Not Another D&D Podcast - D&D Court: Husband Gloves, Drowncula, and DM Mojo

Episode Date: March 19, 2026

Dungeon Court is back in session! Join Justices Murphy, Tanner and Axford, along with Bailiff Jake, as they pass judgement on your trials at the table!Come see us LIVE at Radio City Music Hall!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, Dunn. Welcome to Dungeon Court, everybody. Dunn, Dund! Supreme Court, Justices, Murphy, Axford, Tanner, and the lolly, lolly, lolly, bailiff, Jake Hurwis. He's lowly, but he's right here in front of me. We're all together at the table. Reach out, I'm reaching out my hands.

Everybody touch. Whoa, we're doing a say on. Merv, your hands are so sweaty. What the fuck? They're also, I was going to say they're cats. They're so callous. Well, he works hard. Lifting.

Wow. That's cool. Calist and wet. I just felt like so many calluses just hanging on for your life. How are you so shocked to touch my hand and to feel how my hand feels? My, like the tender bit of my fingers. Look at those forever calluses. Oh, those are good, dude.

The tender bit of my fingertips went directly into callous. Yeah. Oh, that's true. I don't. I am on the edge. I am on the edge here. like I'm further away from everyone else because we're bulk recording.

And we try to scoge away from you. Yeah. And you're going to try to get away from me because I'm mean and rude and I smell like ass. You scare us, yeah. You are mostly touching my calluses when you reach out.

And Murph normally wears husband gloves which are like soaking gloves that they make for men with rough hands. Filled with Vaseline. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, with that. This episode is brought to you by husband gloves. Go pick up a pair.

Hear he, hear me. Crit is now in. session the honorable supreme crit justices, Axford Murphy and Tanner presiding. And our first case comes from Randy. Randy. Randy. Randy. To the supremely honorable

crit justice and the supreme pizza bailiff. Okay. That's a nice pizza. Oh, I know why. Go on. Oh, because the New Haven pizza? Yeah. All right. Yeah, yeah. And also he's a piece of bailiff. That's true. A fine piece of ass.

A group. That hurt. Let go be. that callous hand. Pinching him with my callous hands. You broke his ass with your callous. At least touch me with the husband glove. Our group

was running the curse of strad and our taboxy monk had been bitten by a werewolf and it was going to turn during the next session's full moon. Cool. We all proposed plans. Mine being the wizard should use mold earth to bury her in a casket with a breathing tube to avoid

the full moon for at least a few rounds as she tunnels out. Our wizard dismissed this plan and said he had his own plan. The next week, he was absent from the session. According to the DM, he had told his plan to the DM, and the DM was going to role play as the wizard to enact it. No, you don't get to do this. Wait, wait, wait.

So the wizard couldn't be there or chose not to be there? We're going to find out, I guess. Presumably couldn't. Presumably couldn't. But had, like, pretty intense opinions, I guess. I'm not if it was going to play out. The wizard rejected the first plan, said they had a better plan, but then wasn't there but told the DM and the DM is planning to do the plans.

Okay. The plan then proceeded to be, chain her up and sit with her in Liamann's tiny hut and try to keep her calm. Plan failed. Okay. Chains broke. And we nearly lost the rogue. The Ware Tiger Monk, now controlled by the DM, ran off into the forest, leaving the player with no character to play for the rest of the session, about 90 minutes. Am I wrong to blame the wizard?

Does the blame lay with the DM? Or am I wrong for wanting to bury a party member during a full moon? I await your justice. My first thought is I actually would blame the DM because this is easy for the DM to be like, yeah, I'll have the wizard suggest this, but I'll let the party decide. Right, the people that are actually at the table.

Or, you know, the submitter could have fought a little harder because it's not just up to the wizard. Yeah. The submitter needed the wizard for their plan, apparently. Oh, gosh. They wanted the wizard to do Mold Earth. Mold Earth is a freaking tantrip. I think it's not the craziest idea.

You could use a shovel too. As we've seen in many movies and stuff, like people who become werewolves often are tied up and then escape. I don't think that's the craziest plan. Yeah. Do you need to see the full moon to transform? I assume that it was just like movement of the earth and like the actual like presence of the moon overhead. I didn't know that you need to like strike your skin. Yeah.

