasn't wrong is it should have been lightning bolt goes off.

It does X amount of damage to X amount of people.

Now everyone roll initiative.

It is time to fight.

The thing the DM did wrong was saying that it magically missed everyone.

That doesn't make any sense.

Yeah, that does.

Do you think the DM is a bad father?

It could be argued.

It could be argued.

No bullspit here, folks.

They have some groveling to do to their children.

But at the thing, and the hoglidays are right around the world.

What better way is that

The great news is that everyone's wrong.

Yeah, you're right.

When everyone's wrong, then no one's right.

Yeah.

And

go on.

That's what the hoglides are.

Then that's what the hoglidays are about.

That's what the hoglidays are really all about.

Yeah.

Nobody being right.

Yeah, so I guess the punishment here, since there are no, there's really no winners here, is that I think gather everyone around.

Yeah.

I do want to keep figuring out, though, what they could have done.

For I would have let them each, each if they all did stealth checks each like like sneak up on one person, right?

Yeah, sure, and each have a surprise round that way.

Right.

If they had sent the pseudo-familiar into the air to mimic a lightning bolt and rather than getting as many tents as possible, just light one on fire, I think I would have been like, okay, that can count as a distraction that will give you advantage on stealth to try to get it like a round of surprise.

This has like mad dad at the snack bar energy where like dad is like, I'm gonna go get everybody some french fries.

And then like all the kids start being like, Can I get a soda?

Can I get some candy?

Can I have ice cream?

And then dad just goes, No one gets anything.

Yeah.

Oh, that's interesting.

You think this is all no one, no one gets anything?

Yeah, I think so.

I think it's like, I'm gonna stealth, I'm gonna shoot a lightning bolt, but I want a surprise round.

It's like, you know what?

No,

nobody gets it.

We're not doing surprise rounds.

You lightning bolted the camp.

A good penance in the Hagalu Day spirit is that everyone just has to get each other one more small gift.

Yeah.

Or maybe you guys have to give each other all gifts in-game.

Oh, that's nice.

Save up your goal.

Yeah, like an in-game secret Santa type thing.

Yeah.

Okay.

Cool.

They can be kind of like passive-aggressive things too.

Like you can give them like

a non-flammable tent.

Right.

Actually, that would be really, really helpful, though, potentially.

The non-flammable tent is a good bit that we would later get a submission that was like,

so I gave my friends a non-flammable tent and they used to pick the tent in the middle of comment.

Never have any problems in hell.

Yeah, yeah.

So ordered.

Happy hogla days for this lovely family.

Happy hoglidays to your lovely family.

Yeah.

You've both done wrongful razzings on each other.

Bull spits all around.

Bullspit.

Fucking bullspit.

Hold your loved ones close and tell them they're pissing you off.

Michaela ZC writes: Dear Justice Axford and her little buddies.

What?

Wow.

What the action is?

I've been in honor.

I side with you.

Tell me no more.

You're right.

Everyone else is wrong.

Cool.

Let's punish Michaela's DM.

About a year ago, I started a campaign as a blade singer wizard.

I was excited to slash my way to glory with my arcane blades.

However, early on in the campaign, my whole party accidentally got cursed by various gods.

Most of the party got minor inconveniences that never came up.

And our barbarians, quote, curse, actually doubles their rages and has it auto-activate when they first take damage.

What?

That's not a

curse.

Yeah.

I, however, was cursed by the goddess of luck, which means I can never roll a nat 20 or a nat one.

If I do, I need to re-roll and give my crit to someone I can see.

While this occasionally makes an enemy miss their attack, my wizard has ended up being my luckiest character ever, sometimes rolling four 20s a session.

My party, especially the barbarian, loves their curses, and the GM seems uninterested in ever breaking them.

So I ask you, do I deserve retribution or should I resign myself to my fate?

I see, like, I see the DM, why the DM had the idea to try this out.

I like the idea that, like, oh, you can't crit succeed or crit fail, but I just think it's like, I, I like to crit fail as much as I like to crit succeed.

Yeah, it's taking

it sounds cool.

And I'm like, oh, wow, this sounds awesome.

But then I think about it happening to me and I'm like, no, I would hate that.

It takes out the highs and lows.

It absolutely takes out the highs and lows of the game and it makes it unexciting.

It's like, okay, cool.

You can't roll really bad.

You can't roll really good.

Yeah.

You can just roll like tens.

I don't know how.

Well, the perfect way to do this is you did it in campaign one where I think we had a curse where like your next 20 becomes a nat one.

Right.

Yeah.

And that's what I'm doing.

Which for a one time that was like really fun.

Having whatever this is is like a one instance thing seems a lot better than an ongoing thing that you can't solve.

That sounds so frustrating.

Even if it was a flipped thing, emotions would be high.

