D&D Court: Squishy Bears, Fishy Crits, and Uncommon Common

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Dungeon. Dungeon, dungeon, dungeon.
Dungeon, dungeon, dungeon.

Welcome to Dungeons Court, everybody. Dungeon Dungeon.

We are your Supreme Crit Justices Murphy, Oxford, Tanner, and of course, the Lowly, Lowly, Lowly, Lowly, Lowly, Lowly, Lowly, Lowly, Lowly, Lowly, Lowly, Lowly, Lowly, Lowly, Lowly, Lowly, Lowly, Lowly, Bailey,

Jake Hurwitz. Try not being the backup singers for you, Murph, there.
Lowly, lowly. I was doing a little shimmy just for everyone in home.
I was shocked.

And the lowly, lowly, lowly Justice Caldwell Tanner.

I'm only low because I'm shimmying so much. Appreciate it.
Take it away, Jake. Knock it off.
Hear ye, hear ye. Crit is now now in session.

The honorable supreme crit justices, Axford, Murphy, and Tanner are presiding.

And our first case comes from Buyan. Buyan?

Buyan. Boy.

Hello. A warm hogliday greeting to the three wise justices and a quick pat on the shoulder to the bailiff swaddled in the manger.
That actually really is pretty interesting.

Jake. He gets to be Christ.
Jake, do you think?

Do you think you might be?

Is it possible that I'm the Messiah? Is it possible? Have we considered this? Who says no to Jake's? Wait a second. Christ had a humble beginning, and we're talking to a lowly baby.
Whoa. Wow.

Jake's dad is a carpenter.

Yeah. And my mom has to be a virgin because I can't imagine she fucked my dad.

It's all checking out. It all completely checks out.
Boxes are ticked. Okay, Buyan writes: I present to you the case of the fragile fluffy friend.

I'm a new DM, and my party recently won a series of neat trinkets from a fairground. One of these is an awakened teddy bear, who now sees the party as his adopted daddy's and follows them everywhere.

They love this little guy, even helping him with a baking contest and dubbing themselves the Pooh Crew.

As long as he's not Boomer Pooh, we're good.

It's the most invested I've ever seen my party in an NPC. Wow.
Oh my god, I hope you're just like, so I decided to kill him.

The unfortunate thing is, he has one HP and three AC and is one tumble from his demise.

My party will not stop trying to come up with ways to protect their new friend, including asking if our artificer can build him a small tank so he can have some protection while they adventure.

He can. He can.
Yeah. Yeah.
I have denied most of the outlandish requests.

My question to you is: how far should I be willing to go to allow this walking bundle of fluff to become a hardened adventurer?

Or is their friend simply a story vessel to create a baddie my party will go to extreme lengths to reach in order to avenge their little broken bear? I eagerly await your decision.

I think this freaking bear was never normal to begin with. He's awakened.
Okay. There's a whole story there.
Who awakened? I also wonder why.

Why do you want to kill this bear so badly?

I think that they don't want to kill the bear. Right.
But they're not sure. But they're not sure.

They're They're tempted to use the bear to leverage some stakes against a big bad. I think they're reluctant to buff the bear because they're like, why would a teddy bear become a hardened baddie?

And I'm saying that they can. Well, I think,

I mean, so it seems like this is the most they've ever been invested. So the DM is trying to use the bear to keep the plot moving forward.

And if that means they need to kidnap this bear at some point so that they actually go onto the next mission, then so be it, I suppose.

I think kidnap is one thing because then they could get their bear back. Right.

This, if it seems weird to really insist on being like, the bear needs to be in battle or will die, because it doesn't sound like the players are like, the bear is giving help actions during fights, and somehow they're trying to say that it's going to live through all this.

It sounds like they just like their bear. Yeah.
And the DM's just like, well, I have to kill everything, right?

I think that, but they said they are, the DM specifically did not say, oh, I want to kill the bear. The DM specifically said they're like one tumble away from dying.
Right.

So then just don't have them. Like, I didn't shoot Pawpaw with a gun during like any of the fights.
He's just like, just don't fucking kill him. It's not.
I don't know.

You don't often roll to see if you trip. Yeah, just, you know, if somebody had like a necklace that was glass, I wouldn't every five seconds be like, oh, did you roll your ankle?

You might have dropped your necklace. I cast shield of faith on pawpaw because I know that he's going to be targeted.
this time. Yeah.

I think I'm also hearing what you're saying, which is like, you as a DM are maybe like, how much do I let them buff this bear? Is it silly?

And like, if they buff this bear, does it become like a genuine adventure? Me personally, let them buff the bear. Let it become a genuine adventurer.
It also has like a mysterious little backstory.

I think that they could really, really enjoy that. And I also think that the artifice are making a little mech suit.

I mean, if your players are like investing time into keeping this bear safe, then I say roll with it. Give Pooh a honey-powered mech suit.

I guess, yeah, the flavor of like a tank I could see being against, but it's like alchemists can build like homunculi and stuff. So why couldn't they build like a little armor thing?

You seem really intent on killing this bear. It is true that they don't.

I don't know that they want to kill it.

I think that they're like, how can I, how can a world exist where an innocent thing doesn't trip and die instantly? You're just like, just, you're the narrator. Just have it not happen.
I don't. Yeah.

I think you could treat it like Navi from Occurred Time or something like that, where it's just kind of like your like guide that's there and like maybe it can like hug you and give you inspiration, but it's like not in any danger again.

I throw this all out the window.

I throw this all out the window if they're having the bear give them potions, if they're having the bear run around, help them during combat, but if they're just like, I like talking to this bear, I would like it around.

I think you can just not kill the bear.

I also think that it sounds like they are not only invested in sort of protecting the bear, which has been like very galvanizing for them, but it sounds like they're also invested in perhaps the bear's growth.

Yeah, which is why you could use it as a lever, I think. Yeah.
Like you don't have to kill the bear.

I think having the big bad target the bear in some way is interesting to use that as a, as like a narrative to us.

But I think you can't target the bear until you allow them to buff it up a little bit. Yes, I agree.
I agree with that.

It feels like this DM is like on the fence between like, I either have to like kill this bear or buff it. I think there's a middle ground.
Right. Yeah.
I think there's a middle ground here.

Maybe you have like a poignant poignant scene where the bear is like, I'm tired of being a stuffed ball of fluff. I want to go to war.
Give me a gun. Oh, that could be really cool.
Give Pooh a gun.

I think that's maybe exactly what they don't want to do, but yeah. She's offering an option.

I think that was what I would want to do. So I do relate to that.

If you really are feeling like you got to go after this bear, I would say kidnapping it does seem like a good story beat and that the characters would care.

If you're just like, roll for AoE damage of some random terrain effect and kill the bear, I think that is the end of your campaign.

I think you will kill your campaign with this bear. Yeah, if your concern is like this bear is just going to be like collateral damage, I think you can control the,

you can control that. You for sure make the rules.
You can just make sure that doesn't happen. Might I make two more suggestions?

One, I don't think you should kidnap the bear until you make a couple concessions to let them protect the bear because that might feel unfair if they're trying to protect the bear and then you scoop the bear.

And then the second is, I feel like you could always tell them if you tuck the bear into your armor, like they'll be out of the way of like AOS. Yeah, it's a stuffed bear.
It's just cute. Yeah.
Yeah.

Right. You can take bear death off of the table and allow them to ingratiate like the bear into the party and then have the bear get swept up in the big story.

A teddy bear, if it were a person, would be so easy to protect. You would just be like, cool, you're just the squishiest little guy.
You just go behind the breastplate.

It's like you'd literally need to cave the person in in order to hurt this bear. Yeah.
Yeah.

So, so, like, maybe that will be enough to just be like, just tuck them in, and then we don't have to talk about them during battle.