I would suspect you would just turn on a full moon. I think it's different like from different mythologies. But I think in D&D it would just be, yeah. If it's a full moon, you just turn. Well, so yeah. The tides are still going to go in and out even if like it's, It's cloudy. It's a period.

We all know. Yeah. It's a period for men. Let's just admit it's a period. We made it cool and awesome. So men can do it now. But I think we're not like considering how much of a disaster could have been to just like leave someone transforming with a breathing tube. Like it would have been so easy for the DM to just be like, cool.

They turn into a giant beast. The cave collapses and they suffocate. In their defense. the submitter said, so that would slow them down for a couple rounds. So they were being very, like, they were being very logical. They didn't think this is the solution for the night. They were like, okay, let's start off from here and then go from there. This is the tricky thing about like lycanthropy in D&D to begin with because it is like,

I think in the book, maybe they've changed it in 2024. But like in the DM's guide, it does say just like, yep, if you get likeanthropy, hand over your character sheet. Yeah. It's kind of just like, yeah, I mean, you can work it out separately with your DM and, like, find a way around it. Because I think that at this point, there are stat blocks. But, like, I think rules was written. You're just straight up, like, not allowed to play that character anymore because you're, like, alignment changes.

Yeah. It's interesting. I feel like the DM probably just wanted this as a story beat. Yeah. Because, like, if somebody turns into a werewolf or something, you probably do want them to run off and be gone for a couple sessions. But if that is your plan, then you should tell the player ahead of time if you're going to do that at the top of a session. Yeah. Like come with a new character saying.

Because this player had nothing to play for an hour and a half. I think that it's possible that both plans had serious wiggle room to go wrong. Yeah. I think neither plan was necessarily like the better one. Yeah. But I do think the people in the room should have got to say what the plan was. That's a good point because as soon as you're saying you're in a casket with a breathing tube, that's like not a great plan. Yeah.

It's not a great plan. But like also, like I said, to their credit, they're like, for a few rounds. Right. Yeah, they weren't expecting it to work. But they said for a few rounds, it sounds like the DM wanted something bad to happen, right? Because they ended up breaking out of the chains and running away

and having the character disappear. So the DM was cooking tragedy. Right. So if you put them buried alive underground, this DM might have just killed the character. Well, I would say mold earth is like, I can't stop hearing that as mold wine. And I'm just picturing some spicy. And just so delicious.

Just make a grave and fill it with wine. Yeah, kill me now, brother. I would imagine that mold earth is not like the most like extreme. It's probably like five feet or something, right? So it's probably pretty shallow anyways. And like if anything. Yeah. And if anything, I'm sure that the werewolf has super strength and could get out of it.

Yeah. Yeah. They don't have a burrow speed. But, you know, they're still really strong. Although if it did go wrong, just traumatizing a werewolf, that's maybe. even more dangerous. You don't want a werewolf with a chip on its shoulder. Resenting you.

It does feel like the whole linchpin of this is the fact that this wizard wanted to do a specific plan and then wasn't there for the session and we still proceeded with it anyway. I think that makes the plan going bad hurt a bit worse. Yeah. It's kind of like being like at like a happy hour of friends and then being like I got to go, but I actually wanted to talk about this next. So make sure you guys do. It's like, I can't go to your party, but I made the playlist.

Yeah. Yeah. So you guys will dance to my music. Maybe the wizard had to like take the bar exam or something like that. That's not that important. It's true. You should have had that fucking opinions about Dean reschedule the bar exam. Maybe they had something important to do and they're like, oh, but I still want to be a part of it.

Can you like text me to like let me know how the plan goes? And like maybe the DM was like trying to, I'm in generous read mode now. Maybe the DM was like trying to honor the fact that like they couldn't be there for whatever reason. They're like, oh, we'll do your plan so you can still be somewhat involved, which is like a kind gesture, but you're right that I do think it is still, that plan can be presented and like the table ultimately should decide. I could imagine enacting the wizard's plan if you're using the wizard's spells. Yeah. But they just chained the werewolf up.

It's true. Well, Lehman's tiny hut was presumably. Oh, the tiny hut. So I guess it's at the wizard's place. Right. Yeah. But your own chance. You can do the plan at my house.