Instead of saying, there's no more nat ones and no more nat 20s, which does not seem like something a god of luck would do anyway, that's not whimsical or cool or anything.

It's just

the god of luck

would like for you to have no luck.

What?

And now I'll ruin the game a little for you.

I, as the god of luck, will minimize the spectrum of success.

If, as the god of luck, you switched nat 20s and nat ones, that would be really fun because then

you'd roll and you'd be hoping for a nat one, which would be really funny, but would also, I don't know.

And you would be short-circuiting every time.

You would be like, oh, nat one.

Wait, nat one.

Yeah,

it'd be a fun thing at the table where you'd have these moments where because

you're used to feeling one way or the other about a nat 20 or a nat one, and it would like flip those expectations and it would be kind of exciting and fun.

And this just kind of takes all of that out.

I feel like you could be able to just like sidebar with your DM and just be like, this has been kind of a bummer.

Is there any way that we can resolve the curse?

I don't think you need to bring up like, oh, these other people have better curses.

But like, I feel like if I were a DM and I gave someone a curse and they didn't like it, they didn't find it narratively interesting.

Cause also this is less narratively interesting, right?

Yeah.

Then I think that I would totally be like, yeah, my bad.

Yeah, maybe I I tried something to do.

Maybe pitch swapping nat 20s and nat ones.

Be like, I'd be willing to have nat ones back if I could get nat 20s back.

Or even just pitch, like, can we find a way to ameliorate the curse?

Yeah.

Yeah, I think that's fair.

And it's a good point not to bring up anybody else's curse because it sounds like either, one, they like them or they're not coming up at all.

Yeah.

You just be like, my curse personally sucks for me.

My curse is making rolling less fun and the game is about rolling.

I don't think you want that, right?

Every time I hold a D20, I feel nothing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And other, and other people already have good curses and you're just giving them all your crits.

It's like forcing someone into a sidekick role when they haven't decided it themselves.

It's kind of yeah, that's true.

It's such a brutal one.

You really got to prove that.

Yeah, that sucks.

That absolutely sucks.

Yeah, for sure.

We're on.

Because it's like not even that satisfying to make an enemy roll in that one.

It's like pretty good, but not, I wouldn't, yeah, you wouldn't trade critting for it.

Okay, so we're going to, we're going to have to punish or dare I say curse your DM.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Should we flip a DVD in Justice Tanner's honest?

Oh, that's a great.

Do you have a DVD just nearby?

Do I have one?

Yeah.

Hold on.

You have to go.

I have to go get one.

All right, cool.

And me and Emily will just vamp.

He's actually going.

Yeah, he's gone.

The car's starting.

Let's do visual bits while he's gone.

He's back.

Okay, he's back.

Okay, I'm back.

Someone had sent us to the P.O.

box, Avatar the Last Airbender, on Blu-ray, believe it or not.

Uh-oh, it's not opened.

Come on, give me that shrink-wrap foley.

He has to get up again and go get a knife.

Sorry, what's the purpose of?

Sorry,

now I'm going to be the Murphy Tear Tanner.

What's the purpose of flipping this DVD?

Instead of a coin, it's a little bit more fun.

Okay, so we're going to flip the floor.

But what would be the purpose of flipping a coin in this situation?

Okay, so what we're going to do is we're going to flip the avatar DVD.

If it lands heads up,

it means that your DM has to buy you Avatar Season 1 on DVD.

And if it lands on the other side, they have to buy you season two on DVD.

Okay.

Don't scratch it, man.

That's a brand new DVD.

Okay, I did, and I did it on top of a notebook.

It's actually a Blu-ray, and it was face-up, so they got to buy you season one on DVD.

Okay, season one it is.

Man, and that means that Blu-ray is absolutely sweet.

I think that what just happened was you continuing to be cursed by Lady Luck because that was just really

satisfying punishment.

I'm trying to

honor the missing Justice Tanner.

And he is honored.

Wherever he is right now, he's smiling.

Ooh, I have a better punishment.

It's impossible.

If we record,

or if you guys play at your DM's house, they have to get a Froyo machine.

How awesome would that be to just like, while you're playing, be able to dispense Froyo to yourself?

Yeah.

Or soft serve.

I actually don't know if there's a difference between soft serve and and Froyo.

Should we flip a DVD to see what the difference is?

Well,

let's flip a DVD to see what flavors there are.

If it's heads up, there's chocolate.

And if it's

face down, it's mustard.

Okay.

Oh, what?

That would suck.

Face up, luckily.

Yeah.

Oh, okay.

It's chocolate.

Yeah, chocolate.

Damn.

Chocolate instead of mustard.

Okay, so you can have chocolate fro-yo.

Don't put the DVD away.

Let's flip for toppings.

Okay.

Damn.

Okay, okay.

Heads up, sprinkles.

I have to be myself now.

I'm getting tired of the DVD.