So, teddy bears, when they get beat up, are still cute when they like lose stuffing or their eye falls out. Oh, yeah, patch them up after battle.
You got to patch them up corduroy style.

Yeah, you could also, you could also have it that he turns to,

that like he needs to be patched up or something after he dies. He turns into fluff, and you have to go get new stuff.
He's a teddy bear. He's literally magic.

Like, you can just bring bring him back like you don't have to you don't got to kill this bear if he trips what if he trips fortunately

also like it's also yeah it is a really good point it doesn't be it also wouldn't take i know we don't we're not taking like real life into it or whatever but there is a certain extent of like well it's a teddy bear it can't be strong right but it's like if you drop a teddy bear on the ground it's not like it's gonna shred apart instantly on impact.

I don't say I'm more breakable than the teddy bear. Yeah.

It should have resistance, resistance to damage. I kind of, I mean, it's also like, if you think about it less as like an NPC and more as a magic item.
Yeah.

Then like it's HP and AC almost become like in the context of a magic item almost like in the context of you need to replenish it. Yeah.

Oh, maybe it's like you have to spend eight hours snuggling in a night and then you can get like a plus one or something. Yeah.

And someone needs to learn how to sew, which would be really cool and really the alchemist. That's minding or the artificer.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.

I think with like pawpaw, we always just kind of of admitted that he had plot armor, and where it was like, he'll get knocked out, and then he'll just be there knocked out.

Yeah, yeah, and that would only come into play if you guys were using him and he was going around giving potions and stuff.

But otherwise, I wouldn't sit there and just be like, Where's Pawpaw in your bib, Moonshine?

Power word kill. Like, even though we knew he had plot armor, too, it still didn't, like, when anybody hit him, we were still super upset.
I know.

If anything, it was because he was like the most like innocent and true. I mean, he wasn't innocent.
He was very naughty.

He was the best of us. He was the best of us.

So

whenever he got hurt, it like it hurt no matter what. Yeah.
That was how Murph signaled that we needed to stop fucking around. Yeah.

Glad kicked Papa to just be like, hey, everyone, stop making jokes.

And this is the opportunity you have with Armored Pooh. All right.
We're on the same page here. That's kind of like find ways to help your players facilitate this bear relationship.

I think I'm a little bit on your player's side, so I might vote against you because it sounds like they are beginning conversations about being like, hey, we're really invested in this character and we want to do stuff with this character.

And you've been saying no so far.

And I personally think giving him a little, giving him a little artifer something or other, I feel like there's a middle ground that you could have met that you both would have been happy.

Like teddy bears have literally been brought to war before. 100%.

Like teddy bears are at war right now.

Oh, yeah. They like tie tie them to the nose of the planes and stuff

well those guys yeah those bears are aren't faring too well they'll stick them on the top of like a you know like a 18 wheeler as well you know sure

they're hardy those things yeah they're hardy they can last and they can be patched up i just feel like you really want to kill this bear and

i need to defend the players i think they they really want this bear here there's nothing in again if they were saying like oh he's giving me a help action he's running out and he's gonna try to tank or he's gonna attack someone yeah Yeah, then that's it.

I get it. Shred the bear.
But for now, it just sounds like they want a little friend that they can talk to. And you're like,

time to draw, bro.

How do I stop my players from having fun? A teddy bear going through a paper shredder as it like begs for its head.

Yeah.

Why do you want a Toy Story 3? This teddy bear so bad. You want a shoe from Roger Rabbit.

You want to throw the shoe in the acid. So is this the punishment? We like to slap the DM on the wrist and say, stop it.
Stop it.

Just don't, just kidnap the bear at most. I feel like the punishment is to just, I mean, this is very practical, but the punishment is just to go back to the table and be like, okay,

let's come to a common ground about like what we both feel excited about with the artificer giving him a little protection.

I think you have to watch the shoe vad of acid scene from Who Friend Roger Rabbit over and over again

for 48 hours and keep pointing at it and saying, This is me. This is the kind of stuff.
This is the kind of stuff I like. Can they sleep enough for me? No, because they love it.

They love it. They have to be able to sleep.
What if the Big Bad is the one that lost the teddy bear? And

their teddy bear. And the Big Bad is like so torn up about it.
They're like, You abandoned me. You abandoned me.
I am a level 20 wizard named Christopher Robinius. Yeah.
How dare you?

That's why I just keep thinking, like, oh, this is like the fact that it's awakened. There's a whole freaking story.
Yeah. This bear is rich with backstory.
Yeah. You got it at a carnival?

Yeah, you have to lean into the bear. Yeah.
Give your players a tank. Yeah.

All of the item drops go to the bear, unfortunately.

So ordered. The bear now has the toughest.
It would be really funny, though. If they end up going too far with it, you could just get to a place where

all of the loot they find going forward is bear-specific.

They earth the bear. Yeah.

And it's like

you find a plus two sword that can only be wielded by a teddy bear. All right, so ordered.
Okay, so ordered. Pontus Nast writes, Hello, Pontus.

Dear justices and despicable bailiff, I am a forever DM who is currently running a Mork Borg campaign for my players. In case you are unfamiliar, it is very dark and edgy.

They were up against a group of undead with various weapons, and everyone was pretty beat up. One of my players got hit.
I rolled the D4 for damage and rolled a four.

I announced it, asked, what's your HP? And they said dejectedly that they were at four. When you hit zero in mork Borg, you roll a d4 to see what happens to you.
So they did.

They rolled a four, which meant instant death.

Your board got morked. While the players started to grieve, I suddenly realized I had rolled the wrong damage.
The undead who hit them was unarmed and thus would only deal two damage.

Oh. I excitedly told the players this and instead of celebrating, they thought I was lying to save the character.

We rolled back the death save and all is well, but I can tell that the player still thinks I took pity on them when I simply corrected a mistake.

Should I have let them die? Oh my god. In that moment, could you not have just been like, here, here's the stat sheet? It's a very small book.
I have a copy of it. You can see it.

What is Morkborg? It's like a little dark souls-y kind of like single-book RPG. It's very fun.

You kind of like roll a bunch of random tables to make a character and there's like a couple of maps in there. It's like a ruined kingdom style thing.
It's just your standard ruined kingdom,

haunted halls with ancient kings, you know, however, classic mork board. Okay, then I mean, isn't this easily solved by saying, look at this guy's stat sheet? Yeah.
I think so. Yeah.

It's what do you think, Murphy?

You know, I... Because we only ever suspected you of lying to hurt us more.
Well, if there's a bunch of undeads, you might just be like, well, you're just showing us a random stat sheet.

Like, how do they know which one of those?

Oh, because I guess you said that it was unarmed, and some of them are armed. So, yeah, it's like a bunch of undead with different levels of armor.

And you know, you're so fucked too, because if you take it back, and that once you said it,

it's out there. It's tough because, like, now you can't waffle and be like, all right, fine, you are dead.
Because then it seems like you actually,

which is, it's a weird thing to raz your demo about. Be like, oh, you just care about your players.
You want us to fulfill the narrative.

Yeah, I know, I know. Could you maybe have the option?

You just don't want me to be killed by a zombie in one hit i think right now i'm fixating not on whether you're right or wrong but like in that moment how you salvage that i think that maybe the way you do it if you saw like the question in their eye you could be like or we could just roll and see was the skeleton armed or unarmed oh okay maybe

that's how you salvage it but you would have to be so smart to read the room yeah and be like this is why there's weirdness on the room the markboard book i'm of two minds on this because on the one hand, I think I would have done exactly what you did.

Because if it was a mistake on my end and it ended up killing a player, I would kind of be like, time out, that actually didn't happen.

However, it often is better to just go with the momentum.