I feel like the wizard's plan wasn't terrible. No. I was expecting, as we're reading it back for it to be like, insane, but it was pretty normal plan. It's just very weird to be like, this person insisted on it being their plan and then wasn't there. We proceeded with the session anyway. The DM ran it as the character who was the point person, then had that character

run away and then didn't have a backup character ready for the like-indrome. It seems like DM's fault. Yeah, I kind of think that it's like, I do keep going back and forth because I also am like, wow, okay, if the option were to come to consciousness, chained up across a gentle friend. Yeah. Or come to consciousness with a breathing tube shoved down my throat. I guess I'd take option A.

Yeah, that's true. I will say, yeah, I'm also a little disappointed in the wizard for like this pretty milktoe suggestion. Like, they did not at any point suggest casting silent image on the moon and making it look like it was only half full or trying to blow up the moon itself. Piccolo style using magic missile. Blowing up the moon is really smart. Yeah.

It's actually really good. That's what they should have done. Yes. It's right there. It's a solution to lichenthropy. Wait a second. We have a cure for lichenthropy now. Well, that's why Piccolo does it because Gohan is turning into the great ape.

I know. And I'm saying that every single D&D campaign going forth can use the Piccolo rule. Yeah, we've answered this. And also, like, later on, you just find a wish spell and wish for the moon to come back. But it doesn't have lichanthropy powers anymore. Perfect. Yeah. That's awesome, guys.

Anyway, Colville can't be here for the rest of the session, but let's do that. Anyway, there's been a horrible cataclysm, and everyone on Earth is dead. The oceans are gone. My wife is giving birth, and I'm just texting from the delivery room. Hey, how did my plan go? Wait, can I give another generous read? Since it's your spells being cast, and if something goes wrong, you might feel really bad. So it's possible that the wizard was like, it's going to be my fault.

fault if this plan doesn't go right. So let's do the plan that I actually feel comfortable doing. It just seems strange to do a really, what seems like a pivotal session without somebody who seems to be pivotal to the scene. Yeah. Yeah. If it's all this messy, then it is the DM's fault. Yeah.

Yeah. Your main responsibility is like clean up the mess. Try to find some semblance of order. I also don't think, I don't think the wizard is like that much in the wrong here unless they just bailed on the session. Presumably they had like an emergency or like just can't be there. some reason. Like Emily saying, it's not crazy to be like, okay, this character is my friend.

I'm not going to bury them alive. I'm going to look at them and try to calm them down. That's actually, that's your, the DM or the wizard might have just been like, cool, yeah. Right. I'm not a cartoon though. So I'm probably just going to do like the regular. We all know coffin plan wasn't their best work. Yeah.

Right. It wasn't perfect. I think you could have started there. Yeah. You start with coffin plan. Then when they escape the coffin, gagging on the breathing tube. chain them up. You chain them to a chair and then you try to talk calmly to them. So we did the breathing tube thing for a really good reason.

Yeah, it sounds like if they if they like had them in like some kind of chains and we're doing like persuasion checks or something, I'm a little suspicious that the DM might have been cooking this a bit. Whoa. Because lycanthropy, like across the likeanthropic creatures in the monster manual, just straight up aren't that strong. Or this one's a wear tiger. I guess those are a little stronger. Or maybe they were styling it as a wear tiger since they're a tabaxy. So like they would say that's, you know, that's kind of the fun thing about like all the species is like if you're a tabaxi and you give it by a werewolf,

do you turn into a werewolf or do you turn into like a more of like a, I believe you turn into a werewolf. I like how they're styling this though. So maybe they're cooking, but they're also cooking on the. But I think there are just where tigers. There are. I think you're just like part tiger, part wolf. Yeah. I think it depends on who you're bit by.

But yeah. Five-year-old Emily just discovered who she wants to be when she grows up. It's always a little disappointing. Anytime you look at like warwolf stats or anything like that, because I'm going to put a badass werewolf here. And it's always like, challenge rating too. These massive creatures have a plus three to strength. And if they can hit with their plus four.

So I don't know. This to me kind of seems like the character got bit. they probably wanted some drama at the table and to have like a low point that sort of Empire Strikes Back I think this was gonna probably go bad no matter what Yeah, so I'm suspicious of the DM I also think this was bad planning this was if you have two characters that are like budding heads and then you have a session without one of the characters budding heads

It's just weird yeah why would you do that so I guess the DM I think I plan the DM yeah Because it also for like the thing that they aren't really even on trial for but like the not giving a player anything to play for 90 minutes. Yes. Yes. That's rough. Because I also think that had that not happens, then no one would have even clocked this weird situation.