Heads up, sprinkles, heads down, mustard.

It's over.

Mustard.

Yeah.

It's over.

Flip it one more time.

It's over to get mustard.

Come on, dude.

John McBroy with a mustard drizzle.

It's face down.

Yeah, you got it.

You got your mouse.

We got mustard.

Toppings aren't optional.

Toppings or mustard.

Can we flip to see if they have cups or cones?

The toppings and the broya.

If it's up, it's cups.

If it's down, it's cones.

Up cups, obviously.

All right, so it's up for cups.

That's good.

You're going to catch all that mustard.

Yeah.

And you get a snow

of avatar on DVD.

And actually, that really is such a curse to have to have in your house a chocolate, fro-yo, and mustard dispensing machine.

And it's one lever, so you can't

do it.

But the vanilla is mustard.

And like sometimes you want the froyo, so you're like, okay, I'm going to eat around the mustard, I guess.

Oh, just the strong, strong smell of mustard.

I also feel like soft serve is kind of a loud machine.

Yeah.

Yeah, certainly.

So that's going to be like just a loud piece of large equipment.

You sometimes have to get service.

We've worked it out.

We've worked it out.

This is the punishment.

Yeah, for the DM.

The DM has the soft serve machine in their house.

It's half chocolate, half mustard.

It's chocolate, but it does a mustard swirl.

So it does a mustard swirl.

So it's instead of vanilla custard, it is mustard custard.

Mustard custard.

And it's called mustard custard.

Mustard custard.

Wow.

It's actually shocking that it hasn't been created.

Kind of perfect.

But think of the health benefits of turmeric.

Yeah.

Next question.

Moving on.

Next question.

Yeah.

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And we're back live during a flex alert.

Dialed in on the thermostat.

Oh, we're pre-cooling before 4 p.m., folks.

And that's the end of the third.

Time to set it back to 78 from 4 to 9 9 p.m.

Clutch move by the home team.

What's the game plan from here on out?

Laundry?

Not today.

Dishwasher?

Sidelined.

What a performance by Team California.

The power truly is ours.

During a flex alert, pre-cool, power down, and let's beat the heat together.

That's why you're going to fill up a cup with your mustard custard, your turmeric.

Yeah.

The next case comes from the fun yacht.

Mustard custard does sound like if Imagine Dragons had a side project.

Yeah.

To the breathtaking judges and the bailiff, that's scarcely worth mentioning.

Well, good thing I'm a fucking justice.

I present the case of the campaign-setting switcheroo.

Why is everybody doing this?

We're having a lot of look this direction.

We're copping DVDs over here trying to decide what game they're going to play.

Come on.

Yeah, dude.

You're about to get mustard custarded.

A friend told us he wanted to DM a sci-fi campaign.

So we all made characters using Spelljammer.

Mustard custard also sounds like a Frank Zappa album.

Cool.

No, please.

To our complete surprise, our first session ended with our characters being sucked into a time machine that deposited us in an 1800s American cowboy world.

No.

Okay.

No.

Unfortunately, the sessions that followed involved hours of fruitless roleplay.

Townspeople had no information to share or were simply too freaked out by us to interact with us.

Out of ideas, we tried offering the local sheriff our services as bounty hunters, only to be told this town had no need of bounty hunters.

What?

As a result,

as a result, my fellow players are checked out and spend most of the sessions on their phones.

This is tough.

I privately texted the DM to share that I felt pretty lost as a player and would love more direction.

The DM said he didn't want to, quote, railroad us, but promised to make his hints less subtle.

The NPCs in the following session still had little to say, but we did have a fight on a train.

One of my suggestions.

Is my party justified in losing interest, or does RDM deserve more opportunities to develop his story?

I await your judgment.

Let's have a conversation about if them saying, okay, we want to be bounty hunters and the sheriff saying no, that feels like railroading to me, doesn't it?

That's true.

That is, yeah, that is actually very true.

It's so easy.

It's so funny to transport them to a world and everyone just be like, ah, which are you, witch?

Yeah.

so like it sounds almost cool at first.

You're like, whoa, these spell jammer characters in like the old frontier town.

Yeah, because you're imagining you're like, okay, you're just gonna, you're, you'll have a laser blaster as a cowboy.

And it's like, okay, that could potentially be fun.

And then this totally DM makes it.

It feels like the DM is saying, all right, step into my crazy world.

I have a huge idea.

But instead, they're just like, yeah, no, it's crazy.

You guys are space people.

You gotta figure it out.

Everyone's scared around you.

I don't know, man.

Do you think that the DM is writing a book or a TV series about an 1800s America town?

And they're like, just like, hey, I need my DD to be the research and world building for my historical novel.

I'm writing.

They're trying to stay focused.

Yeah.

Trying to stay so focused.

I don't know.

I mean, wasn't there a movie called like Cowboys and Aliens or something like that?