And you just make a call. You're a ref, right? So even if it's the wrong call, you make a call and you move on with the game.

So there is a momentum to the game where it is better oftentimes to not sit there and litigate every single moment.

And maybe with Mork Borg, it is a little bit more deadly and players are expected to drop.

I think I would be more careful if this was like a hundred episode campaign and it's like, I fucked up and like

this character should have had less HP or something like that or done less damage. I probably wouldn't kill a character that's been around for like three years.

But if we were all doing a one-shot, I probably wouldn't be like, oh, wait, that actually wasn't a crit crit because of this. You know what I mean?

Yeah, I still just feel like, though, knowing in the moment when it's salvageable, that someone shouldn't have gone down. I don't know.
I think you would feel weirder sitting on that.

It's such a judgment call in the moment. It's not like you did it after the session.
You did it right in the moment. Yeah.

Yeah, it was very much like a, oh, wait. It's like a five-second rule when you drop something on the floor.
Yeah. Do we want to establish a president here? Like, how long is too long? Like,

when is the official limit for like when you are not allowed to take a move back?

It might be one player's turn. One player's turn seems good.

Yeah, I was going to say like one turn, but I just still feel like if I downed any of my players and I realized within a round or within that session, no, but maybe not that session, I wouldn't, because it'd be really disruptive to have everyone perform their morning.

I think M is onto something when you mentioned adding another role, essentially. I think what I would do is

while the player, well, this isn't what I would do. What I would do is exactly what you would do.
Yeah, I wouldn't exactly hear

why

it messed with the momentum of the table because there's just no easy way to fix this.

Because like as soon as they start role playing the mourning process, then they're in that zone and you have to pull them out.

So maybe what I would do, having reflected on this now, is what Em was saying is put it down to a roll. I might be like, I made a mistake here, but we're already kind of rolling with this.

The character is knocked out. I'm essentially going to let you roll that d4 with advantage.
You're going to roll one time. If you roll a four again, you're dead.

Otherwise, we're going to take the other roll with it. You know what I mean? Yeah.
That's good.

But that's just me scrambling to come up with something

after the fact.

Yeah, because it wasn't even about the role. It was also about that they accused you of lying.
I know.

I think that I would be more like enraged by that.

There's so many tables that like you would have been like, oh shit, I got that wrong. You're not actually down.

And everyone would have chosen that look for you yeah but i do see the issue here which is like maybe they were already like beginning their uh like bereavement ceremony like they were already saying like clancy no oh clancy clancy yeah clancy tom

and i guess they're playing you know they're playing mork borg so they don't want you to pull any punches for some of them as we all know as we all know about if you're a mork borg gamer you want to die i mean you've been rifling through uh mork borg yourself, Jake.

I love to

be a bad person. People have been calling you Mork Borg lately.
Hulu, Mork and Sky. Moldova Season 2 will mostly be Borg-based.

Mork, if you're lucky.

In the game, you are either Mork or you are Borg, and you have two counters that will determine whether you're Mork or Borg. You start with the Borg, you earn the Morg.
Exactly.

Okay, so yeah, what do we say here? Because it's...

I don't know what I would have done differently.

I don't like really, I think I'm just gonna roll with you because I think that because you told the truth,

yeah, because you told the truth unless you're lying to us,

they're mad at you because they think you're lying, right? They should just trust you enough to wait for me. The problem is,

I get why they think you're lying, and so I'm trying to put myself in your shoes and see how to do it differently. But honestly, I just, I just would have done the same thing.

You have to morc somebody in the next session. Because I'm like, with death, it's so extreme conditionally, I guess, In a long campaign, like death is so bad to just like lose a character.

So if I made a mistake, I would just be like, sorry, guys, I made a mistake. And it is a fucking mood killer.

Well, this is the hard thing about these games is like in the rulebook, they're like, you're the DM. Like you ultimately decide.
But it's also like, I love following rules.

I love rules so much. And I like it when people are proud of me for following them.
Yeah. Yeah.
Or even, I like it when you give me rules so that the people I'm playing with never think I'm lying.

Yeah.

Yeah.

so that people i'm playing with think this is fair i like when my friends and peers know that i have honor is it worth considering the other side of the coin where if you hit this player with an armed zombie and you thought it was unarmed and they were celebrating surviving and then you said oh wait i have to roll a d4 no that that i think tie

i think tie goes to the player i yeah

in moments like that where it's like 50-50 i would say just keep i already made my mistake

But I think, though, in that moment, because it's not the, I mean, it's like, what, a 25% chance? I think that in that moment, you being like, oh, shit, actually, it's armed, that's tension.

If you say it immediately,

you don't take that back three turns later. Put it down to a role.
Just if you realize it in that moment. Putting it down to a role is different than just being like, oh, actually, you should be dead.

You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You'll never write a novel again, Clancy.
Yeah, Tom.

All right. Though they will outlive you.

So I guess we're gonna say we're on your side but also I know why your players were confused or yeah we shouldn't punish them that hard you told the truth I'm I'm just on your side because you told the truth yeah I have to I I have to yeah the truth has to matter

you acted with honor our friend friends scream the truth has to matter at your friends

double down yeah

I'm trying to think if there's a movie where like Alec Baldwin or someone delivers like a monologue about truth.

You can't handle the truth? Tom Cruise?

A few good men? No, what movie is that? That's a few good men. Oh, a few good men.
I feel like probably truth matters. Jack Nicholson that says you can't handle things.

Okay, so maybe just find whatever movie.

Maybe find. What about you had me at hello? Okay.
Oh, yeah. So

as long as it's just saying random movies. Can you just say a thing from a movie? Yeah.

From Tom Cruise. Maybe you say ghost protocol has been activated and you jump out a window.
Say something that Tom Cruise doesn't say in a Tom Cruise movie. Say it.
That makes sense.

Say, oh, that's good. Yeah.
Say, as Tom Cruise said in Ghost Protocol, you can't handle the truth.

How's that for risky business? Yeah.

Yeah, that's true. Just say the title

of a movie.

Do you want to say what is

DD if not risky business? Yeah. It really is.

It really is. Yeah, say, what is D and D if not risky business? Present a DVD from the library of risky business.
Slide. Okay, so client ahead because you will have to request it.

Oh, and then, hey, guys, I hate to bring it around to this, but you can flip the DVD to determine if it's. Oh, okay.
There it is.

We have it. We fucking landed on it.
Flip risky business.

Whoa, this is the first time Murph has been on board with

the DVD flipping. We got him.
Ladies and gentlemen, has time worn you down? Or is this just?

If we keep talking about it, I will turn on it.

it was a simple yes and let's not continue

murph was the minority report and now he's in the majority all right so yeah so we're on your side on your side but you do have to rent risky business

right yeah from my experience put that put that in now because it sometimes it can take up to a week you might want to call it sometimes it's immediate yeah and honestly when this episode drops it's going to be

it'll be sold out it'll be like google Google Trends at the library, and it'll be like risky business. Four people try to take it out instead of zero.

Oh no, all the kids are cruising in the library now. That's when you go to the library and rent as many Tom Cruise

as you can. They all have DVD players.
They do give you a surprising amount of loans. You could really.

I think I could get a 30 Tom Cruise.

Wait, 30?

You can't get loadable. How long do you get to keep those for?

You get some of them are only four day and some of them are seven day, but you can really easily renew them.

because i know on libby they give you a lot of slots but that's because it's like digital even like the physical dvds you get 30 slots i haven't tried it yet what if a punishment is is getting 30 tom cruise movies from the library all of them with one day returns

and you have to fucking watch them all literally physically you have to figure it out

mission impossible your mission you are forced to accept it all right yeah the players have to do this because they don't believe you because you're nice okay so ordered our next next case comes from Don't Call Me Prettier Than Aphrodite.

I won't. I won't.
The honorable judges and the honorably discharged Bailiff Jacob, your last paycheck will be mailed to you. Thank you.

Didn't know I was getting paid. They actually kind of owns.

I was playing in a Tyranny of Dragons campaign with a DM that was notoriously, quote, rules as written.

My gravecleric, in tandem with our Tempest cleric, Storm Sorcerer, completed a combined attack that resulted in 300 plus points of damage to Tiama.

I believe it because I believe that the grave cleric has something that does max or that does double damage, gives someone vulnerability.

And then I think that Tempest Cleric can then do max damage on thunder or lightning. So if you had some high-level thing, that would be my guess about how they did that.
I love sick.

I love anytime people can find a way to do combo attacks in DM. Yeah.
I'm predicting that somebody fudged Tiamat's HP,

effectively having her HP.

In turn, our DM targeted my cleric specifically with her breath weapon.

Due to various in-game magical items and a hero's feast, most of the damage was null on the party, but I was unable to effectively resist the fire damage.

Despite this, I rolled a Nat 20 on my save, thinking that would amount to something.

However, I was told since I only got to add a plus two to my deck save, it didn't matter regardless. Yeah.
Judges, bailiff, while you're still employed,

why did my DM even call for a roll if the highest possible number wouldn't have saved my cleric from an immediate no death saves death?

It's possible that they didn't know that you only had a plus two. Yeah.
I feel very torn about this because I am often a player.

I think if I were a DM, it'd be really hard not to reward a nat 20 on a save, but I know that it's really not normal. Make it half damage, at the very least.
I feel like that too.

Just, I mean, as a player, for sure, like you just roll a nat 20 and you think that's good. Something's got to happen, right? It's interesting.

I thought, giving the like buildup of this question, that this was a rules-based DM that they were going to like fudge Tiamat's stats or something like that after really insisting on being by the book.

But like, I think this sucks, and I wouldn't do it. I think if I was going to ask for a roll, a nat 20 to get half damage isn't crazy.
Cause there is like, I don't know, there is a luck to it, right?

If you're thinking about it like a movie or something like that even a character who's not as dexterous or something could possibly get out of the way you bumble or something like that yeah classic jar jar binks for all nat 20s left and right we all know jar jar bends down to pick up his commemorative edition phantom menace pepsi yeah and then it just the fireball goes right over him i also have had many times where i've rolled a nat 20 on a save and it doesn't mean anything special and it's tough as a dm to like always honor those Cause I feel like there are times where you'll roll in that one.

And it's just like, you say something funny, but there's no like extra punishment to that. Yeah.

And it's hard to like on the fly, because you're managing so much else, also come up with like a bonus or benefit.

But I will say that, like, yeah, I would say that you could easily argue that you should get like half damage. Yeah.

I think you could argue it, but I ultimately, if the DM is like, no, that. I think this is not, this is a pretty common rule to follow.
And this DM has established themselves as being a raw DM.

Like it's if this was also out of character, like, oh, this DM is constantly doing like theater of the mind, nat 20, you do a backflip and take no damage, but this time it didn't work, then maybe that you have more of a taste.

Yeah, I don't like it, but I have to respect it.

I also thought that the thing was going to be something about them trying to get out of taking that massive amount of damage, and they didn't try to get out of it. Yeah.

So, I mean, that tells me that they're like, all right, they're not pulling punches for themselves. So, yeah, I think it sucks.

The submitter does make, but at the end of the day, you were also killed by Tiamat, which is common. It wasn't like a zombie.
You made an enemy of Tiamat. Yeah, it was a valiant death, to be sure.

I think that's a cool way to die if you're going a diamond campaign. Yeah, it's tough.
I do agree. The idea of like, why would I even roll if there's no chance that I could possibly save?

But, like, I'm saying, you might not know their deck. You might not know their decks.
But that is, that is a really

anticlimactic way to kill someone, though. It's to just be like, what'd you get on your deck save? A nat 20.
Oh, that's just a 22. Okay, you actually are dead.

Although, I don't know, you could, I just said it really bad, but you could be like, you know, it's that Dragon Ball Z moment where you go all out and then you're like, actually, it didn't do shit.

You're fucking dead. Oh.
Yeah. I just, I feel like I can't imagine, but I also haven't DM'd enough.
I've been so much more of a player.

So, but in my head, I can't imagine not at least being like, you have a chance to cast one last spell before you die or something like that. You know, I know.

It's just like Nat 20s, they've irreversibly changed my perception of the number. Like, whenever I see a 20 in real life, I just smile.

And my daughter's birthday is December 20th. I'm like, you know, I always, I, I think of it as the crit birthday now, and I never will never tell her that, but that's what I think of it as.

Um, so I understand, like, when you see that 20 come up, you want something for it. Yeah.

It feels bad. It feels raw when the raw dog

deprives you of it. Again, the only thing I would say is that I have rolled Nat 20s on Saving Throws and not gotten anything special for it.
So I do think it is very common. It's a common rule.
Yeah.

I don't know that they're even being such a hard. Yeah, I think we make a bigger deal out of Nat 20s, particularly because it is like a performative show.

I mean, we started a church for the damn thing. Yeah, we started.
Yeah.

But to like,

yeah, I don't know. I do agree that the rolling aspect of it is tough to just be like, why would I even roll? But

I think the generous read, though, is like they just didn't know. Yeah.

One lesson did him is like there could be a character who has like a reaction that can grant an additional bonus to a saving throw. I think that like artificers get that.

I mean, it could have been like, you know, somebody could have had a bardic. There could have been a bless in play.
We don't know like what the other factors were.

So like it is worth always having them do the roll, I suppose. Oh, that's true.

Yeah, that's true. There's always like Flash of Genius or something.

Yeah, i mean you're running a tiamat fight there's a lot to manage i guess yeah yeah i think you're juggling a lot of heads i would also guess if you're fighting tiamat then you guys were pretty high level also if you did that much damage i would imagine you were pretty high level so i'm guessing that also your dm because you can be a really high level character and have a shit save in one of your categories that never goes up you'll have like a plus seven to something else so they might just like not remember that i also i also do think cold brings up a good point it's just like you never know what abilities people have that you could use to buff something up.

So it is almost always worth rolling because you don't know if there's like a paladin aura up. There's like so much stuff.

I also feel like it would be just as annoying to hear that I died and I got no role. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yes. All right.
Yep. T-Bot kills you.
No, no save, no role. That's a really good point.

Yeah. I think that like the law.
of this court tells me that I think I may actually roll with your DM and their right to do that. But I, emotionally, I'm fully with you.

Yeah, I think I think we don't, we don't like it, but we respect it. Yeah,

we would have not done this, but ultimately, this does sound like the game you've been playing in for a while, and the DM is nothing if not consistent. So we can give you a really light punishment.

We'll give you such a light punishment. Like rent one Tom Cruise movie.

Just a single one.

And with a four-day return. 29 loans left over after that.

You can watch them at your leisure.

Yeah, whenever you want to, honestly.

No, Vanilla Sky. It could be vanilla sky.
Yeah. We're just going to give you vanilla sky to own.

You can have vanilla on laser disc?

Does that make sense?

Yes.

Laser disc technology?

That's a big disc for it. Yeah.
Yeah. So that's kind of a punishment because you have to find something.
You have to. Yeah.
Okay. So it is like you have to find somebody.
You have to get.

Okay, fine. We punish you to get into laser discs.
Yeah. Yeah.

Or not. But if you don't, you won't be able to see Vanilla Sky on Laser Disc, which you just got from us for free.
I'm actually really having a hard time finding vanilla sky.