Yeah. Right. I think that I think not giving a player anything to do for 90 minutes kind of shows like the level of thoughtlessness everywhere. Yeah. Yeah. And we say this all the time. You're a DM.

You are kind of you do, it sucks, but you do have to just do more work. You are hosting a party essentially. And so you've like given one person nothing to do. You've said you got to leave. Right. Unless there was a. puzzle in the other room. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. I guess if you have like a Game Boy advance with Final Fantasy Tactics advanced. Then you can say you can't hang out at this part of the party. Yeah, I would say Boktai, the sun is in your hands from Kojima games. You could maybe give them that because that's vampire themes. That could be fun. But these are werewolves. Oh, but this is a strike campaign.

It's a strike campaign, yeah. But that game works with a solar panel. So like it will be nighttime in the game. So like unless they've charged it prior, I don't know exactly how it works. but I think in Boktai, the sun is in your hands created by Hideo Kajima. If it is nighttime,

it's going to be a different gameplay style. So I don't know. You need to let them know that before they start playing it. That's all so helpful. Is that the punishment? Yeah, they have to play Boktai.

The sun is in your hands. Cool. So we're punishing the DM. Can we have to play? They have to listen to what Caldwell says. You have to just skip back. Yeah, everyone. I think,

for eternity. I want to get on board, but I actually did find it pretty interesting. So it was a game that had like a solar panel built into it. We're good. It was really cool. It was like, you know,

because I feel like for a while there was like, when you had cartridge-based games, you would have these like really cool gimmicks like that, like the Game Boy camera, like the Game Boy Link cables and stuff. Yeah. They were giving children cameras. I feel like if we're talking about Ninja Turtles,

everybody would be cool with it is what I'm saying. And I'm talking about Bogtie for once and everyone's getting all my ass about it. Emily seems to love it. Yeah. Anyway, yeah, punish me. I want to play vodka. So ordered, I think.

And our next case comes from Frank the plant. Whoa. Wow. Yeah. What kind of plant? Let me see. Do they get industry? I think Frank might be like a plant like was put in.

Oh. Oh. That kind of plant. Okay. Yeah. Industry plant. But is a fickle leaf fig. Oh, never mind.

Like wearing a wire. Oh, okay. Yeah. Fiddle leaf or figgle leaf? I like figal leaf better. Oh, that's right, because they call them fickle-le-le-le-figs because they're so hard to take care of it. Really? Yes, that's their derogatory nickname.

Just a little plan humor from. May it please the court. I almost feel like you're lying. I'm not lying. I swear to God, somebody's told me that. If I'm making shit up about plants, Jake, I'll open a new tab and Google it right now. May it please the court and that baked J-Lift, which clearly I am. I bring you the case of the one-shot kill DM.

Oh. My buddy had. recently gotten engaged and wanted to run a session for his fiance, future brother-in-law, and a childhood friend. The session was a surprise murder mystery, which none of our characters were able to find any clues, which were apparently spread in an airship. Okay. When we finally got the culprit after three hours, we began combat with his super cool vampire.

In the first round of combat, he cast a disintegrate on my friend, who had waited excitedly the whole game for combat. Judges, we were level five, and my friend died and was forced to sit and sit and silence for the rest of the session. No, why are we doing this to people? He ended up killing the vampire, which was revealed to still be alive walking out of the ocean after the session ended, as it was an important character for his book he was writing.

You have to stop. Also, like, I don't think I've ever wanted an image less except as a joke of a vampire walking, like emerging from the ocean. After you defeat it. I just don't need it. And his last line is, I'm sorry. Sorry, I'm too important for the DM's book. Unfortunately, it's buttoned up, though, because it's not running water.

And this DM is doing it, like, for their fiancé. Yeah. And it's like, brother-in-law stuff. So, that's so funny to be sitting there just being like, this dude's marrying an orphan. Oh, yeah. After the session, I said it was a bit rough that he killed my friend on the first round of combat and maybe shouldn't have done so. Judges, he then got mad at me and said I could no longer

be best man at the wedding. What? And we haven't spoken since. What? Was I in the wrong for suggesting not to kill a PC in the first round of a one shot? Or did I deserve to be booted from the wedding of his future author of the vampire books? You, this, this dude did you a huge favor. Yeah, you've been cut free.

Yeah. That wedding was going to be drama. If someone needs this much, like, emotional support when they do that job, like, maybe they're going to be heinous to throw a bachelor party for. The book thing is such a red flag. Like there's a lot of stuff in here that is just like bad DMing where they're talking about how like they couldn't find any of the clues on the airship that they were supposed to find. Yeah. And then they just kill the dude who's like the most excited right away. Yeah.

It's just like sounds poorly balanced. It sounds like they messed up laying out the clues or laying out the story. And then at the very end to be like this character needs to live so you can be in my book. It really doesn't. Like you can, it's a one shot. Yeah. You don't have to have that guy live in a one shot. If you're not going to base it on like the choices made in this world and like,

why are you even using it as like the reference for your book? Yeah. I actually really want to know what the book is about though because I'm so distracted by the walking out of the ocean aspect. So I'm like, do these vampires live on the bottom of the ocean floor? Vampires can't deal with running water, right? Well, the ocean isn't running water. It's not? Yeah, running water refers to like a stream or something.

I'm pretty sure they can't cross the ocean. I think that like in walk the bottom of the ocean. Yeah, they could be fine. Really? Yeah, I think so. Spider crab walk. Okay. I don't know about that.

But I do think like historically or like, you know, like in mythology, the reason they can't cross running water is I think it has to do with like ancient laylines or something like that. It's like territorial. Doesn't Dracula like travel with like his ancestral like dirt? Yeah. But you got to bring your dirt is the thing. Well, he probably had a pocketful of dirt. Right.

But he doesn't walk across. It's like really hard. It's like a whole fucking thing. I mean, well, he couldn't walk across it because I guess he could. What? No. You could walk across it. Why didn't he just swim?

Why didn't you can't swim? You can't swim if you're a fucking vampire. But it's not running water. Maybe it's a romance that's like a vampire washed ashore. And there's like a woman. Does it? The AI overview, which I trust implicitly, says vampires cannot cross oceans or flowing water under their own power.

But can they emerge from them? Wouldn't, but wouldn't an ocean, hold on, let me log on to Claude. This is getting into like a really stupid conversation that we're not equipped for, but wouldn't like the ocean also be like running water because the ocean is like moving? Wouldn't non-running water be like referring to like something landlocked

that doesn't isn't affected by the ties? My take is that the running water is running to the ocean. Yeah, that's right. So wouldn't that just be running? Where I can, where I no longer has to run because it's amongst its people. But it is, but it keeps running, right? Because it's like waves and shit.

Runs into the water and then the water is, it's home. I don't know. It's going in and out. That's kind of like running. They call it a running tide. Yeah. That's true. You might be on to something there.

They also call it a fickle leaf fig. I know a lot of people like this. Okay. So we'll stop lying about that shit, dude. I do. I appreciate you backing me up on the ocean stuff. Yeah. But I opened up a new tab and looked up pickle leaf fig.

I found nothing. Jake, I think you're an industry plant. Save it for Chaldova, dude. I think you're an industry plant. For big plant. That's right. For the indoor plant industry. I think I also am just defending the idea of the vampire underwater because it's so insane.

So I'm not really defending it as much as I want to keep imagining what this person's book is. Well, yeah. It sounds like the vampire is just walking away, maybe like floating, maybe like turning to mist and then flying away on the water. Oh, maybe it's like a picture of like, it's like a picture of like the cover. It's a picture of a vampire sort of getting sucked into a maelstrom. And it's like, sink into me. Oh, that's, you sink into the water.

Sink the teeth into something. Oh, sink. Sink it to me. It's really good. Yeah. So anyways, but it really does feel like a really weird idea. And I don't know why this is the book. The person is writing.

It's so weird to be that precious that you ruin your whole session by having the bad guy just get away so that you can then write a different thing. It's different. It's different. You didn't need to live. You're ruining your session. You've ruined your wedding. You could literally be like. Oh, I had this funny little rat NPC that got stomped on.

I'm going to write 13 books about him. Like, you can do that. You absolutely, it doesn't matter where you got the inspiration. This can be the first draft. Yeah, you absolutely don't need to have that dude be alive. So that's the weirdest part. Right. For sure.

I think this person sounds like a high maintenance person and it was going to be tough to be their best man anyways. Clearly at their wedding, they're going to be reading a draft of the book instead of vows. Oh, I would now like to read my vet. It was a dark day at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. He pauses to put on vampire things. Lord Vorniolax drained a dolphin. That was how he sustained himself underneath the water.

It's like Dracula, but instead of staying at like Dracula's castle, they're staying at a boat and they can't find any clues about Dracula. And then Dracula just walks away at the end over the water. I just can't get over the image of just like a stringy-haired Dracula emerging from the ocean. I've never seen before. After having never found any clues, you're just like, You don't know anything. You're just, and the guy just goes,

ha, ha, ha, my plan. All roads have led you to here. And they're just like, I don't know who you are, dude. I just want to fight. Vornilax chuckled. So you've never heard of Murpires before. He pulls up. He pulls a starfish off as he pull out.

Well, well, the youngest and most excited of you. I shall target you with a disintegrate spell. You can never know my secret that I can walk under water. All right. Well, this guy, I'm going to say it. His marriage isn't going to end well. I think they're going to get divorced. We could send them to a divorce.

Yeah. Why don't we save, let's save the fiancé here. Let's save the fiance. All right. We send you to annul the marriage. Nice. Yeah. We sent you to come to your senses.

Come to your senses, fiance. Yeah. Yeah. This dude is a shitty author. Right. And a mean friend. I think the brother-in-law is like, hey, you saw what we can get into. Yeah.

This might dissolve the wedding. Because I will say it would be like really weird if you're in a relationship with somebody. And then they like get into a, huge fight, like friendship-ending fight by them being like, whoa, kind of rough that you killed Connor here. He was pretty excited to play this guy. You're like, get the fucking way out. Such a red flag to be like planning a wedding and be like, yeah, and my, my fiancee just lost his best man. Yeah. Why? Also, there's going to be such a weird thing where he's going to promote someone else. And someone with this, I'm sorry, but this pattern of behavior says self-importance

to me, you know he's going to take the next guy out and be. be like, hey, I got big news. You're getting promoted. Derek, you're up, but tread carefully. Derek, I got to ask you. You got Connor in the wings. Yeah, I'm going to send you my rough draft. Derek, I need to relay a situation that happened to me to you and either you have my back

or you're out of the wedding party. And fair warning, this is a test. There's a right answer. Right. We're right or die, right, Derek. How do you feel about underwater vampires? Okay. So you're getting divorced.

Sorry to hear that. Dracula. Not the submitter. Submitter's not getting. You're cool. Yeah. You get to get new friends, which is awesome because this guy sucks. Okay, Drownkula.

Yes. Wow. Yes. Nice. We can write this book first. Yeah. We can beat him to the press. Hey, hell, the character's alive.

We can do whatever we want. That's wow. If that character had died, we wouldn't be able to do anything to survive the one shot. You would just be dead. He survived the one shot. Thank God they didn't find any clues. Those are clues for us. All right.

Emily, I'm putting up. my husband gloves so I can high five you. Yes. Yes. So ordered. Our next case comes from Jackson H, and it's a case of a potentially wrongful razzing. Oh, dear. Hello from Australia.

Hello. A bardic inspiration to the judges and a wisdom save to the bailiff for the vicious mockery. Roll it. Roll it. Wow. It's taken so far in the court proceedings. Well, you heard about the fickle-le-leaf fig deposit.

That's a sixth. Okay. And it's getting to me. And it's getting to me. To keep it brief-ish, many years ago, we were playing Curse of Strad. Wow, keeps on coming up. And Gloomstocker was hot off the press. So I multi-classed.

I multi-classed it with Fighter for ActionSurch. Cool. Now, Action Surge is a very complicated ability. Jake, please defend me on this. Okay. And wild shit was happening left and right in the initiative. Tensions were high. I took too long deciding whether or not to Action Surge.

And someone said something like, hurry up, snail. Laughter ensued. It stuck for years now. This has been my nickname. I now have snail tattoos. Our two rotating DMs have since had a baby together. And I'm the godfather, Uncle Snail. Aw.

Was I too slow? This really is, though. You got tattoos. You leaned in. This also really is, though, like, a classic, like, that's how you, this is, like, proto-frenship shit, where you just, like, show up with Cheetos one day, and everyone's like, all right, Cheeto.

Go, Cheeto. And then that's your name for my... Give me an orange dusty high five. Was I too slow or is action surge a complicated ability to someone? Okay, actually, no, let's try and look at this. I don't think it would take me time to decide whether or not. I just always forget to use it. It's definitely super easy.

It's the one thing you have to remember. It's kind of also you're like, as a fighter, it's your one trick. No one cares when you second wind. But hey, guys, let's slow things down a little bit. Let's approach... Caldow would say that, because, Caldos very slow and we order food. Oh, we've been making fun of them for it for years.

Murphy, promise. Yeah. You promised you wouldn't bring this up. It is true. No, but this is just built into being friends with people and like accepting that razzing. It is true that like whenever we order food, I take way too long because I, again, it's the same thing with action search. We're like, well, do I want to use it now or do I want to save it? If I use it now, I might be wasting it because it might be a time later on.

Everyone will eat a scaly and pancake, right? It is always that fucking scullion pancake cake. Why don't we call you Scallion Pancakes? No, we should call your Scallion Pancakes. Don't call me Scallion Blas. That's awesome. You already have the Scaliantcake tattoo. It works.

You do like Scallion pancakes. You can tell this crew is close to because, like, laughing really hard at just calling someone snail. It's like, the jokes have gone from, like, being, like, very dumb to, like, funny to dumb again. Like, it all goes around in the same. circle. It's really true.

I don't think, though, to answer your question, I don't think it's ever been a hard decision whether or not to use action surge. Maybe it has, but I don't know that it's ever taken time. I just know that I always am like, shit, I forgot I have action surge. Yeah. So that is, I don't think that's complicated. Right. No, it's not complicated.

I think the rousing is rightful. It's right for razzing. You're right to be called a snail. And frankly, you've leaned in. You've snail tattoos. You love it. You love it. Yeah.

What are we doing here? Well, we have to punish. Snail. We can't tell them to get a tattoo because they already have a tattoo. Well, they could get a tattoo of scalying pancakes. Oh, okay. That's not bad.

Or Ocean Dracula, Drowncula. Oh, yeah. Oh, because they would kind of have like little snail minions. Oh, maybe you should write Drowncula, but then send it to us and give us the rights. Oh, that's great. Yeah. All right. We can scoop this other person.

This is like really so unfair, though, because you are one of the most innocent cases we've ever got. That's true. But we do need you to write this. It's a red to rush up. We need to hurry up because... We need to draft yesterday. We got Keanu on the horn. To play the snail.

All right. In order to prove that you're not snail, you have to comment first on this, on this Patreon post. If you comment first and you are the first commenter on our Patreon, then you're cured of being the snail. All right. So everybody, check out the comments and see if Jackson H. said first. We're rooting for you, Jackson. Nobody comment.

Yeah. And gosh, it's going to be tough because Australia is on a very different time. Oh, yeah. Okay, no, no, no. We'll post this one at like, oh, shit, how does it work? Okay, if we post this one...

We're absolutely not basing this around when snail wakes up. Yeah, because who knows when snail even wakes up? You've got to be ready. You've got to be ready to go. You just got to be ready to know. Just to prove you're not snail. I have a feeling snail wakes up and really enjoys the warmth of the bed still.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Takes their time. It loves that shell. Probably reads the paper in the morning. Oh, man. Yeah.

Loves the time before everyone else is awake. Talks about that. It's good to be snail, honestly. Sounds great. Take your time, snail. Hey, everybody. It's Emily here to talk to you about Factor. God bless meal prep, but some weeks I just don't have time for that.

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So, head to FactorMeals.com slash Papa 50 off and use code Papa 50 off to get 50 off to get 50% off and free breakfast for a year. Offer only valid for new Factor customers with code in qualifying auto-renewing subscription purchase. Make healthier eating easy with Factor. Goodbye, sweeties. All right, so ordered our next case comes from Mira Palindrome to the Honorable Crit Justices and Jake the Rake. I submit for your judgment the case of modifier nullification. In a recent campaign, I played a swords barred paladin multi-class.

Shout out to Cali. With proficiency and expertise stacked, I was rocking something like a plus 13 to persuasion and insight. I mean, that's a bar, baby. Yeah, dude. Despite these big numbers, I rarely pushed to be the party face since it was a very roleplay heavy table and it did not make sense for me to dominate every social scene. Great. However, on the occasions, when I did step forward and rolled persuasion or insight checks,

proudly announcing a very silly 29 or 32, my DM would immediately ask what I rolled on the die. and then seem to base the outcome primarily on that number. Now, I fully acknowledge that DMing is hard. We should just all say that, at the start of every session. It's definitely hard. Definitely hard. And high levels plus expertise can absolutely lead to some wild totals.

I get the instinct. But I put it to the court. He never once asked the barbarian or the monk what they rolled on the die when they attacked with their own plus 12 or 13 modifiers. Oh, that makes a pretty good comparison. Because then the DM would have to improvise, which I really hate to do.

So I ask you, wise justices, is this modifier nullification fair table practice or am I justified in retaining a modest but flavorful amount of salt? Oh, you should eat salt. Keep that salt. There's this, I think when DMs hear these like numbers and I get there too, right, if somebody hits you with like a 32 when you're like a persuasion check to get like the guy to not fight you or something like that and you're like, oh, oh, I planned out this whole battle. You can, you don't have to be like they drop to their knees and join your size. Yeah. You can just

be like, they hesitate. Okay, you get advantage on your first attack. You see they, yeah, I don't know. There's just like a million ways to honor your high rules without throwing out all of your notes. Just give the person some kind of advantage and reward them for the fact that they built their character well in that way. Yeah. And it's like, maybe that like influences the battle as well. Like if they're hesitating, every once in a while, like maybe by the end of it, they like, you know, as opposed to them dying, they like, they do come around or like something like that. There's like, there's like ways to like work it into the story and like honor those roles even more. Also just like when you're a bard or a rogue, like that's your shit. It's like you're really good at skills. They give them

expertise because they want it to factor into the game. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I would think as a DM too, you sometimes don't want people to get completely sidetracked by like rolling a tan on a persuasion or something. Right. Like sometimes it is nice. Yeah, you should have like a scale in your head of like what to do if they succeed. What to do if they fail. What to do if they succeed by a lot. But yeah, it doesn't have to be, you know, you persuade somebody and they open every door for you and join your party. Just have it be like the gruff bartender who otherwise might fight you because he doesn't like you or something like that. Have him like instead grunt and nod his head towards like someone who is more helpful, like who you had planned for. them to interact with anyway. Yeah, yeah. And then skip that part of the fight where the bartender slugs you. I don't know. As someone who's mostly DMs for parties without much charisma or persuasion, it actually

is like, I feel the opposite, which is like sometimes I'm like, damn, I don't want to punish them here. Yeah. Yeah. What is a 13? Yeah. It made running strad so much easier that like, y'all had like a lot of charisma on your side. Oh, right.

Yeah. It was just like greasing every wheel. So like every time you guys had like an obstinate force, you could just be like, yeah, I don't know. I hit them up with like a 29 persuasion. Yeah. Great. We can get to the actual fight. Right.

Yeah. To like have commoners like attacking you every time you enter a store. Yeah. So it's kind of nice in some ways. Yeah. Yeah. It should be a gift because then it opens up more doors and it means you get to show more stuff. Right.

And as you can always be like this, you know, this person is unmovable from their position. Like a guard's not going to just walk away from his post or something. Right. Yeah. So like you can't. Like you can't. or something like that. You have some safety rails.

It's not like you can just, you know, convince people to walk off cliffs and stuff. Yeah. Like, it's not, you're not going to walk across the entire campaign. Yeah. I think when this happens, DM just needs to call timeout and just sit there and think of something. Instead of panicking and saying, what did you roll up? Yeah. I rolled an 18.

Well, it's not good enough. Yeah. It's still really high. Is it possible that the DM isn't even like panicking? It's more like they kind of resent the idea that some of their challenge. could be alleviated with persecution. I think that is, but I think that they're just thinking about it wrong. Yeah.

Because like we're saying, you can just have, just because you rolled a 30, just have the character react within their voice. What is, what is a great success mean to this character? Right. You know what I mean? Like, it's not like your greatest ally ever that will die for you. It's just somebody who's, you know, I don't know, like Jake was saying, it's a guard. and you convince the guards to like maybe that one guard stands down. Yeah.

Yeah, you're not changing the entire world. You're just changing a small part of it in a small way. Yeah. Yeah. So I think we just side with you so unequivocally. It's got to be a punishment for the DM. Certainly. