Not Another D&D Podcast - D&D Court: Doff Squads, Sinful Twinspells and The Wild Magic Tragedy

Episode Date: June 28, 2024

Dungeon Court is back in session! Join Justices Murphy, Tanner and Axford, as well as Experiment Hurwitz-26 as they convene to pass judgement on your trials at the table!CREDITS:Sound Mixing and Editing by Trevor LyonDungeon Court Theme Song by Sam WeillerSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a HeadGum Podcast. Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Dungeon Joined by the lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly lowly Woo! What did you say, dude? What? I didn't say anything. What did you fucking say about me? That was too far, Coldwell. You're Stitch, man. You're a weird little alien. You're a weird little alien to me. Well, Stitch is cool, okay? Stitch is cool, but he's kind of a lot. He is kind of a lot. He is kind of a lot.

I have a confession. I've never seen it, but I really like the way he looks. You like his style? Yeah, yeah. You would like Stitch. You would like Stitch for sure. He's gonna mess up your fucking house. Yeah.

Like you're used to cats, but like, man, he's bipedal. He can use toilets. He can use electronics. Does he remember to flush? Wait, it's a problem that he can use toilets? He can't use them well. I think he flushes. I don't think Stitch flushes.

You know how a cat you have to clean their litter box? This guy uses the toilet. There's definitely no, there's no like dumping scene in Lilo and Stitch where like they walk in and there's a huge dump that Stitch left. That didn't happen, so we have to assume he flushes. Does it take long dumps though? That could be it.

Absolutely. So I see Stitch as more of being like using too much toilet paper, maybe like flushing it too hard, so it kind of messes up the handle or something. He's not leaving dumps. He's bringing someone else's magazine in there and you're like, you can't do that. I think Stitch is a bathroom menace

and you can't convince me otherwise. I don't disagree with that. I think a lot of water on the floor, but I think no kind of poop left behind. But it's little logs. Well, the logs are gone. The logs have been flushed. He's gonna trick you because you sentient

and you're gonna think he's responsible, but he's gonna leave the logs are gone. The logs have been flushed. He's gonna trick you because he's sentient and you're gonna think he's responsible, but he's gonna leave the goddamn freezer open. Stitch has never done anything weird with poop. The phrase little logs is fucking disgusting. And he's an alien. You know they're a weird color. We have no reason to believe that Stitch does anything weird with poop.

No reason to believe that. No evidence. And this is a courtroom. and this is a courtroom. You need evidence. And this is a courtroom, and I'm just gonna have to ask for Justice Tanner to abstain. Can I approach the bench? Can I approach the bench?

Of course, sure. You are on it, but yeah. I'm gonna need, okay, I'm approaching us. I'm gonna need little logs struck from the ground. Okay, let's go ahead and, let's lose that. All right, jury, that never happened. Forget you ever did that. Yeah, because it's false. Jury, that never happened. Forget you ever like that. Yeah.

Because it's false. He does drop big massive turds. Right, well we don't know that. He doesn't really poop in the movie. Go on, Jake. So now that that is struck from the record, we can begin, here ye, here ye, crit is now in session.

The honorable Supreme Crit Justices, Axford, Murphy, and Tanner are presiding. I'm so sorry. I'm actually gonna need to put it back on the record. Yeah. Striking it from the record is making me think about it more and I think that it's drawing attention. Yeah. You need it.

Okay, let's go ahead and put the little logs back on the record. Back on the record. Can you flush it from the record? Yeah, let's go ahead and flush it from the record. Stitch style, so there's like a lot of water on the floor and everything. Not to the water, but like sink water.

I think he leaves the sink running. Definitely. Yeah, for sure. This is the kind of show Niggens is up to. Does he wipe? I don't think he does. Oh my God, go on Jake. Okay, this is getting crass.

It's just crass. I didn't find any cases. Okay. Okay, all right, so we had to vamp and just talk about Stitch the whole time. I actually can't stand by. I can't confirm with 100% accuracy that he does not poop in the movie.

He might, there might be like a little, although yeah, that's more DreamWorks style, honestly. It's a little crass, yeah, there's a sequel, there's a whole series. There's a Japanese series, yeah. The sequel is literally number two. Yeah, dude. There's a huge opportunity, or opportunist.

Number two, the Pequal. You guys are crass. Number two, the peak wall. You guys are crass. Shout out to the two crew. Except for Emily. Well, Emily's crass now. Okay. We are the two crew, AKA the little logs. I would strike that one in the record.

Strike it as a nickname. I wish it actually gets struck by the record. Yeah, that's actually striking the record. Cause other people are gonna start calling us the little record. Because other people are going to start calling us the little logs. If other people start calling us the little logs, this is all your fault. Signed it a live show.

I can see it now. It will happen. We're not going to do a live show for a while, but in a year, we're just going to see little logs staring up at us from the crowd. We're not doing a live show for a while, and this is why. This is why. We're waiting till everyone forgets about it.

We need you to forget little logs. All right, Jake, did anybody send any cases in the past like 10 seconds? Okay, yeah, thank God. Yes, totally. All right, this one's from Riley. Riley W writes, to the esteemed justices and the effervescent bailiff, thank you.

I bring before you the case of the fortune predicting paladin. I've been DMing a homebrew campaign for my friends for the past three years that has been a blast to play except for one recurring event that has me a little bit annoyed. Early in the campaign, the party met a divination wizard who gave all of them a homebrew item

called fortune cookies of fate. Each player rolled for a cryptic fortune and if the player dies in a way similar to their fortune, it turns into a Revivify scroll. Whoa! That's so fun. Basically a bit of extra insurance for early on in the campaign.

Two of the players' fortunes have been used, creating really tense moments that they were able to come back from, which was very exciting and exactly what I'd hoped for when giving them these items. Okay, right now I am feeling the laugh. I know that we ask for as little context as possible, but dear Lord, do I wanna know.

Exactly what it said on the scroll. I actually am divining right now. I foresee what the problem is going to be with this. Okay, okay. Because you've now turned your players into lawyers for why they should be able to resurrect themselves. So this paladin, I can almost guarantee, it's gonna be totally off base

and they're gonna argue it so hard instead of having a tearful death that actually is meaningful. Go on, Jake. Can we just simmer for a moment in the bliss? Murph, you're dangerously close. There we go. The problem lays indeed with our paladin

whose fortune has yet to be used. Upon opening her cookie, she found a fortune that said, mortality is shed as quickly as skin or clothing. Since receiving it, the Paladin now will, at the slightest hint of peril to her character, entirely strip their clothing off in an attempt to make the fortune come true and be able to be revived. Even now, when their characters are level nine

and have access to Revivify themselves. I told her that this was meta gaming and out of character as taking off all of one's clothing in the middle of a fight is quite strange in most circumstances, but she argues that after seeing her fellow party members come back to life after dying in specific ways, her Paladin would realize what happened

and do everything it takes to survive. I ask you justices, am I in the right for asking my player to cover up and let her fate decide? Or should I allow her to continue with her nudist survival tactics? There's a couple reasons why I think the DMs let this go a little too far. Oh, right.

First off, I do think this is an idea that is extremely cool, but does lead to problems like this. As soon as I started to hear this, I was like, very awesome for one particular type of player, not very awesome for another very particular type of player because stuff like this will happen. There are ways within the rules to just undo this, right? Because if this Paladin keeps taking off her clothes

in the middle of battle, AC is gone. Like you're down to 10 AC. I was gonna say Paladin is gonna be wearing armor. You gotta doff situation. And doffing. You gotta doff it. There are rules for doffing. There's rules for doffing.

It takes a while to doff your armor. You cannot doff armor in the middle of battle. You can't do it. I think the only way around this. You could maybe like a kid in like the locker room try to take your clothing off under your armor. Oh yeah. Wrap a towel around yourself.

Yeah. Okay, yeah. I'm pulling up the rules for donning and doffing. Right. And to doff heavy armor, which is probably what a paladin would have on, takes five minutes to Doth. Oh my God.

60, 70, 100 rounds of combat. You're catching them Doth guard. Yes. Nice. There is a magic item called cast off armor that you can Doth armor as an action. And that is considered fast using a specific magic item to Doth armor.

So like to take off all your armor, that takes forever. And then if you're going by the rules and giving them 10 AC, this Paladin should be dead in like a couple battles and then just let them use their Revivify and then it's used up, right? That's it. So yeah. The solution is definitely to kill the Paladin.

Just kill them. They seemingly want to use the Revivify scroll. Yeah, they want to use it. So be like, cool, you have 10 AC, this dragon hits on every single attack anytime it breathes near you. And now you're dead, use your thing, problem solved. Can I suggest that instead of rewarding

this like undressing themselves thing that they're like trying to do, the prophecy said as quickly as like a snake skin or clothing, right? Yeah, mortality sheds as quickly as skin or clothing. Skin or clothing. You could almost have them like cursed with some sort of like snake affliction

where they're like shedding their skin or I guess like it might be worth rather than rewarding this like thing that the paladin's trying to do that you're all gonna ultimately feel unsatisfied by coming up with a way that it can happen more surprisingly. Can I offer, I don't know if it's a generous read, but it's sort of like a circumnavigating read.

Okay, sure. It's a sideways read. I think that the only way that you can allow this is if they like take a level of monk or two or maybe barbarian so they can get unarmored defense. But they don't want that. They want to die. I know. They want to use their revivify thing.

So just let them use the, this is a non, this is a non issue. Right, right, right. They have 10 AC, they're level nine, they're going to get hit by literally everything. And now they're dead. That's the solution. But whose fault is it? Who do we punish? So I do want to say one thing,

which is that in defense of the Paladin, I do think that like, it does make sense. If you take all the mechanics away, just think about the story of receiving a prophecy and then watching two of your friends' prophecy come true. Would you or would you not? Like, I mean, think about how crazy people are about astrology.

You know, like it does make sense that a character would become completely possessed by this prophecy. That said, the Paladin does have a very narrow interpretation of the fortune. Yeah, cause shedding skin, any wound is shedding skin. So if you get hit by a sword, the prophecy has come true. Yeah. And like, maybe you get like a really bad sunburn

and it's like peeling off. If the sun kills you, Mario 3 style. A sun reflection and then you start peeling off and then you're, yeah. And if you're a follower of Pelor, like a sunburn might be kind of like a religious ritual for you. Sure. There's definitely other ways to interpret it,

but it seems that the Paladin is doing what they want to do here. Right. The Paladin's walking all over you. They're doffing their armor willy nilly, marching into battle nude, and you don't want that. I do think that the armor thing alone is just enough to be like, sorry.

This is a pretty easy solve, which is why I'm kind of erring on maybe rolling against the DM. I do think this is very fun. This is a very fun, creative item, but it does have an inherent flaw in it. And I've given out plenty of items that ended up being way too overpowered.

Or lead to kind of debate. It's a rite of passage. Very creative, very cool. I do think that this does lead to what has happened here, which is either people essentially going around bracing for death at all times, thinking that they can like outsmart it or what I had kind of predicted, which is people essentially becoming rules lawyers about how the prophecy actually did

come true, which will ultimately undermine any death or knockout in the campaign. Cause people will be like, well, technically I was hit by a sword. Like saying what I said before, I was hit by a sword. So I shed my skin. So technically that's it. And then instead of saying like, goodbye to like the character's family, you're arguing with the DM about whether or not the prophecy came true.

This is very funny to picture though. Just like as soon as the dragon shows up being like, shit, hold on, gotta get it off. Somebody unlace me, unlace me. I can't die this battle. Doth me, Doth me. Yeah, it takes too much time to Doth. Is it half that, so if you had a squire

and they were like full time helping you Doth your heavy armor, then you could do it in like 30 rounds? Yeah, I guess you could. If I built my character fully to Doth armor. Well then you can probably get the cast off armor and do it in action. No, you just need a dedicated Doth squad.

Emily's right. If you had, if you had a full on DoF squad, I still think it would take, if it takes, what did it say? Took five, 10 minutes? Yeah. It takes a while. It takes five minutes. So I'm saying every person that gets in, that's another action. That's another action. Yeah. That's real. But an action is six seconds. At that point, it's hard to even hit anyone because you are surrounded by a DoF squad at all times. 10? OK, if there are 10 people in your DoF squad, that's OK. So that would take, so let's look at medium armor, right?

Medium armor takes a minute to DoF. This is the submitter's worst nightmare. Yeah, yeah. So this Paladin, this is how the Paladin can get away with it. OK, here's how you take off your armor in one round without cast off armor. And with only a DoF squad to your name. If you have a DoF squad, you need 10 people in your DoF squad.

Because such a deep squad. Because it takes six seconds, a round is six seconds. So 10 times six, 60, it would take 10 people one round to DoF medium armor. Okay, so if we are going to... I think Emily's got the right idea here, which is like, you're probably just gonna want like one person in your doff squad per point of AC. So you're just gonna go ahead

and have like 17 people in your doff squad. So like, it doesn't even matter. Like you get the armor off, but then you've got kind of like a cloud of people representing the squad. Okay, hang on. It's kind of like a pit crew, because you also need a manager.

Like not somebody that's gonna actually doff, but you need somebody to manage. You don't think you can a pit crew, because you also need a manager. Like not somebody that's going to actually doff, but you need somebody to manage. You don't think you can manage it yourself? You think you need a manager? Are you kidding me? The Doff Squad is going to unionize so fast. And that's why you need a layer between you and the unionist. You need the good guy, you need the manager.

See the good guy. Okay. We worship the god Ferrari. They've sent this Doff Squad to you. So, so here's the thing about the DoF squad. It does actually say if you have help removing the armor, reduce this time by half. Okay. Okay, so then you could actually get it down

maybe even sooner. Well, the mechanics don't really, it's sort of like advantage, disadvantage. It looks like just if you have help, they're not really, it's not built into the system to have a DoF squad. Yeah. Just maybe to have a Squire.

If Red Bull did a sub two second pit stop this year in the Grand Prix, I think the DoF squad can actually do it. If there's a Red Bull DoF squad, I think you can pull this off and around. I think that seems like a great punishment is that we're going to bestow a Red Bull DoF squad upon this Paladin.

Yeah, I was gonna say, I think that that's a punishment. This is an interesting one, cause I don't love the Paladins antics, obviously. It just makes everything anti-climactic while you're doing this, but we have had previous precedent on this show that DMs could not let their players run wild. Sometimes you give them an item

that is just gonna torture you and torment you, and it's gonna be a lesson. Yeah. And now you're gonna have to kill an entire Doth Squad. I know. So here's what we're gonna say. Well, that's actually kind of a good thing is that this player, after they die,

they could decide to just return as like a Doth Squad member. Cause they, the Doth Squad is obviously gonna be 10 lovable underdogs. Oh, so yeah, hit them all with a dragon's breath weapon. Who just want their shot in the armor. is obviously gonna be 10 lovable underdogs. And you're gonna need- Oh, so yeah, hit them all with a dragon's breath weapon. Who just want their shot in the armor. Yeah. And you are gonna need a character sheet for each one.

So this is going to seem, this is in a separate voice, of course, they all come from different areas of your world. Yeah, they all have different dialects. Different dialects, different backgrounds. So you as a DM now, like this might seem like a punishment that we're making you create a DoF squad for your paladin, but it's actually a gift. It's the gift of creativity.

Can the DoF squad serve as the Don-Johns too, or is that gonna be like a different team? That's totally, the Don is different. Yeah. Oh, like Donning. Oh, the opposite. Yeah, Don it on, Don-John. They actually have unionized in a couple minutes.

Yeah. So they can only, so now actually they now actually the ones who don are unionized. They're their own union, right? So if someone who doffs were to don, that would be a breach. Absolutely breaching the union. Oh yeah. It'd be like scabbing. The fucking rep is going to be on your ass. There you go. Yeah. Did you just don dude? Dude, did you just don? You cannot don if you're supposed to doff and you cannot DoF if you're supposed to DoF.

It's just a hobby. I'm not doing it professionally. Are you a fucking scab bro? Okay. Okay. Okay. So we are, I do think it's three sessions or union meetings. Got it.

Yeah. So this DM, this DM I think has let this go too far. Murph, can I pitch that our next campaign as me, Jake and Caldwell playing the remaining members of a D.O.F. squad after a dragon attack killed everyone else and the paladin we were doffing. That's so good. It would actually be- Who are we gonna doff?

It actually would be a really good campaign to do- I'm the fucking D.O.F. now. All three of you guys working for such a rich knight that has three squires. And they get killed. And they get killed. Yeah, the night gets killed really quick. And we have to go on the run because they because we're getting blamed for the death of the night.

It's kind of suspicious. And we have to solve the night's crimes. Oh, wow. I all wear the armor together as one person. All right. This is Lord of the Rings, right? Am I pitching Lord of the Rings? More or less. What I just said. OK, we're pitching a night's tale sort of. Yeah. All right. This is Lord of the Rings, right? Am I pitching Lord of the Rings? More or less. What I just said? Okay, cool.

We're pitching a Knight's Tale sort of, yeah. All right. Yeah, I think DM, we sympathize with you. We think this was a very cool item, but unfortunately you've let things go a little too far. Yeah. And now you have to manage a Doth Squad. Now you gotta manage a Doth Squad.

Our next case actually comes from another Riley, Riley M this time. Caldwell, this one is for you. Whoa. Wow. Thank you, Stitch. Oh yeah. Yeah, dude, actually I'm pissed at yours. No!

To the most honorable justices and the actually slightly more honorable, if you really think about it, Baeliff Jaffe, interesting. Jaffe. Okay. Jaffe is a anime name. Jaffe. Rhyming with Jaffe. Nothing's more honorable than that.

I present to you the case of the eternal Muppets Christmas Carol. Hey, why isn't this also for me? Yeah, I watch this shit every year. Murph is arguably a bigger Muppets fan than I am. Come on now. I can't keep track. Hey, J, that was really insulting to excuse.

Yeah, what the hell is your problem, dude? I was just kidding, guys. Kind of Stitch behavior. Really? Stitch would never. What little Stitch would be watching? That's an unflushed little log for me. What are you talking about?

I didn't leave a little log on that. He's not not flushing. Stitch is malicious, man. He's absolutely not malicious. Jake, just go on. Strike this off on the record. I'm not malicious. I didn He's absolutely not malicious. Jake, just go on. Strike this off from the record. I'm not malicious. I didn't do this on purpose.

This is stricken from the record. Stitch is not malicious. Stitch is not malicious. It takes him so fucking long to learn a lesson. I don't believe. Put it on the record that Stitch is not malicious. I don't believe he learns a lesson in the end. Oh, he does.

He's nice. He's a good guy. I'm DMing a game with my sister-in-law and her friends. In mid-December, we had just reached a new arc in the campaign and my sister-in-law asked if she could try DMing a Christmas themed one-shot. I happily obliged and she told me to make a PC based on the Muppets Christmas Carol.

I watched the movie and I created a swarm keeper ranger who is all of the meesees with no cheeses or meeses with no cheeses introduced in the first song. Being that this was her first time DMing she came to me with her plan. This plan included multiple encounters for the introduction, an encounter for each of the ghosts of Christmas, and a final encounter for the resolution of the story. I told her that I loved the idea but having DMed for as long as I had I knew this would take multiple sessions and wouldn't be just a one-shot. I was fine with this and I figured we could possibly be wrapping up by New Year's.

Uh oh. Wrong. Due to player fuckery, cancellations, and extended encounters, it is now mid-June and we're only at the Ghost of Christmas present. No! What's the problem? I know. Okay. Justices. Am I wrong for wanting my game back? How do I interrupt this eternal Dickens tale and get us back to regular D&D?

Or am I wrong for not wanting Gonzo and Rizzo to ride out this six months side quest? I humbly await your ruling. I have to say it's beautiful to get a case where there's too many DMs. We get so many cases where people are like, I'm a forever DM, and here we have too many DMs. I also have to recuse myself from this

because as someone who, every time I try to plan a one shot, it becomes at least four episodes. I think I'm too close to the- You're too close to this case? Yeah, I'm too close to this case. And don't say anything about Stitch either. Really, me? Just everyone. Okay, yeah. And don't say anything about Stitch either. Just everyone.

Just anyone. All right. Yeah. Smirking Stitch. Yeah. Keep the logs out of it. So it sounds like there was a bunch of planning problems and stuff. That seems like that's what's getting in the way more so than this Muppets Christmas Carol, because even if the submitter was writing in like, sounded

like six or seven encounters, which is definitely way too much for a one shot, but you should be able to do it in a two or three shot, I would think. Speak for yourself. It's true. We don't know seven shot Axeford over here. Requeues yourself. She makes it too damn enticing, folks.

Yeah, actually unrequeues yourself. You need to defend this Muppet DM. Okay, I will, I will. There's so many unknowns here. Like, how many players are there? Are the players enjoying this prolonged kill? They must be. They keep with the hijinks.

They're talking about player fuckery extending it, so they're having a good time. They're fucking around. Charles Dickens' work was generally published in smaller issues, so it's not unexpected for this to be the format. And Dickens wasn't even paid by the word. So they wanted to stretch everything out.

So this is a true homage to Dickens. Hey, we're talking about the real stuff. We're talking about a Muppets Christmas Carol, okay? Which famously was just a one shot. Oh, maybe that's, maybe just go to the DM and say, hey, a Muppets Christmas Carol was a fucking one shot. I wish it was a no shot. I'm trying to remember a Christmas Carol.

They're at a Ghosts of Christmas present. That's the first one. Is that the first one? Yeah. The past isn't first? No, wait. It's gonna be Christmas by the time you guys are done. Am I messing this up?

I'm pretty sure it's present then past. Cause present is like the big giant, you know, who eats all the food. He doesn't come first. He doesn't come first, you sure? No, because isn't it, it's a... Oh no, you're right, you're right, you're right. Yeah, Marley comes first, right?

Cut this, I remember things. Yeah! Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha You don't know that the past comes before the present? Come on now. I might be wrong. It is definitely possible that, but I think the super happy dude, I think is second. Because that wouldn't be scary at all. Yeah, what's important here is that they're not anywhere near done. Yes.

What's important to remember is that they're one ghost down and on number two. So I'm putting on my barrister's wig and I'm saying a barrister's a lawyer, right? Yeah. Maybe. In jolly old England where this takes place. Who knows?

If they aren't, then I'm putting on a barrister's wig for no reason. You're allowed to put it on. She's allowed to put on a barrister wig. She doesn't have to know what a barrister is. No one can stop you from putting on a barrister wig. The only thing outlawed in this courtroom is bucket hats, I think.

Yeah. I'm putting a bucket hat on a barrister's wig. The only thing outlawed in this courtroom is bucket hats, I think. Yeah. I'm putting a bucket hat on my barrister's wig. They're just around upon them. They're not disallowed. A formal bucket hat is really something to think about. Is a fedora not just a formal bucket hat? Go on. Okay, so what definitely happened

is this person was like, I wanna try DMing. They fell in love with coming up with things. They got too excited. They loved what their players did. They wanted to honor every moment. They were having fun with every single tangent and they wanted to follow it to its justified conclusion. And so this is all coming from a really good place.

I understand that is probably frustrating. You're like, feel like, okay, is the momentum not there? And to finish your own campaign, and yeah, you are gonna have to do a really good epic recap when you guys come back in in November. No, I think you're onto something here. I think you just have to keep stretching it. You gotta keep stretching it.

It's the whole next Christmas. You gotta get to December, January, 2025, return to your campaign. Yeah. I think that's the way to do it. You gotta keep stretching it. It's the next Christmas? You gotta get to December, January 2025, return to your campaign. Yeah. I think that's the way to do it. That's nice. Well, it does, I mean, it sounds like from the description that the players were getting sidetracked and everything.

So that does, people are having fun if they're fucking around. And like imagine a domain of dread, Ravenloft style set in fucking Muppets Christmas Carol. Pretty rad. It's a ghost story. You can lean into that shit. It's pretty cool.

It really works. I think ultimately I totally understand like losing the momentum for like ending your campaign, but it's ultimately a good thing for the health of your crew that you have more than one enthusiastic DM. Yeah, and I think use this time and really plan out your stuff. Do some of that fun blue skying.

That's the most fun part about DMing. It's not writing the individual session. It's being like, what might happen down the line? What's some like cool world building stuff? I think take this time to do that. And the fact that everybody's having fun now, it's good. And it's also, at this point, it has gone on for so long

that it's much funnier to keep it going. So yeah. Right. It also, it won't feel good if you like force everybody to come back to your camp and they left something fun and they're just like, you gotta wait till the momentum shifts in your favor. If somebody turned off Muppets Christmas Girl

halfway through, I would punch him in the fucking face. I would go full Stitch on their ass. Yeah. Stitch would never. Stitch, first happened to movie Stitch when he's still really feral. Are we punishing this DM? Wow, we are anti DM today.

I guess, well, no, this is DM versus DM. This is DM versus DM. There's no way. And we're not really anti anybody. Honestly, there are all heroes in these cases so far. Especially, yeah, in this story, all heroes for sure. All heroes, yeah. Yeah, I think so.

I think, yeah, enjoy your time off. Enjoy your time off. Yeah. I do think that it sounds like everybody's having fun. So you don't wanna cut it short. You don't wanna cut short the Muppets 50 shot. I think the- We sentence you to enjoy yourself.

Yeah. This is your Christmas vacation. Yeah. Not everyone's Christmas vacation lasts for six months. Yeah, your punishment is that you are furloughed. I guess your punishment is that you are furloughed. I guess your punishment, your punishment is going to be coming back and being like, all right, time to remind everyone the stakes of everything. Hang on a second. Is this DM not being kind of a Scrooge? I was going to say, I think we've got our punishment right here. We've got our punishment.

You need to re-roll the Scrooge. No, I think we need to send ghosts to visit this DM. Oh, there we go. Yeah. Okay. We're going to do the reverse ghosts. We're going to do present first, then the last, then future. Just to keep them guessing. And Jiminy Cricket's going to be there. We're going to mix it all up into Mickey's Christmas Girl too.

There's going to be a Disney one. Horrifying. Present's got to be the last one because I know that they show up and then he's like... Present is definitely... In order to experience, like, oh, I wish that that kid had more to eat's like, present is definitely. In order to see, in order to experience like, oh, I wish that that kid had more to eat. No, it's not. It would have to be the last one.

No, it's the future when, yeah. I'm trying to remember the Flintstones. What happened for Fred in the Flintstones? The same thing. He's like the Grim Reaper points at the. It's always the same, yeah. Yeah. Wait, spoilers!

Dude, are you serious? No, of course I'm not. Of course I'm not. Well, how am I supposed to know? You guys are pretty serious about Animorphs, all right? Christmas girls, you actually fucked that for me. This is no more ridiculous than Animorphs. This is no more ridiculous.

Animuppets, is that anything? You're just, it's Animorphs but you turn into- What do you want it to be? It's Animorphs but you turn into a muppet? So ordered. So ordered. You have to write this now. You have to write this now. I'm on the bench, I can't be punished.

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factor meals dot com slash pawpaw 50. 50% off your first box plus 20% off your next month while your subscription is active. Thank you everybody. Our next case comes from Leanne C. To the magnanimous judges Murphy, Axford and Tanner and the illustrious Bailiff Jeff. Huh, you're getting some compliments today. No one said my name yet, but they are complimenting me for sure. I like that move though.

Yeah, the compliments. Yeah. And then the wrong name. Right. Yeah. Effervescent we've got a couple of times I always get a kick out of that one. Because then it makes it seem like they're giving you, trying to give you a compliment, but they don't remember who you are. Yeah. The effervescent James. Yeah. Yeah. I bring to you the case of the wild magic murder. This occurred back in the days before Nadpod, when I was relatively new and still finding my feet playing D&D. I played a wild magic sorcerer and in a relatively high stakes battle, I rolled a one and got to roll the wild magic surge table.

Luck was with me and I summoned a unicorn. A little backstory, in previous sessions, it had come up that our DM did not agree with how fall damage was calculated in 5e and had mentioned making the damage higher. A couple of the other players agreed, but I and another had stayed silent. I was too new to D&D and the mechanics still felt complex enough that I was not ready to have any input. Also, my DM knowing my glass cannon status had recently gifted me a flying broom.

I'm sure you can see where this is going. I was 90 feet in the air on the fateful day when I summoned a unicorn to a space within five feet of me. It was briefly a truly magical moment, which became suddenly horrifying when we realized that no unicorns can up fly or cast fly and it suddenly plummeted. This is when my DM announced that he had decided that fall damage will be doubled starting now and going forward. Starting now. Oh my God.

No, you can't start now in that moment. The unicorn might think it's toast anyway. I think it is. Wait, how many feet up in the air were they? 90. 90. My unicorn was mercilessly splattered on the stones below. So I asked you, the wonderful, compassionate,

clever judges and Jeff, did my DM do me dirty? Let's see. Okay, here's the thing is that it is, it was too high stakes for a funny moment, but it is really funny. But it's also like how rare to roll the one and then the wild magic surge. It's like kind of really rare to begin with

just to take that away. Is this something, this does seem like something that would happen in NADD pod though, is that like somebody would summon a unicorn and then it would just splat. So there is part of me that's like, would I do this? I might, but I think I would have introduced

the mechanics before or been like, okay, I never put it in, I never set it in stone, so I'll let you get away with this one, but next time going forward, here's what might happen. There's definitely something about just being like, oh, by the way, I decided on falling damage. Now that you mentioned somebody who's gonna fall. It's a little weird for it to come up in that moment,

especially when I'm looking at the unicorn stats and it's pretty interesting because they're only challenge rating five. They only have 67 HP, but they've got like legendary actions and stuff. So they are pretty damn magical creature. To read on the table, it's a unicorn controlled by the DM appears in a space within five feet of you

then disappears one minute later. The within five feet of you is tough. So within five feet of you, so that it would fall, but even with a crit, so I'm rolling here. So I just rolled to 9d6 on a dice roller site and got 26 damage, rolled again, got 38 damage. Okay. Again, got 35 damage.

How many HP does the unicorn have? 67. So it'd be 18d6. Let me clear and roll 18d6. 62, it's fine. 54, it's fine. 70, it's down, but not dead if you wanted to give it, if you wanted to give it death saving throws

because it's magical. 62 damage dead if you want it to give it, if you want it to give it death saving throws, cause it's magical. 62 damage, 61 damage. Declaring that it's dead outright, that's doing you dirty. Where were the death saving throws? Yeah, there's, I mean, normally NPCs don't get death saving throws. I only do that for like important ones,

but a magic unicorn that shows up, I think, I don't know. I mean, statistically, obviously you can definitely get 67 damage pretty easy, but I've done a bunch of rolls here and out of one, two, three, four, five, six rolls, I've only barely knocked it out once. Well, I think still ultimately this is a homebrewed rule. And in a heightened moment, so it's just this DM just didn't want the unicorn there

for some reason. And that's really unfair, because the wild magic only comes up so often. How often do you get a good one? This is like a really rare, fun chance. And it was funny that they had it splatter, but I don't think this is the moment. It's also just as funny to be like a unicorn appears

and you see it flies up and it's like, hello, source. And then the unicorn falls, crashes into the ground for 40 damage and then gets up super injured and goes, all right, let me go. Yeah. Use my once a day healing touch or whatever. Yeah. It's got a heal self ability. That's a legendary action. Like it can definitely recover from this very funny moment. It has a lot of good, cool stuff. Yeah.

I think you were wronged. I do think you were wronged. I think you were wronged. Good. Besides just introducing a homebrew thing, even if you've mentioned it before that you think the rule is bad, I do think you need to solidify that shit

before you bring it into the game. Yeah. And even, like I said, if you were going to home brew this, 18d6 on average is not going to kill your unicorn. This DM had it out for the unicorn. You should have at least been able to like aim the unicorn's horn and like take out an enemy as it was falling.

If he's going to kill, you should have had like a unicorn. Definitely Justice Tanner. I'm saying if the DM's gonna kill it, at least let him take out an enemy at the same time. But yeah, I think on average 18d6 is only gonna do like 54 damage. But still this homebrewed rule, it just isn't the time to debut it.

Especially when it's that extreme. Like it's not even adding more dice. It's just like, no, I'm straight up doubling the falling damage. Yeah, I totally, I get the idea of wanting to change the falling damage. Cause it is ridiculous when it's like, yeah, this level like five character with 40 HP falls 50 feet and you know, rolls their ankle for 12 damage.

Yeah, well they're more magical than I am. They're definitely more magical than we are. But I do think that like having stakes with falling is cool but that all needs to be established ahead of time. It can't be established as someone's falling. I think that timing is too suspect. I think this is pretty clear cut. Yeah, I think we're rolling against yet another DM.

Oh yeah. We are on a tear today. Yeah, no DMs today. We're gonna drop a unicorn on this DM. Yeah, I think so. Even if it's just a unicorn pinata and then candy comes out at the end and then you get to eat the candy, but they don't.

But nasty candy. Because they clearly don't like sweet fun stuff. Candy that's not good. Oh yeah, we could also do that. Oh, just like really hard jaw breaker so it hurts when it falls on them. We could fill it with veggies. Veggies and a French dish.

I would be so disappointed. Yeah, baby carrots inside a fucking pinata. Or sharp, big, regular carrots, right? Ooh. Yeah, just little fruits. Oh, sharpened carrots. Sharpened carrots. Beauty, really sharp.

Beauty, sharp carrots. So as soon as it hits you, the carrots explode out like a grenade and the carrots will get you. Yeah, carrot shrapnel. They are razor sharp. All right, we got it. This is one of the most dangerous sentencing

we've ever done. Yeah. A sharp carrot filled unicorn pinata. You're really onto a good prank though, just a pinata filled with ranch dressing. I know, it really makes me laugh to think of that. Pudding, yogurt, so gross. Just like the kids being like, yay, oh.

Yeah, because you see it, like the kids are, when kids play with a pinata, they're all like stepping on each other's like heels because they don't want to get too far away from it. Cause they're like, Oh candy is going to come out any minute. It's just, anarchy is on the brink. I just got like a rush of nostalgia,

or I don't even know if it's nostalgia, but just like that moment of like panic when the pinata is about to burst. I need to get in there. I need to get in there so I can get the bubble gum before somebody else does. Yeah, someone's like 11 year old brother is just like elbowing you in the face

and stealing all of the fruit roll-ups. Honestly, the worst was to be the one that broke the pinata because then you have the blindfold. You don't even necessarily know it's broken. Everybody is just dive bombing all around you. You have to take the mask off. It's really harrowing. Wow. Our next case harrowing. Wow.

Our next case comes from Flying Monkeys. And they write, "'To the astounding, amazing, awe-inspiring judges and that guy who likes to hear himself read cases.'" It is true. Why are you always reading the cases? You love it. You're smiling and stuff.

You're obsessed with yourself. I love my own voice. You're obsessed with yourself. It's true. I don I love my own voice. You're obsessed with yourself, dude. That's true. I don't want to sit on the bench. I love doing this. I bring to you the case of the twin spelled fireballs. My cousins and I first started playing D&D together

a few years ago. I DM'd and didn't fully understand magic or all class mechanics yet. I told my cousin who played a sorcerer that he would have to figure out magic since I only knew how spell slots work. Oh no, I heard the title of this and I was like, that's not okay.

That makes sense now, Wyatt. Jump forward many sessions. The sorcerer started using twin spell fireball. I thought it was crazy OP, but figured it must be how the game works. When I finally got to play a sorcerer in another campaign, I discovered that twin spell only works with spells that target not area of effect spells.

I joked with my cousin that we were handling it wrong in that first campaign. He smiled and said, I kind of figured that out halfway through, but I decided to keep going with it. Oh, that's trashy. I was shook. Now I wonder who was in the wrong.

Was it him who took advantage of a new DM or was it me who did not take the time to fully learn what a sorcerer could do with magic? I humbly await your judgment. Wow. That's a really tough question. Cause it is like, well, you do, I always do try to familiarize myself

with my players abilities, but I think they're totally in the wrong. They did clock that it was OP. They were like, wow, that's really powerful. Yeah, so I will have to say, since we are so anti DM today, let's talk about this DM for a second. Really, I'm against the player.

No, I am also against the player. I'm just having fun. Okay, okay. I think, so the DM though, I do think that I make this mistake all the time and something will happen and it will be absolutely absurd and I'll allow it and I'll just be like, oh yeah, I guess that's what their ability is.

But then afterwards I will be like, let me look that up because that was wild. So I do think it is on the DM a little bit to if you see something that seems like it's not correct to double check. Because you are kind of the ref. I know it sucks because you're the one who already has to do all of the work.

And so then when your players don't know the rules at all, it is definitely tough. But like you do, you have to run the game. So you do have to maybe know it better than the other people. But I think, I mean, I think that's a good call, which is like, I guess maybe really what's in here is a lesson, which is, I guess you can't trust

every single player. If something feels OP, it might be worth double checking their homework. That's a really good rule of thumb. Yeah, you could say like, the DM should know the game pretty well, but the players really shouldn't cheat. Yeah, totally, totally. If the player just fucked it up, that's one thing,

but since the player was lying, the player is definitely the one who's actually wrong. Right, that definitely takes precedence over somebody just not knowing. I do think you have to- I think it's fully the- It's definitely fully the player's fault. Open shot, it's the player's fault. They should have been like, they should have,

even if they were like, well, I don't want to like kill the momentum of the game, they could have like taken you aside and been like, hey, I realized that this is actually not allowed. So I'm just gonna not do it again. And then you guys both know that it's never happening again. No, but they were just like waiting for you to catch them so they can keep,

she'd be like, oops, sorry. Oops, me. Naughty. Sorry. Should we give them a pinata full of little logs? Yeah. Pinata full of little logs. Pinata full of little logs? Yeah. Pinata full of little logs? Pinata full of little logs.

Just nasty blue skates logs. I think hit them with the carrots again. Yeah, okay. Carrots is good. Another sharp pinata carrot. But honestly, no ranch. You're just gonna have to eat those carrots dry. Just dry carrots.

Yikes. Dry, sharp carrots. I'm talking about the DM a little bit, just to be like, you know, if you clock something a little weird as a DM, you should like look into it, but the player specifically was trying to trick you. So the player is definitely wrong.

So we're against this player. We're gonna throw some carrots at them. Yeah, enjoy your carrots, bud. Be careful eating them. Our next case comes from Jaybird. To the esteemed judges, Murphy, Axford and Tanner and the honorable Bailiff, Jace, I bring to you the case of the very observant paladin.

Several years ago in a new group of players, I played a rogue whose backstory was that she was a jewelry thief. For history, she always returned the jewelry after studying it. Oh, that's fun. I did a sleight of hand check to steal some jewelry slash money that's not necessarily

part of your backstory. I know. Somebody tells me that didn't get returned. Yeah, with research fees, you know. Off a table while everyone was arguing and I rolled a nat 20 for a total of 30. The paladin rolled to notice me doing it and only got a 12.

The player then decided they would have noticed anyway. And the DM agreed. And my character was killed. What? What? Who are these nerds? Get them out of here. And another player revived me.

Was my DM correct in allowing the player to get his head was stealing? No. Or should I be allowed to collect my bounty and be on my way? We got a Filipino full of turnips and hawk this thing. Yeah. This one was pretty clear, but I thought it was so funny.

I know. How do you like continue with a party that one of them killed you, another one revived you, but are you just always like, we're gonna talk about that? It's also passive. This is what passive perception is for. Yeah.

Unless the Paladin is like, I've just met this rogue and I'm looking out for him. I'm seeing what they're up to. But even their active perception, a 12 versus a nat 20 on the sleight of hand. You failed. I would notice it anyway. And then the DM agreed.

What kind of shit show is this? What's going on between the Paladin and the DM? I don't want to give a generous read here, but like the only, only thing I can think of is the DM tried to spin it that it was like the Paladin's evil sense went off. And like the Paladin sense, like, yeah, I don't think that's how it works.

But I'm like, again, I don't know why I'm doing this. But it's almost like a new player thing. We're like, I'm going to sleight of hand, try to steal something off the table and they get a high roll and the Paladin gets a low one. And then they're just like, but it's on the table. I would fucking see that, right? Mike, I'm telling you, I'm looking at the table.

Actually, Jake does bring up a good point because there is the mechanics of D&D are strange in that way, right? Of like, technically you could be like, I wanna steal that TV off the TV stand in the middle of the living room. And one person gets a bad perception check and the other person gets a great sleight of hand check.

And then you have to be like, cool, they don't notice that the TV is missing in the middle of the room. You know, that is a little strange. Well, I think in that situation, if they roll an act 20, I'm not like, you palm the TV. I'm like, you create a distraction and you're able to loosen it. But then I'm not like, you palm the TV. I'm like, you create a distraction and you're able to loosen it.

But then I might be like, okay, but like, you know, do like some kind of check to hide the fact that you're holding it. And this is ultimately irrelevant because this was like, what a gem and some money was there. What was stolen? Much easier to, and unless it's like on a pedestal in the middle of room, if that is what happened, if it's like, it's like on a pedestal in the middle of room,

if that is what happened, if it's like, this is like the only main thing in the room and you stole it, I do think the DM can be like, roll this with disadvantage. Everyone else gets to roll with advantage to notice this. This is very obvious. I think you set expectations for things like that. Again, we say this over and over again,

don't let your players roll for something that you cannot handle. So if this person gets a nat 20 to steal a few coins, like, and then the other people roll lower than that, they get away with it. That's just how the fucking game works. I think- No, yeah, this totally reads like the DM just being like,

I don't want them to steal this fucking. Yeah, totally, totally. Or what my generous read is that the DM has a crush on the Paladin. Oh no. So are they dating now? Were they like, were they? On again, off again, trying to get it on.

Right, was this a flirtation? Was this a courtship? Did it work? Because. Yeah, the DM is generously reading the Paladin's eyes. Yeah, yeah. No, I think you can't, yeah, you don't get to have somebody at the table, like try to, it's like the opposite

of rules lawyering, of being like, break the game in my favor, please, after a ruling was already made. Yeah, yeah. I think I would notice. You could make that argument, but set that up before the roll. Set that up before the roll. Okay, you were wronged.

Absolutely wronged. We're gonna, let's sentence both the Paladin and the DM. How about the DM and the Paladin, instead of having wallets, they have to put all their money on pedestals and just carry around pedestals. In like a little red wagon? Yeah.

Wow. You have to just cart around a pedestal. Yeah. We're going in the opposite direction. No more thin wallets, guys. We're doing pedestals now. Pedestals and wagons. Right.

That's how we travel now. Good luck at the airport. You're not gonna be able to load that on the conveyor belt. I'm sorry. Can I check my pedestal? It won't fit in the overhead. So I think that's it perfectly distilled. They have to bring a pillar to a airport.

Yeah. Get a pillar through security. So ordered. Our next case comes from Eric. Eric writes to the effervescent judges and dull bailiff James. Wow, we are bubbling. We are so carbonated. I picture like what if all my bodily fluids went through an air stream? Is that what they're called? The things that put carbonation in there?

If somebody like sucked all my body's moisture out, Fremen style and just made like a seltzer out of it. Or if I just like put my mouth to an air stream and then someone just did that and then I just carbonated. Okay. Cool. Cool, that's awesome. I was Gulf Dull, the Dull Bailiff Jake, that's fine. I'm so sorry about that.

I wish I was ever passing, I wish I was full of bubbles. I bring to you the case of the Fiends Dispelled Familiar. The BBEG of our campaign was a powerful wizard with a cute rat familiar named Snitch. Oh my God, so close to Stitch. Whoa! Holy cow! Wow, which experiment was this?

Who ended up spying on the party on multiple occasions. It was clearly obvious that he was spying on us, but no one wanted to hurt the cute little rat. On one of these occasions, it came out that Snitch did not like working for the evil wizard. Oh my God. The dream. The dream. I'll take you over, baby. Come. Come. I'll feed you all your favorite foods. So I cast a spell magic magic hoping to set him free. The DM told me to roll for it and I rolled high.

And he proceeded to tell me that I dispelled all of the magic on the rat, including the spell that made him intelligent and capable of speech, much to the party's dismay, leaving Snitch to be a completely normal rat that later died off screen. What? Oh!

Why? I am still razzed to this day completely normal rat that later died off screen. What? Oh, why? I am still razzed to this day about effectively killing Snitch's personality. Judges, was I wrong to think that I could have freed him from the bad guy without obliterating his consciousness or are you going to cast dispel magic on me and obliterate my consciousness? I don't think the like awakened spell is,

even if you were doing this by the book, the awakened spell is not something that's like a magical. It's not concentration. It's not like a sustained magical effect. You probably could dispel magic on an awakened spell. I mean, it's magic, right? If you just would have to roll to roll high enough. Was this awakened or was this fine familiar?

Did they specify? They just say familiar. Familiar. If it was fine familiar, then it makes sense that to dispel it, well, it wouldn't leave the rat. It would just mean that the rat would disappear. And this seems like one of those areas

where you absolutely fudge a little bit. Like you kinda, you bend the rules for fun. For sure you do. Yeah, if this was fine familiar or something, and this was a completely magical being, you could say that this makes the rat disappear. If you really wanted to be like a, a mean DM, you could just be like, you make snitch disappear. And then it becomes like, maybe later you try to, after you beat the wizard, you have an ending where you can summon snitch or something like that. Like that's a kind

of cool thing to dangle. I mean, the counter argument could be this DM didn't wanna act out Snitch's self-discovery arc in which Snitch realizes the power of family, like discovers his own unique personality and likes and dislikes. Yeah, but why not? That sounds amazing. Maybe they're like,

this game isn't about me role playing NPCs. I guess that's a good DM. Yeah. But if I'm the DM. Doing a 10 minute monologue in the snitch voice. If I'm the DM, you get yourself a pet rat for fucking sure. All the players are like, we like this animal. We like this animal.

We're gonna be nice to the animal. And then the DM is like, good. You're so nice that the animal's gone. Yeah, just killing it off screen, doing all of that is no fun. I do think if you didn't want them to have this familiar, and if you wanted to save it for once they face the BBEG, it would be fine to make it disappear

and then just put a thread for, here is how you can maybe summon Snitch. Yeah. And then you have like a fun, almost like one of your friends is kidnapped or something. Like you have like an adventure hook there. Or you could have the rat once the rat is freed, the rat is like, I did bad stuff, man.

I need to go make amends. I see it now. And then the rat goes on his own journey. And has, yeah. They've got to go do their own penance. But I see, it's interesting. I'm on the awaken page on D&D Beyond. And there is the first question is,

is there a way to unawaken a thing, let's say an animal, and return it back to its normal life? And people are basically just saying you'd have to use another spell to something like evil mind or something like wish to, because it's not, it is a magical effect in that after you cast it on them, the awakened beast or plant is charmed by you for 30 days or until your companions or you or your companions

do anything harmful to it. When the charmed condition ends, the awakened creature chooses whether or not it remains friendly to you based on how you treated it while it was charmed. So it's charmed for a bit, but after that, the creature just kind of makes its own decisions. Is there a chance though that this story resolution was more a nod to this DM's personal belief? Maybe they believe that consciousness is a burden. And they thought that actually the kindest thing would be to relieve this rat of constant pressure of thought.

Because they killed the rat off screen. Right, I forgot about that. It just became a regular rat and then just like looked like it went off with some other rats, that's fine. Well, did the rat? I think I was picturing that. How did the rat die?

Do we know? Did it just live a long life? Just said off screen. Okay. Yeah. If it's just like a long life? It just said off screen. Okay. Yeah. If Snitch just like scampered off happily, Yeah. That'd be fine.

That would essentially what you would want it to do worked without your DM making, I don't know, it making you really pay for trying to do something nice. For it to be killed off screen, it means that one time you guys sat down to play and then your DM was like, Oh, by the way, Snitch died. Yeah. Moving on.

Yeah. Snitch got stuck in a mill. I think this is a case of wrongful razing. Yeah. I absolutely think this is a wrongful razz. Cause this is the DM being like, ha ha, you were so dumb for trying to dispel magic. The whole, the animal was magic and you made it unmagical.

And it's like, but if it was awakened, the spell was already cast and it wasn't countered. So then, or if it was a summoned familiar, then it would just disappear, wouldn't turn into a regular rat. So what are you talking about, DM? You gotta button this up. You gotta button this up.

It might be time to bring a pinata to your next session. A rat themed pinata. Ooh. A rat pinata filled with sharp carrots and little logs. You think it's gonna be cheese, but no. It's the sharpest carrots you've ever encountered. They're frozen, they're frozen carrots. It could be like melted cheese though,

and then you put some like tortilla chips out underneath. That's cool. Underneath where the pinata's gonna break. Fondue pinata. Yeah. Now you're onto something. And it's so hot. Fondue pinata. Yeah. Now you're onto something. And it's so hot. And it's so hot.

So dangerous. So warm. Fucking splatters everywhere, melts your wallpaper. The kids would need like pitchforks, not baseball bats, so they could like poke at it, and then like, it would be like a cheese udder, like issuing forth on the rack. Ooh, that's fun.

Yeah. Do you know? More kids should have pitchforks. The kids, my nieces and nephews, maybe my siblings are just like incredibly dorky parents who are depriving my nieces and nephews of their fun, but they don't use baseball bats with pinatas anymore. It's little strings that they pull.

Strings? Yeah, there's little strings. Every pinata has a bunch of little strings. What? And at a certain point, a certain string damages the integrity of the pinata enough that spilling forth is candy. But it's so sad to watch.

I hate to disparage your siblings, but they're doing it wrong. It's not good. I've seen three-year-olds get hurt. Baseball bats. I mean, it's Whiffle bats, you know, to be fair, but still they are, they're bats. They're blunt objects being launched at these pinatas.

Yeah. And these kids are just lining up to pull a string. She's good. Yeah. Give them a pitchfork. Give them a pitchfork. Okay. So ordered. And with that, why don't we step into church? We have a confession here. Okay, great. We have the sacred pinata hanging above us.

Filled with holy water. Imagine that as a mass baptism. And now partake of the communion. Wine sprays everywhere. Everyone's mouths are open. Wine and communion wafers come showering down on everyone. It's so good when you go to church. That's one way to get me to go to church. If it's communion day and also baptism day, you're getting two pinatas, fuck yeah. There's a pinata donut in the break room afterwards. Incredible, what a day.

All right, well, get serious because this is actually, I think maybe one of our first ever active confessions. This is an active sin. Whoa. And still going? Okay, okay, okay. We're here for you. We're here for you.

Are you gonna bring up like a Zoom link? What's happening? First bit of advice, stop. Yeah, we might be able to save this person's soul. Okay, okay, okay. Bridget writes, several sessions into a new campaign, I realized that I had chosen a two-handed weapon for my paladin and therefore should not be able

to use a shield. The campaign has been a slog with the DM rolling consistently well and the party rolling badly. I have not brought my error to the DM's attention because I really, really need that extra two AC to stay standing. Naughty. This is some twin spell bullshit.

This is like that sorcerer before. You know what you're doing. You got it off. I plan to switch weapons as soon as we find appropriate loot, but I beg forgiveness from Dice Christ for keeping quiet about this mistake. You cannot be forgiven. Appropriate loot?

The loot is never gonna be appropriate enough. Has Bridget considered that Dice Christ is rolling well for the DM because one of the DM's players is actively true? I love this. This is, yeah. Yeah, you need to get rid of it in order for the tables to even out.

Yeah. You thought this was a normal sword. This is a cursed sword. You've cursed your table. That's true. This is a leap of faith you need to take, right? Yeah, for sure. And also your DM is balancing things

based on how you guys are doing. So if you just use your equipment as intended, the DM will balance the encounters. Okay. So it's dice, crisis and mechanics. Yes. It's also the DM sees that you're doing two D six of damage and somehow have ATAC and is trying to hit your AC,

which is very high. You know what? It's a courage to come forward though. Mm hmm. Well, sort of. Well, we haven't done it yet. Courage to come forward, Bridget. Courage to come forward though. Well, sort of. Well, we haven't done it yet. It took courage to come forward, Bridget. It took courage to come forward.

It's gonna take more courage to stop. The Dice Christ religion is pretty lenient and you don't have to admit to your DM what you've been doing, but you do need to very performatively at your next session go, oh wow, wait, hang on. I've actually been using a two-handed sword

as a one-handed sword. What was I doing? Oh my gosh. We're not gonna make you admit that you knew. We never made you admit it. But you do have to publicly quote unquote realize it. You just have to be so supportive. Yeah, and I think like-

Better practice in the mirror. You need to sell this. Right, practice smacking your forehead. You gotta sell this. Sell it. It's gotta have a slap. You're gonna seem like that sorcerer before with the twin spell.

That was nasty business. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. No little smiles or anything. This is just you being like, what was I thinking? We're sentencing you to the performance of a lifetime.

You're going to have to role play remorse. You're going to be wanting to take a big sip of water. You can't do it. Yeah. And we're going to need you to report back and let us big sip of water. You can't do it. Yeah. And we're gonna need you to report back and let us know how it went. Cause we can't offer any of Dice, Christ forgiveness because you've not, you haven't put in the work yet.

We are withholding absolution. Yeah. That's actually true. Yeah. So we're just gonna let that hang there. Yeah. We're just gonna wait. This episode is gonna go on for a long time. We're just gonna be waiting. Yeah. We're just gonna wait.

So you let us know. You let us know. All right. Do y'all think a pinata full of dice would be fun? I feel like you could just- I think we've talked about this. Really? Yeah, it's like a way to, we were like,

oh, we could roll it that way by hitting a pinata full of dice. Yeah, that's really fun. If it was like, oh my God, this dragon's breath weapon. Yes, oh, that's awesome. It's so fun if you had a pinata and your BBEG at the very end is a dragon. Or like if it's- fun if you had a pinata and like you're like BBEG at the very end is a dragon. And you take out a huge pinata

and then the first weapon you're like, who wants to? Yeah. Or if it's like a dragon whose blood is fire and every time you hit it, you take damage because it's all of the dice coming out. And every time like D8s drop to the ground, that's like damage you're taking from doing damage to the dragon.

I'm making it too complicated as I speak. It seems random. I think you get like a cool figurine dragon that has a big enough mouth that dice can shoot out of it. And when you press a button, the dice shoot out for the breath weapon. I think we figured it out. That's great, yeah.

And with that, we're gonna wrap this one up. Thank you all so much for listening. We'll be over on our Patreon, patreon.com slash nadpod. That's N-E-D-D-P-O-D, don't sing yet. Don't even think about it. And we will be doing bonus cases. In the meantime, does anyone have anything they'd like to plug?

I'd love to plug the first half of Lilo and Stitch where he's being a real piece of shit. Yeah, I'd like to plug the second half where he becomes a perfect little gentleman. Yeah. You're gonna be disappointed there because I feel like he doesn't actually learn his lesson. He's still smirking. He's still being kind of a piece of shit.

He's chaotic. He's only nice to the girl. Stitch is chaotic good. I'm also gonna plug Stitch's redemption arc. He didn't need to redeem that much. I'm not buying it. Read my fanfic. All right.

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Mwah, mwah, mwah, mwah, mwah. I gave a little extra kiss there. Okay, goodbye, sweeties. That was a HeadGum Podcast.