Yeah, I was going to say, I think Laserdisc, it was like basically the movie Back to the Future and maybe one other movie that year. And then they immediately invented it.

No, there's, you can get Top Gun on Laser Disc. Okay.

Okay. Yeah, Vanilla Sky.
Okay, we're pivoting. Top Gun.
We're pivoting. Yeah.
Vanilla Sky is just a funnier punishment. Okay.
I think maybe we stack on that.

You have to try and get people over to your house to watch Top Down on Laser Disc. You have to constantly be bringing it up.

And then when they come over, be like, shit, I forgot I don't have a laser disc.

All right, now it's turning into a punishment. You have to try and jam it into your DVD.
This is now pretty humiliating.

Fucking jam a giant laser disc in your DVD. It's gonna fit.
It'll fit. It'll fit.
Keep paying. It's gonna work.
Call that out. It'll play.
One minute, one minute.

It'll play. I did this last Easter.
I've just got to shave the sides off the air and port. Wearing it crap.
It would just be so dangerous for your hand as it just snaps.

Even just the idea of trying to shave off and be like, well, I'll at least get to see like the first 20 minutes. Hold on, let me get my lathe.
Let me get my lathe.

I'm going to shave it on my lathe.

Go anywhere.

I've been really looking forward to it. You got to shove a laser disc in your DVD player.
I'm sorry. I'm going to go to the next store.
You can make sure you're going to do this.

I thought we were on your way. This is way more of a button than I think you deserve.

Unfortunately, the bit rolled against me. That's the law of the land, unfortunately, here.
We follow the raw of our hearts, and the bit has

exacerbated the punishment. Apologies for that.
So ordered. Our next case comes from Tyler F.
Tyler writes.

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happy hogglades judges hi Jake

Today I bring to you the case of the fudgy rolls for context our party has a grave cleric whose channel divinity allows them to negate crits and we have a wizard with silvery barbs.

Oh, needless to say, our DM doesn't crit as often as she'd like.

Interestingly, though, our last four combats have opened with the DM critting, the crit being negated, and the DM immediately critting on the next attack. Wow!

Four times?

There was one combat where this exact sequence happened three times.

Judges, am I right to be suspicious of this fishy luck? P.S. The DM is my longtime girlfriend, and I am the wizard with silvery barbs.
Ooh, you gotta confront her. Whoa, right.

Yeah, this is your girlfriend. You gotta.
Relationships are built on trust and honesty. You gotta, because right now, you're spinning stories in your head.
That's not good for a relationship. Right.

So go to Ikea, and like when you're getting the Swedish meatballs, you're sitting down for your like mid-shopping feast. And you say the players are talking.

And I'm concerned. You throw another player under the bus.

You say, hey, don't roll. Babe, you know, I got your back.

Isn't this crazy? They think you're faking the second crit. I trust you with my life as you shovel the meatball.
And I, yeah. And I told them, you guys are full of it.
Yeah.

And I knocked over a glass of water. I said she would never fudge or roll.
Right.

Right.

You wouldn't. Right, babe.
Right. Babe.
As you swirl the gravy into your mashed potatoes. You are the person I think you are, right? I want to sleep soundly on my mom's bed frame next to you.

I do have a question, like kind of more like abstractly, like me as a DM, this wouldn't super bother me. Yeah, I don't need to crit that bad.
Yeah. I don't need to be.

This is giving needing to kill the bear. Yeah.

I think that's meeting me kill the bear. That's the only thought.
Like, I mean, I guess like, but maybe I am like a softie. Like I really, because I feel like I crit on MRF all the time.

And that really feels so bad. And it's like the closest I've come to fudging a role is like a critting on Murph multiple times, being like, Why, why dost thou tell this story? It is true.

It's like, I don't like to crit that much as a DM because I am sitting there looking at my notes, being like, I didn't account for this. I didn't account for rolling twice as much as I usually do.

I think the only times I've ever crit is like in Trinidad Alex Strad, like maybe when I was playing one of like the Donk squad and they get like a D4 of damage. I'm like, oh, they crit.

I mean, it's five. Yeah, when you're like, I feel like when you have lots of weenies, then the weenies do crit just because you're rolling so much.
Yeah.

But like, yeah, so I think like part of me is like, I don't even think anyone would be inspired to fudge these. Right.
Is it possible that, is it the same?

Because sometimes you get a synergy with a dice. Yeah.
And the dice just really like.

Oh my God. It could just be weighted dice and she doesn't know.
Oh, that's true.

I don't know how, but I also think though, I feel like the true test is if whenever one of my dice is rolling really hot, rolling a lot of 20s, it's also rolling a lot of ones.

So the true test is if she's also critting in the other direction. If she's also crit failing a lot, then those are just spicy dice that are in the mood to tell a crazy story.
It's the fact that

the submitter said it kicked off

four combats with this happening. Four combats have opened up.
And one of those combats had happened three times. So presumably she's also lying about the first crit.
Because

where did it lie in? The odds of opening four combats in a row within that 20 are pretty damn low. They're really, really low.
They're pretty bad.

You got to confront her in the plushie section over the giant whales and say, have you a shred of honor to your name? We also, we had Emily rolls nuts.

Speaking of like rolling crits to see who's rolling hot, we had in campaign one, you had the rolls where you rolled three ones in a row for Beverly, Michiga, Papa, the second.

And then you also had, I remember it was right when you were turning into a barbarian or multi-classing into barbarian, you had like three crits in a row on something. I don't remember what it was.

Yeah.

I don't remember that, but it's like whenever I sit down to play, I roll to see who is rolling hot. But to roll hot, it's also, I also set aside the ones that

roll ones because I find that those are the ones that tend to go to like the extremes. Yeah.
Right. They have a story to tell.
Yeah. Yeah.
But I also, I can't, this feels buddy. This feels fudged.

Does your girlfriend lie to you about other shit? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah,

that might be more boring. You guys have a heart-to-heart and add an IKEA coming up.
Yeah. But I do like the idea of saying, other people are saying this.
And I thought it was. Roaded up.
Yeah.

So crazy. I guess we could just for like a gut check, like it sounds beyond fishy to me.

It sounds like,

it's, it's, I think that you're giving her the benefit of the doubt when you say fishier than Swedish coffee. Kidders stats be like, did you know the odds of rolling four napkins in a row?

Or eight. She would have had to roll eight.
I know.

Well, but I think I want the truth. Here's the thing.
Here's the thing. What if behind the fudged rolls is an insecurity, right?

What if you give her a space to say, yeah, man, I have been fudging the rolls because I'm scared. I don't know how to make this interesting for you guys.

And I'm going to the bare minimum, which is killing people.

And then you could be like, actually, no, you've been doing an awesome job. You don't need the crit for this to be interesting.
The odds of rolling eight natural 20s in a row is one in 25.6 billion.

Billion? Billion. Billion.
I've seen worse.

There are people in the world that have a billion dollars. True.

Yeah. There's people that have a lot more.
And they're all awesome. Yeah.

Each one of them rocks more than the last one.

It's almost like that numbering. At least you can agree that that number isn't a natural, unnatural amount to accumulate.
Your girlfriend is lucky and awesome.

Clearly.

Yeah, this is, yeah, so she's faking it for sure.

But we don't, I mean, I don't want to say that for sure, but I do want to say that you are in your right to have a conversation with yourself. Just start lightly floating stats.

Just start being like, repeat this stat. Did you know the odds

of getting eight match 20s in a row is 125.6 billion?

If you do it again, let's see what the odds of rowing nine are. How can you start peppering pet names as you're doing it? Yeah, yeah.

If you do it it again, be like, you're going for the record. Okay, which is.
It'll be 512. I don't even know how to read this number.
Is this still billion? Yeah.

As an alternative, maybe you get one of your video compositor friends to insert Tom Cruise into the Matt Damon role in Goodwill Hunting.

And when you're playing it, it's Robin Williams saying to Tom Cruise, it's not your fault. It's not your fault.
Oh, yeah, yeah.

I think having, get it, you might as well take that out from the library because it'll be good to have it on deck in case you confront her. her and it all comes

no but it all comes spilling out i don't know why i was doing this i oh and have it keyed up at on the dvd on that scene right yeah even though but it may be but it is her fault so like you can't every time that that every time that robin williams oh right he says it's all your fault yeah but i think every time if you you have robin williams there lower the volume yeah at that part Oh, sorry.

I thought you were saying to me. Do you know? Don't you? And it's insane power movie.
The worst thing we've ever heard. Hey, Emily, lower the volume, right?

I'm always telling women to lower the volume.

Usually he has a finger signal for it. So the listeners can see it.
Crazy that we caught it on Mike this time.

Lower the volume. Yeah.

We did actually cut Emily off, though. Emily, go on, please.
Oh, I turn the volume off. I don't think it makes any sense now, but I was just saying that.

Perfect. As Robbie Williams is in the background providing emotional support, but you can clarify in between every time he says it's not your fault.
Say it actually is your fault, though. Yeah, right.

Because he's saying it's not your fault to Tom Cruise as Matt Damon, but he's not saying it to the girlfriend. And you, and this is, yeah, so it's not your fault.

And then you say, yeah, it's your fault. Yeah, you can keep saying it's not Matt Damon's fault.
Right. It is your fault.
So whose fault is it? It's your fault. Matt Damon's not in the film.

I don't know what you're talking about. And she's going to be flat-footed because she's like thinking, I'm pretty sure it's Matt Damon in this movie.

So all of her defenses to lie to you are not going to be ready. Right.
So she's going to be like her head cocked, her eyes giving a, wait, what's going on? Look.

And you're going to say, have you been lying? And she'll be like, yeah. But isn't that supposed to be Matt Damon? And then she'll cover her mouth being like, shit, what did I just admit?

And then she'll just start sobbing and saying, it's because I'm scared. I'm not good enough.
Yeah.

Yeah. It's the perfect crap.
Just keep saying you're one in 25.6 billion. Oh, winking.
Yeah. Every time you see her.
Get a locket that says that.

Oh, you could just, if you wanted to be really passive aggressive,

you could just keep a tally of the percentage every single time and then say it under your breath every time you crit.

Then you get, like Paul said, a piece of jewelry to commemorate this unbelievable feat. Wow.
Oh, okay. And you give it to her on your anniversary.

I do think you could maybe, I'm trying to pivot into like actual advice.

I do wonder if you could float it and just be like, are you having trouble with like the

these guys kind of breaking

your encounters by having them negate all crits or something like that? Are you feeling like you have to uh fudge some roles or anything like that?

It is really tough to navigate, yeah, but it does seem like she's fudging roles.

I mean, it does seem like she is, but I also think that there could be it could potentially bring you guys closer.

Yeah, if she is if you can get through this, yeah, it'll either bring you closer or tear you apart. Yeah, this is gonna be a breakthrough.

If me and Emily can get through Emily thinking I told her to turn the volume down,

then you guys can get through this. Which jury's out.
Which jury's out.

No, I meant. We'll see what happens during the PV.
I meant to turn it down during not. It's your fault during the DVD.
That was the joke I was making. Let's punish Murph.

Yeah.

Okay.

So have we decided on the punishment? We sentence you to have an awkward conversation. Yeah, we sent it to girlfriends.
We're on the, we're on the submission. We're on the submitter's side.

So the girlfriend has to shove a DVD or a laser disc of Goodwill Hunting in their DVD player.

Oh, you know what would also be fun if they tried to play a laser disc in a record player, just shoving it in? Oh, yeah. That'd be kind of fun.

You're like, I just want to listen to Goodwill Hunting today.

Just scratch at the laser disc and make heinous sound. This should work.

And you have to do that at the sample bedroom at Ikea. Oh, that's a good idea.
While you're trying to take a nap as they're trying to close the store. Yeah.

Godspeed. This is tough.

One in 25.6 billion. Good luck.
We don't interview you. Just remember that number.
So ordered.

Okay. Craig writes, justices, I come for urgent aid in an ongoing matter.
Might be above Jake's level. Whoa.

The case of Uncommon Common. I recently started playing in a new campaign with my longtime group slash DM.

The world is totally homebrewed by the DM and is rich with gods, magic, monsters, and interesting NPCs.

However, at our first stop after leaving our home city, we found the locals did not speak common. They spoke a language unique to their location.

Only our contact in the city, who was a slightly suspicious innkeeper, spoke common. We went to a shop at one point and with the help of comprehend languages, bought some health potions.

We left the city shortly after. The problem is that the city had a lot of strange and interesting things going on.

They weren't apparently relevant to our adventure, but the DM went out of their way to mention them.

I wanted to be able to talk to anyone other than the shady innkeeper, but could not communicate in a meaningful way. Ultimately, it didn't hinder the quest, but it felt very lackluster.

The DM assured us that in bigger cities or more traveled places, more people would speak common, but the difficulty communicating was part of his game. I just want to be able to talk to people.

I'm not particularly interested in the difficulty of the game coming from a language barrier.

We have talked to the DM about it and he is open to changing things, but wants some kind of challenge with communication. How do we bridge the gap? Sounds like the DM doesn't want to improvise, maybe.

Oh, my first thought was they invented a language. Oh, and they're like really pumped about it.

I think, I mean, I understand the impulse here because like there are a lot of spells that are like comprehend language.

There's like spells about like, you know, like I feel like there's one spell where you can like instantly understand someone. Maybe that's a monk ability.
I'm not sure.

I feel like though that's like best used when it's like, oh, here's a letter that contains sensitive information, but you can't read it. And then someone might come through with a clutch.

Comprehend languages. I'm like not, well, here, I would say here's the benefit to it is that like you guys get to talk a lot at Sephardi.

Yeah.

I guess this is like

kind of fantasy realism in a way that's like not fun. Yeah.

Like I think, I guess if you really thought about it, you'd be like, yes, of course, if you're adventuring going from town to town across the world, you wouldn't be able to speak to nine out of ten people that you met.

But that's not necessarily the most fun way to do it. I wonder because this, this person wants to talk with people more,

but the DM wants there to be some sort of communication difficulty. Couldn't you maybe propose, because they said the DM's open to it, but they want a communication difficulty.

Couldn't you propose etiquette? Etiquette is different everywhere you go.

And so you like might have to do something to like know like what is the proper cultural language. Yeah.
Yeah. Like sort of like what what how should you be addressing like certain people?

Like are there like physical mannerisms that are polite somewhere, rude somewhere else?

Maybe that would be like a middle ground that would give him or would give the DM a bit of difficulty that they crave, but let you talk to people.

I think that this is designed to be used more like if you're battling orcs or gnolls or something like that.

And if like somebody just happens to have comprehend languages or like they have the ability to speak null, it's just like, oh, you get an edge in the battle.

I don't know if this is supposed to be used as much as like a way to like gate information in a city like this. You know what? It just came out.

No, but I'm saying that the DM said, I'm open to having common more prevalent, but I want there to be a difficulty in communication. So I'm trying to like come up with like, what can they go back to?

So that to me,

right, I'm like, this makes sense to me as a one-off town yeah as being like okay they're in this area of the world it makes sense that people don't all speak the same language that totally tracks but when the dm says things like i i basically want it to be hard to communicate for the whole campaign that does like raise a red flag for me where i'm kind of like well the players want to meet people

right and you don't always have to you know

maybe they're like maybe in their world they're like like, actually, this is a world where information is more powerful than magic, and therefore retrieving information.

I'm not saying this is right, but I'm like trying to understand why they would do this. But there isn't, there is something, I feel like I'm like giving a lot of generous reads.

I ultimately, I agree with you. It's weird that you can't talk to anyone.

But there is like, I agree that it is fun for one town because I think of that Bojack Horseman episode where they go underwater. Yeah.
So there is like a dreamy,

hazy, but it feels like it only lasts for one town. Yeah, I can't get it.

i i agree that it's it's got cool flavor as like you can't speak this language and your interpreter is like kind of shady and you don't know if you can trust them it's that's like

but if that's like oh this is also going to be the next one and the town after yeah yeah yeah if all this was was the one town that's fine but also i guess here's the thing though is the player is literally submitting here saying it felt like kind of anticlimactic and kind of like disappointing so it wasn't they also didn't nail it you know what i mean because there are those like bottle episodes and those episodes of shows where it's like, okay, we're going to do something different.

And usually those are like the best episodes. But this for whatever reason like didn't work.
Because I think you could ask this

contact to like teach you some conversational phrases at the very least. Like I think you there's like roles you could make to like communicate with people.
I wonder too.

So like if the if the DM is because like part of me was like oh well they want like communication to be difficult maybe for some kind of creative reason reason but maybe they want it to be difficult if they're going for some kind of realism thing can you just be like hey man can we just like find like a babble fish equivalent and sort of like we'll know that everyone talks different languages but we can just talk to people

like maybe that would also solve it isn't something if you're like coming back to this town later when you've like acquired like a special item yeah maybe i'm just maybe i've got like a silk song on the brain where i'm just like oh i gotta go back and check all these places now that i know how to read this language yeah yeah I think this would, again, this would be fine with me if this was a short part of the campaign.

But, like, you know, you're all telling a story together. So it's a

movie. And if in Lord of the Rings, like Aragorn's just walking around, he literally can't understand anyone.
That's not a particularly interesting movie.

It would be interesting if there was a scene where he's somewhere and he doesn't know how to quite communicate with anyone or it's difficult to communicate. Yeah.

But to have that be they can't do all three books on that. that and again

the dm hasn't the dm hasn't uh done that yet it sounds like it was just this one town but the fact that the dm is just like noted your criticism i'm gonna still keep doing it well okay is a red flag for me i feel like the the they came to us with saying like the dm said they're open to making common more available but they want a hurdle so my my two suggestions are etiquette can always be a hurdle and then also if if it's just realism they're going for it maybe you can say cool can we just like like find some kind of like babble fish that speaks a couple languages,

get access to a couple languages? Also, there's a million reasons for people on like the outskirts of a society to hate the dudes with swords that come into their town.

Like, there's just a million other reasons, namely the fact that they have swords and they're in their town.

Does anyone have any other suggestions of hurdles for this that they can pitch to their DM to try to be like, hey, can we?

I think the real like, yeah, you'll a witch ah type stuff, like really just hating them for being in town. Right, exactly.

I guess like if you want to play along, maybe be like, can we get like a language primer that we can like study over time to try and like learn phrases to decrease the DC of our persuasion checks when we talk to people in a language you don't understand?

Or even maybe they could get a translator who's just really nice and cool. And

then the way it can work is the translator starts off the conversation, but then you guys just have the conversation and omit the part where the translator is talking. Yeah.
Yeah.

An NPC translator is a fun like DM NPC as well. Yeah.
Yeah. I think that this

won't be super fun long term.

So I just hope that your DM just did it for this one-off thing.

But it sounds like, and again, we keep saying that this does sound like it works for a one-off, but it sounds like it didn't even work for that because you didn't like it. So I think with that.

We should punish this DM.

Oh, yeah, we're definitely going to punish the DM. But hopefully we've given you some thoughts about what to go back to this DM.

Yeah, they have to buy a laser laser disc of Top Gun in a language that they don't speak or shove it into their DVD player. Well, they might speak Portuguese.
Okay.

So it has to be a language that they don't speak. All right, fine.
Or maybe they have to take out Top Gun from the library in every language but English. Yeah.
There you go. But who knows that they

maybe they don't speak English. They could be a polyglot.
Sorry, every language that they don't speak. There you go.

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay.

So, so weird. Okay.
And it's not every single language that you don't speak.

Understanding, Top Gun. It's going to be region locked, too.
You're fucked. Yeah.
There's not a ton of dialogue in Top Gun. Yeah, you're right.
We should have like a way more dialogue-focused one.

Vanilla Sky. Yeah, a few good men.

A few good men have some dialogue. A few good men.

Yeah, that's.

Okay. Let's step into church for this confession, though it is actually, I would argue that it's half case.

This one comes from Grasse B.

To whom it may concern. I present to the Honorable

Justices and/or the Deacons of the Dice. A few months back, during a session I'm a player in, the DM asked one of my fellow players to roll for an ability check.

The player rolled and sadly got a three. But to my surprise, he announced it was a 17.
I cast a glance at him and he looked at me and winked.

I thought this, dude.

I was flabbergasted.

I thought maybe I saw wrong and went on with it, thinking it was not that big a deal. Then, a few weeks later, I witnessed the same event yet again.

I did not say anything, and that is my fault. But to my defense, I am no snitch.
Should I have denounced this crime? Did this player wink again the next time?

I saw somebody who really loves a wink. It feels so wrong to me.
I will say

them winking makes it so much better.

it really it makes it so much better because if they're if they rolled and just lied right in front of my face i'd be like you're a fucking psycho yeah yeah yeah but despite the fact that they wink

you're just just you don't understand the game you're a fucking scam we're cheating together dude right yeah yeah uh they ask am i an accomplice in this blasphemy against ice christ ps hate the show

I hate the show. Don't

I don't know what to tell you because I do think that by winking, they made you an accomplice.

Wait, I will say though, yeah, I guess we just have this relationship with our friends where I would just laugh and be like, what the fuck are you doing?

Yeah, but most of you are like, I would call him out instantly, but in like a funny way. I wouldn't be like, he's lying.
I would just be like, dude, don't wink at me. You wrote the three.

Yeah. That's the way to do it.
Yeah. You gotta.
You have to just do it.

Maybe in a joking way. You have to do it in a joking way, but like a raz.

Yeah.

I guess now, I mean, now you've gone along with it twice. So you are into it.
You have to wait the third time and then say, dude, stop winking at me. You got a four.
Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Or maybe the third time you wink before they can wink at you.

And then you say, you wink at them. And then you're like, nah, you didn't.
Dude, look at his eyes. You know, since you're an accomplice, you can come clean for both of you.

Next time it happens, they wink at you. They say it's an 18 and you say, nah, it's really a two.
We're tired of lying to you. Oh.

that's, oh, maybe you could like, you could also roll a fake number, but like do a really bad job of lying. Like roll a nat 20 and everyone clearly sees it.
And you're like, oops, seven.

I thought we were all lying. I thought we were all lying.
I thought lying was cool. And then look at the person and wink.
This feels like such a dad move or something.

Like you're like playing like with someone's dad and like he doesn't really understand D. So he's just like

you gotta get one over on the DM.

A dad cracking a beer while driving

at you.

Yeah. Yeah.

I feel like you're being, well, first off, I'm going to say,

I don't feel comfortable. I do think that you were made an accomplice by the winking, but I do think that you are being tested.
You are being tested by Dice Christ. Yeah.

And you will be punished in your real life if you don't. Nah!

Just kidding.

Yeah, I do think you should. I mean, at this point, you've gone along with it twice, right? So you are in pretty freaking deep.

I think at this point, I would be like, I would maybe pull my friend aside and be like, yo, you can't keep lying about your roles. Yeah, maybe they just don't.
I can't go along with it anymore.

Maybe they genuinely don't understand how the game works. They do.
They're winking.

Such a simple thing to get. If they don't get that, then there's bigger problems.
Yeah,

I would say now that you've gone along with it, you do have to pull them aside and be like, We gotta stop. Yeah, I think you can still diffuse publicly.

I think if you go along with it one more time, you're fucked. You guys are like in it for you.

Once you have the off-mic talk about it, then you can call them out publicly. Okay.
Yeah. Are you going to give them a warning? Yeah.
I see.

Or maybe you could, like, next time you're at a supermarket or something, you just like grab a slim gym and shove it in your pocket and you just wink at them. I think they would love that, though.

This cheeky little scamp. Well, yeah.
They're such a scamp. Don't go down that path.
Do not do that. You can't teach them a lesson like that.
That's true. Yeah.
All right. Yeah.
Yeah.

You got to pull them aside. Yeah.
I just. Adam Ikea.

He could have done it just out loud. No, not forgiven yet, right? You haven't fixed it.
Yeah. You're just going along with it.

So, right now, it is your fault, and you do have to turn the volume down.

You have to turn the volume down. Sorry, I laughed at that, but it was really loud.

You have to turn the volume down, Emily style, and

have Robin Williams say that it is your fault.

Should we punish this person as well? Should we punish this skill?

Oh, should we punish this cheeky winker? Yeah, I think they should watch a few good men because they are not behaving like

exactly. Yeah.

Yeah. Just like Jack Nicholson.
Yeah. Or what if, yeah, okay, this person, the winker, has to rent.

Has to rent

two wings. A laser disc sounds like it comes and steals children at night.

Like, why do we call it the winker?

Who knows

you fell asleep in a fairy circle? The winker has come.

If your eyes, you do wink, then

away you will go before you can think. Okay, so the winker has to rent a laser disc of wait, this is what you do.
You're gonna, okay, the winker, you're gonna go to the library. Uh-huh.

You're gonna keep saying, I need a laser disc of vanilla sky, and then winking.

Yeah.

Because it doesn't exist, and they won't know what you mean. Oh, and then you try to steal the library books and wink about it.
You keep winking.

And maybe when the librarian says, sir, we don't have that, you say, sorry, can you turn the volume down?

And do the dial dial motion?

Say, excuse me, I'm the winker. Yeah.

You have to secure a copy of Top Gun on DVD by asking for a laser disc of vanilla sky and winking and turning the volume down and nothing else. You got to settle for Top Gun.
I think you could do it.

Yeah. Because I do think eventually they would say, we don't have vanilla sky.
We do have Top Gun. And then if you ranked at that, it might give it to you.
I got to say.

Because you could turn the volume down when they offer other things. They probably have vanilla sky.
I'm not on Laser Disc. Not on Laser Disc.
Maybe. Right, but then...
Oh, I see where you're saying.

Yeah, you tell me to turn the volume down when they offer it on Demon YouTube. What a fucking quest to find vanilla sky on laser disc on the library.
It's out there. I believe it's out there.

I believe it's not. Fox Molder style.
I believe that out there. I actually really, like,

Scully style feels strong in the conviction that vanilla sky on laser disc doesn't exist. Well, let's put on our big-ass coats and go find it.
Yeah.

I don't trust. I mean, Scully was often wrong.
So, yeah. I don't trust AI for a lot, but when it tells me that Vanilla Sky wasn't made on Laserdisc, I do believe that.

Right. Because AI knows what you want to hear.
Yeah, they want to tell me. They're protecting the enthusiast communities.

They want me to log on and buy laser discs.

And yet they can't even lie to me about that. Don't you just think it's weird, Scully, that there's all of these laser discs out there, but no vanilla sky? I just think vanilla sky came out way after.

That's a great point.

What you're not considering is wormholes.

All right. I'm not considering that.
And with that, we're going to go ahead and wrap this one up. Thank you all so much for listening.

We've got some stuff to plug. Oh, first,

we're going to do bonus cases over on our Patreon, patreon.com slash nadpod. That's N-A-D-D-P-O-D.
Don't sing yet. Don't sing yet, stinky.

We've got our live show, Radio City Music Hall in New York, April 10th. Still a few tickets available.
Head on over to nadpod.com slash live to get tickets to that.

Does anyone else have anything they'd like to plug? I'll go ahead and plug the NAPOD DM screen. It is available in the shop now, shop.nadpod.com.
It is a labor of love, a work of beauty.

Alan Morris designed the front. It is just a big

painting of the boobs and a nice bohumia panorama, as it were.

And Murph and I worked on the stuff on the inside, and it was really fun. There's some cool homebrew in there.
There's wrestling mechanics, there's dragon riding, fight mechanics.

Yeah, it's going to juice up your campaign. I can say that for sure.
Yeah.

You're not going to need to fudge any roles with this bad boy. Yeah, dude.
So go ahead and check that out. Shop.nadpod.com.
Please do. And check out my Substack, substack.com/slash at Jake Kurwitz.

Sweet. And you can follow us on social media that remain rain at use at CHVSME, at Caldeys Caldol, AddieXwards Emily, and at Jake Horts as Jake.

And you can talk about the show online using hashtag NATPOT. That's N-E-D-P-O-D.

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We are, we are, the youth of a nation.

Folks, the end of the show has arrived, as it must always do. And so I am here to read out the names of our fantastic Council of Elders.
Let's get right to it.

Brad D, Jeffrey S., Lord of the Fjord, Leader McSkater, Matt M.

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Tar Gott, Stevie Wags, Hellish Rebuker, the NBDMPHD,

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To turn to page 33, turn to page 109. Makes perfect sense to me.
Nick W.

Nico, the underpaid English teacher. Although I did just get a bonus.
Congrats, Nico. William W.
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Jay Dragonborn, Guardian of the Vibe. Honoring the cock.

Impressive dongle. Ben A.
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Shoon, the shade tree mechanic of Zelbuldar.

Summer Rose, aka Gran Terre. Mark the Dark Lord's taint.
Cat C, Misa of House in Zunza. Ariel the occasional mermaid.
Selena N, aka Valace Raptor. Be perky always.
B be perky always.

Pat L, Lauren H, Serve 16.

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BioQuirt 7. Bean Rat was innocent.

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 bonny bard.
Druidic Peyton. Carlin C.

Omri M.

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James G.

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Reverend Shatterbones.

Hon.

Eric B, Marcos, PhD.

Eventually, Learns the Balanced Druid. Frida M.
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Cody C, Lorelei the Succubi, and Kira the succulent snack. Cow go trucking, delivering bashful butts everywhere.
Your friendly neighborhood yaunt and yunkle Andrew and Sid.

Don't skip over Thanksgiving. John Adams loves it.
James F. Wayfarer now has to do something with the trolls.
Get rid of them? Turn to page 42. To keep them? Turn to page,

you guessed it, 69.

Oreo, Barpo Goodbarrel, Barbarian, Charlie Brown's best friend, Renee the monster captain.

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K-Guard, Fancy Matt. The fairies have returned to debauchery and must now go to the carnal corner.
Enjoy yourselves.

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Insert training montage for 50k. Holy shit, that's a lot of Ks.

Jonuka!

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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. Chupacabri, bony is dead.
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AJD, Ben V, and Shinka Kitsune, or Skyler, the only male kitsune in Bohumia. Woo! That is all of our elders folks.

Thank you so, so much for your support. If you would like to join this illustrious council, you can do so by going to patreon.com/slash nadpod.

That's going to do it for us today, but we will be back here again next week with some fresh content for you to shove into your ears. Can't wait for you to hear it.
Thanks for listening.

We'll see you then. Bye-bye.

That was a headgum podcast.