Yeah, Cowboys and Aliens.

Yeah, that's not in theater.

There was that.

Hell yeah.

Wow.

Nice, dude.

I thought it was bad, I think.

You thought it was bad.

Yeah, did you get popcorn?

What kind of sack?

You know, yeah,

I was in Long Island.

Okay.

I was visiting a friend's cousin.

Okay.

Oddly enough.

Incredible.

I'm glad you guys asked.

I just wanted to go

trip down memory lane.

Yeah.

Incredible.

It's such a sweet.

And now that I think about it,

I got popcorn.

Okay.

Coke.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I just love, I love when you're meeting someone's cousin and then you spend the afternoon in the dark not talking right

yeah i love that and i haven't seen them since i wonder how they're doing so yeah it's reach out reach out right now god damn it to my friend's cousin yeah i want to text my friend and see if i can get their cousin's number

all right see this is why you have to railroad because we have to get back on track here so yeah they might have been trying to do like a wild wild west thing or like a cowboys uh and aliens thing but it sounds like the dm themselves isn't even on board for the world

right this yeah

Are they a history major?

This is working on their dissertation.

We've brought this up many times that, like, the fear of railroading is so much worse than railroading.

Like, just putting players out there and being like, figure it out.

Most of the NPCs are unhelpful and don't know what you're talking about is not fun D.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

You do want to be railroaded to an extent.

You just want to be able to stop the train wherever you want.

You can stay on the tracks and just have frequent stops.

I also think that like railroading is like people think of it as like having any hand on the story, but I think that the opposite of railroading is hearing what your players want to do and actively trying to facilitate what they want to do.

You'd be like, railroading is actually imposing your story on them, not imposing any story on it.

So just walking around and just being like, everyone is scared of you and no one has a quest or anything is so boring and weird.

What you did is worse than railroading.

It's like transporting you somewhere where there are no tracks.

There's just no story to be had.

If you wanted to do this world and you had a quest, right?

And you didn't want to railroad, what you would do is you'd say, like, there's all these wanted posters for this one outlaw, this one outlaw band.

And you

see, everybody's scared, and they've all got their windows boarded up, and everything like that.

And then the players understand,

hint, hint, we need to go get this outlaw, right?

But,

you know, railroading would be like you show up and you're already in a fight with the outlaw, or that the person,

an NPC, makes you go do it and they,

you know, sign the papers for you that say you're going to go, you know, it's not railroading to just put quests out there for your fucking players to find.

Right.

Yeah.

It's not railroading to prep.

Yeah.

Or to just be like, this is the adventure that I planned.

Would you like to do the stuff that I planned?

So we can't.

I really think that they're a history major who's working on a PhD and don't have a side time to come up with a story, but they're trying to use everything that they're researching.

Yeah, perfect.

I mean, I'm ready to flip a DVD on this.

Yeah, yeah, flip a DVD.

I think we should just mustard, mustard, custard.

Okay.

You want to just mustard custard?

This DM mustard custard, this DM.

Okay.

We're not even flipping.

Yeah, this DM needs to now do a quest in their campaign about mustard custard and really railroad them towards it.

Yeah.

Like the old saloon is like slinging mustard custard.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then then you keep saying, you guys know about the mustard custard because you guys made mustard custard in space in your old life.

Because it's like prohibition era.

It's like this mustard custard is outlawed in this.

You're not allowed to have mustard custard.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's too dang delicious.

And you guys have, y'all have to go on a quest to bring mustard custard back.

There's mustard custard in your land.

Tell us of your mustard custard.

This sounds more interesting than the game they're currently playing.

So they have not been a real punishment.

But also, like, I guarantee you, the stable would not be on board with it if it was like, if

it was like, okay, there are three objects you need to acquire to make mustard custard.

Mustard.

Custard.

Custard.

And a Froyo machine.

Okay, so order.

They had a printing press, so they had Froyo machines.

We know this.

Yeah, it's possible.

it also feels like you guys are almost being like too polite to this DM.

Look, you should be polite to your DM, but in this situation, it's like, oh, you don't need a bounty hunter?

Okay, is there a nearby town that does?

We'll just move on to the next town.

I'm imagining,

can we go?

Can we leave?

We're stealing a horse.

I'm going to gallop out into the horizon.

I'm imagining being a DM and running like three sessions where you guys just walk around to different rooms and my MPCs go, Whoa,

don't come around here and nothing happens.

I would readjust for the next session, surely, after the one time I fucked up.

Yeah, unless you're writing your dissertation on Frontiers Township of the 1800s, slice of life frontiers towns.

Yeah, I mean, this is it's the equivalent of like if we did a campaign or something where it's like, you guys get sucked into like a Game of Thrones world.

It's you'd do the initial like, well, you have strange clothing.

Uh, you, you must come from like the outer realms or something like that, but then you'd have them involved in the plot.

It would be the equivalent of just over and over again being like, You're not from one of the great families, get out of here, right?

What it's like, what maybe one person like won't engage with you just so you kind of set the stakes of who they are, but somebody else has to.

If a spaceman with a laser gun came up to me and said, What can I do to help you?

I would be like, Awesome.

Let's get started.

I have a chore list.

I need blackout lines for my

I would be like, There's this this guy on the block that double parks every time there's street sweeping.

I need you to laser his tires.

Yeah.

I need him to not be able to move.

I need his car getting towed.

I guess by this logic, I would be kind of like this DM because if somebody with a laser gun walked up to me and was like, how can I help?

I would be confused and scared and say, I don't know.

Really?

Yeah, for sure.

I would definitely come up with some tasks.

Yeah.

I would be like, my rainwater catcher is getting a little stale and needs to be emptied.

Emily's right.

You would want to keep him busy because otherwise he goes and asks somebody else.

And the favors, yeah, the favor somebody else asks him might be a little less immocracy.

All right.

So ordered.

So ordered.

So ordered.

All right.

Our next case comes from Guy B to the absent yet most honorable of all, Justice Tanner.

What?

And the imitators.

Who the fuck?

Wow.

We're going to flip a DVD to see if he has it.

I'm ruling against you.

I wish you a mouthful of mustard custard.

Flip that DVD, see if he has it.

it i have to get it out again all right top up and uh you're wrong and top down and we're uh you're you're right

top up you're wrong wrong okay you eat the custard yeah you eat the mustard custard mustard custard uh okay they do bring a case that tanner would have loved but uh i'll read it for us i bring to you the case of the rat and the hat okay my players were trying to infiltrate an enemy base the beastmaster ranger decided to use their hat of vermin to summon a rat which they cast animal messenger on the alchemist artificer then used her elixir of flight to send it up the tower.

The message was, quote, the rat king approaches, flee or die.

I had the rat roll an intimidation check, which failed.

Rats have really bad charisma.

Yeah.

And the enemies captured the rat instead of running away.

Cool.

The ranger thinks I should have let them use their charisma instead, which wasn't that much better than the rats, to be honest.

The session was fun either way, but what do you think?

Since the caster is sending the message via animal, should they get to use their charisma, or are they limited by the charisma of the animal?

I submit to your ruling.

I think that I fundamentally think that the rat king is

approaching flea.

Maybe that worked with your campaign, but that just feels kind of like what?

Yeah.

If that happened in real life.

I mean, I guess I would run.

I guess if a rat flew at me and said the rat king is approaching.

But you don't live in a fantasy world, right?

So this is a world where a creature speaking, hypothetically, based on how high or low magic your world is, could be somewhat normal.

Right.

Right.

And I still, I wouldn't flee like my town.

You know what I mean?

Like if a rat flew up and was like, everyone flee, the rat king's coming.

If I was in like a small room and a rat flew at me, I would absolutely get the fuck out of the room.

But if a rat just like climbed a bell tower nearby and was like, everyone leave, I'd be like, I don't know what kind of TikTok prank this is, but I ain't falling for it.

If I was with a bunch of other guards and it happened, I would be like, hey, guys, get that rat.

I don't think it's really a king, but I would not engage with the rat just in case it was the king.

We are scared of the rat king.

That is.

Okay, fine.

So, actually, it was a really compelling message.

Now that I'm looking at Animal Messenger, there's nothing in it, but I'm kind of thinking: like, should so the basic question is: should the intimidation check have used the ranger's charisma or the rat's charisma?

And it is, the rat is cloaked in a otherworldly supernatural magic, which is kind of like charisma, right?

So here's the argument that I would make is that this is a debate that you should have before the dice are rolled instead of afterwards.

That's a really

good call, Merv.

I think you could,

as a DM, you could rule either way.

You could say, this rat is not the messenger to bring this out.

This is not going to be a particularly charismatic speech.

But you could also say, you know, what Emily was saying, that this is like an act of magic.

Like it's cloudy.

It's not like in otherworldly otherworldly magic and therefore it's not just a simple at least in in the act of intimidating it's not with just

it's the equivalent right of if you have a monk or something and you're grappled and I'm like go ahead and roll a strength save to get out and they roll it bad and then afterwards they're like I should have been able to use acrobatics and it's like you should have asked me that beforehand and then maybe we would have you know come to that conclusion together that that would have been okay this whole plan sounds like something that could only work if they crit so like you can't you can't get over the hump with just the rats charisma

yeah i think that even with a success saying i'm the rat king

the rat king approaches flee it's like it kind of does need a crit to have everyone flee the castle yeah that's never gonna happen yeah it was kind of a stretch to begin with i think you could have had them roll with advantage right to be like because of the magic that's cool roll with advantage but we're using the rat's but we're using the rat's charisma and that would be cool stakes to set before yeah just like murphy that might feel more satisfying so i think that i'm kind of in the middle i think that i think that maybe they were asking too much but maybe you were too hard as well but it seems i mean it just seems funny right i mean they're doing a ridiculous hail mary play they had to know there was a high chance of failure yeah had this been like a more buttoned up plan where it was like we send them in and the rat is going to stealth around and try to hear some gossip and bring it back to us then i think you don't have to be a hard ass dm but when it comes to we would like to say that the voice of god is speaking down to everyone right and get everyone to flee you have to know that that's not going to work unless everything aligns right like you'd have you'd have reasons to roll with disadvantage there you could be like yeah maybe they'll all leave dc 25 and roll with disadvantage right and you succeed wildly and now we don't have a game to play today because that was what I printed.

You know what I also think is a satisfying way to deal with it?

If it's like, you make this call, it's a little contentious with the players.

You could be like, okay, well, I'm going to roll in front of the table.

The guard that it spoke to, I'm going to have that guard roll like a wisdom saving throw or like an insight check or something like that to be like, to have one more roll to make them feel like, okay, we are really getting a shot.

But presumably that might have happened.

I mean, it's just passive insight versus it sounds like they ruled really bad, and a ranger is not going to have good charisma anyway.

So the argument is that.

And it was a normal-sized rat, too.

Yeah.

There's really only so much that that voice can really carry and only so many people that could even be intimidated to it to begin with.

Yeah.

Though a rat can really make its way around a room.

Sure.

Sure, yeah.

Especially when it's flying.

Yeah, the time for these arguments is before the roll.

It's not, you do your rolls lawyering beforehand.

You make your deals, then you roll so everyone knows the stakes.

You don't do this afterward.

The DM said, roll the rats charisma, and they did that, and then they were mad that they didn't get their nat 20.

That's not how the game works.

Yeah.

We side with you, the DM.

Though I do think you were a little, a little hard.

Really?

Just a touch.

I think that you could have given a little more wiggle room in there.

I think it was a pretty...

weird plan that was that that they knew they knew was a goo they knew it yeah the rat god is coming come on.

That's a plan you don't even want to work with.

Unless wait, but we don't know what was a rat god.

Is a rat god the main bad guy of this campaign?

Is it in lore?

It could have been, it could have been completely not silly at all and only strategic.

DM has to look into their heart right now and know if the players were honoring the lore.

Yeah.

And they just didn't have, they didn't tell us.

Okay.

But were you withholding information?

I 100% agree.

We're sentencing the players.

Yeah.

Okay.

So what should they be sentenced with?

Well, of course, mustard, custard.

Mustard custard, of course.

Of course.

Yeah.

But also, I don't, yeah, I sentenced them to play in a different campaign with a DM that allows for intimidation checks from challenge-rating 1/8th animals to clear castles and see how much fun you have.

Maybe Justice Tanner should DM for them.

I would sentence them to a really brutal, knockdown, drag-out, like overpowered fight against the rats.

Yeah, they've angered the rat god.

They've invoked my name for selfish gain.

Their plant should actually work, and this should actually be the rat king.

That's who they have to serve from now on.

The animal, but you like awakened the rat.

The castle is actually the rat king's castle, and they're like, the rat king would never tell us to leave.

We serve the rat king.

Right.

Well, we told you to say that, rat.

Yes, but I said it because it's true.

I didn't know how true it was until it came out of my mouth.

Okay, so the DM is going to incorporate the rat king into the campaign.

This could be a punishment for the DM.

A Tiamat with five different rat heads.

Whoa, I love it.

And they all do, oh, that's great.

Yeah.

And do really lazy.

I mean, you could do it Rat King style.

Oh, like they're all.

How it's actually five rats.

Yeah, but they're huge.

They're huge dire rats, but they have Tiamat stats, and you do a really lazy job of transferring it from dragon to rat, and you just keep being like, it does its blue rat breathing.

You keep calling it Tiamat.

You keep, you go, oops, Tiamat.

Right, Right, because we don't want to sentence this DM to prep anything, anything more than they've already prepped.

So you keep saying Tiamat, I mean the rat king.

Yeah.

Is going to use its blue drag, I mean blue rat head

to breathe cold rat damage down onto you.

Okay, so ordered.

And with that, why don't we step into our Dice Christ confessional for a confession?

Jacob H., not me, somebody else, writes, dear most honorable justices and third most honorable bailiff, Akey Brakey, Jakey, I do not know if this should be presented in the high crit or the high church, so please evaluate it as such.

I accept whatever judgment, divine or mundane, you see fit.

I was playing as the only experienced person in a group of brand new but very enthusiastic players.

We were playing in Curse of Strahd, and they were excited by the world and the possibilities.

But there were multiple occasions where I saw that they were afraid to try something because they felt like they couldn't or they would get in trouble.

The DM was also fairly new and was having trouble encouraging them.

Yeah.

Enter me, an assassin rogue based on Agent 47 from Hitman.

We were watching a corrupt governor give a dystopian speech, and I saw an opportunity to both show the group that big swings are something you can take in DD and take out a cruel noble with one well-thrown screwdriver.

I sneaked behind the stage and rolled in the mid-teens to make the assassination attempt.

I was almost certain this would hit, but was afraid that if it didn't, it would discourage the new players even further from taking risks.

So I instead reported a role in the low 20s that I knew would hit the AC of a petty noble.

The screwdriver struck true, flew clean through the governor's head, and we all had a high-stakes escape from the town.

Years later, we still talk about the scene, and one of the players has even said it helped show them what was possible in DD.

So, justices, am I good?

Wow.

This is a tough one.

I think your heart was in the right place.

Yeah.

I think they might have learned even if you missed.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think that's the lesson to be learned here is that A, it sounds like the DM was willing to swing with you anyway.

Yeah.

Because if the DM really was afraid of big swings or something, they would have been like, they cast shield.

They're actually secretly a wizard.

They have super armor on under their clothes or something like that.

So whether you rolled in the, you know, high teens or low 20s, I think it didn't make a big difference.

So I think you probably could have just

hit no matter what.

Especially if you're not.

You shouldn't have said your actual role because then you'd sleep easy, right?

Yeah.

No, you got to question it.

And also, like, I think that you're thinking, oh, it was the success that makes us talk about it to this day.

But I think it was just the big swing because it sounds like since your DM was willing to roll with it, they were into that.

So I think that if you had missed, then it could have started some chaos and you guys would have had to like scramble.

Yeah, because then you would have missed, and then you still had, had to escape, and it would have been this fun escape thing.

And then you'd have this bad guy that knew that you tried to kill him.

And so that would be a rival and stuff like that.

So I think that the lesson here is go with Dice Christ.

You know, the roles are there for a reason.

The dice help tell the story.

I think ultimately you probably told the same story that the dice were going to tell anyway.

So, you know, you're all good.

You are good.

To answer your question, you know, have a tiny, have a tiny sampling of mustard custard.

It's the

Hoglides, and Santa Hog is all about forgiveness.

Right.

Yeah.

Look, you're good, but you're not great.

Yeah, you're good, but you're not great.

So you do have to have a spoonful of mustard custard, and then all it's forgiven.

I looked up if mustard custard was a thing because I was like, maybe it already

already is a Frank Zappa album.

Okay.

And it's really just like actually a recipe.

Yeah, of course.

That's why we mentioned it.

We knew it was a thing.

We knew this whole thing.

Yeah, but we want mustard frozen custard and it's like, it's way sweeter.

We want regular.

It is a tempting.

It's way

spicy mustard coming out of one tube while vanilla ice cream comes out of another tube and for them to swirl around together.

No way it exists in a Froyo machine.

Yeah, there's no way.

We invented it.

This is your grandma's mustard custard from the Spell Jammer future, and we invented frozen custards.

And no one knows what's going on, and no one will give us any quests, and everyone's scared of us, okay?

Yeah, but we're just here to eat frozen mustard custard and serve the rat king.

I don't know what the big deal is.

We're here to serve the rat king, and so we are all dispersed.

Thank you all so much for listening.

That's going to be it for this one.

You can head on over to patreon.com/slash nadpod.

That's N-A-D-D-P-O-D.

Don't sing yet to listen to our after-show, The Short Rest, for the DD courts.

We always do bonus cases, so listen to bonus cases over there.

That's right.

And you can follow us on social media that we may or may not use at CH MerseyMe, at Coles Caldwell, Addie Extra, Emily, and at Jake Her, which is Jake.

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That's N-E-D-D-P-O-D.

We are, we are the youth of the nation,

we are, we are,

the youth of the nation,

dungeon,

dungeon,

dungeon, dungeon, dungeon, gin, dungeon, dungeon, dungeon,

dungeon, dungeon, dungeon, dungeon, dungeon, gin,

dun, dun, dun, gin, dun, dun, dun, gin, dun.

And now it's time to thank our benevolent council of elders.

They are Brad D, Jeffrey S., Lord of the Fjord, Later McSkater, Matt M, Cutter W, Jeff C, Daniel G, Danielle the Dastardly Dame, Beardman Dan, Carpe Liam, Bryant, Victor T., Balnor's Boy, Hoyt's Friend, Justin I, Danny Danster, TJM, Trele, The Cray, Christopher B., Damiel R., Jordan L, Cyborg Version of Josh the Kobold, Targot, Stevie Wags, Hellish Rebuker, Ph.D., Princess Yar, Jory S., Rachel from Animorphs, Jack L., Nicholas C., star of every film ever made in Bohumia, Mike High Tower, Alka Smeltz Plus, Great Value Gemma, Tyler F., Heradrian, Carborough Chapel Hill, FPV, Rexthaniel the White, Cece Lulu, Olcobb's Dunkel, Older Byrne, Heracule Poirot, The Rabbit Folk Detective, Timmy R.

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Maybe the Real Treasure Was the Friends We Made Along the Way, Cass, Strong Grinch, Stephen, Can Rage Last for Four Years, C, Mike K, Nick W, William W., Big Bad Buto, The Mad, Eric McD, Anna Rama, Percival, Frederikstein, von Mussel, Klowowski, De Rolo III, Jay Dragonborn, Guardian of the Vibe, Honoring the Cock, Dolores Wiggle, Ben A, A, Dave H, Dustin S, Danny F, Hawkeye Pierce, Book Bar's Assistant, Izzy F, Big Bad John, DPC is Awesome, Hashtag Honor the Cock, Sean the Shade Tree Mechanic of Zeldar, Summer RG, Cat C, Misa of House and Zunza, Ariel the occasional mermaid, Selena N, aka Velacie Raptor, B Perky Always, Pat L Maxwell J Lauren H Serve 16, Annie the Fae Wild Therapist, Connor Savage.

Salil BioQuirt 7.

Amber Dextrous.

Bean Rat was innocent.

Trub Hopdropper.

Jack H., King of the Mole People under Iron Deep, dressed in blue, fighting his way through a bracket-style tournament.

Valin.

Paj, the bitch and bunny bard.

Carlin C., Noah the Bullywog Boy.

Hashtag Honor the Cock.

James G, Everything Bago, the Eladron who just wants to hang out with his pet badger, Stripey, Daddy, Master Dandy, Reverend, Chatterbones, Han, Eric B, Marcos, Learns the Balance, Druid, Frida M.

Pago, self-proclaimed Faye King, now with the real musical improv action, Maggie, Holly, the green laughing hyena, finally caught up to the duck team.

Akash, Thakar, Cal, Just Cal, Aaron B., Russell, H, a monk named Dilgo, yes, the whole thing, yes, every time.

Lorelai, the succubi, and Kira, the succulent snack, McKenna, stout, your friendly neighborhood, yant and yunkel, Andrew and Sid, John Adams, didn't win the vote, but won your heart.

Meg, the mail carrier of Bahumia, James F.

Austin S.

Wayfarer now has to do something with the trolls.

Get rid of them.

Turn to page 42.

Keep them.

Turn to page 69.

Shane C.

Barpo Good Barrel.

Bard Barian.

Garrett G, one big curd.

Renee, the monster captain.

Box Clifton.

Olivia the Enchanting Bard.

And Jared the soap opera cleric who are playing Stick It to the Man.

Down with the Monarchy.

Winter, Slade, Fico, Garrett, the Artificer, Damon, Jay, Anthony, the rattest of dudes.

Jay, the fairy say, Kakal, congratulations to Susanna and Caldwell on their new baby, Cantrip Dumbledore, the Bear Onesie wearing barbarian, Lexi H, Roger L, No Drog, the pass-a-fist, barbarian, Ginot, John Luca, Tristan the talentless hunk, Leon K, legendary hero of Bahumia from a future campaign, shenanigans O'Connor, Mios the Great, Joshua S, Alexander, Lins W, Johnny, Dude, K, Pavu, Eskinor, the the Goliath Paladin providing service with a smile.

Tim M, a cat napping in a sunbeam, listening to a podcast.

MLG, Cheeto, Shell B., Kenna's now first favorite sprite girl, Triss Hard Seltzer, more like Piss Hard Seltzer.

Congrats, Tanner Wolf, Fam.

Jackson R.

Snailis, who's infecting Worcestershire for within.

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Josh H.

Pilot of the Nightmare Verse Flight, Froky, the 2 Crew, Blue Through, Jennery, Ethan, the Mailman, Maple the Shy Bookworm, Ashasaurus, Seth E., Billy Batson, A.U., Emily, Anna Lee, Hatchetworth, Michael L.S.

II, Jacob the Purveyor of Shenanigans, Carl B., Plumber of the Realm, Dex Riddlewell, Hannah A.

Ra, Ace Dregs, High Lord of Critzburg, Darius D, the guy from that one thing, Troy's Mom, Vinn Diagram, GKC, THE THE CATIMILIS THE CONSUMED, BART of Holding, Clinton P, Grinchful Cam, the Grinch Frog Man, Dean, Jake W., Hi Mom, Tuesday Cross, the Choose Your Own Adventure Writer, Not the Porn Star, Steve Law, Alex G, Zibby DeBaccery, Nicole Katerina C, Lady Jacqueline P of Castle Whitestone, and of course, Potato Punk.

Thank you, everybody.

That was a head gum podcast.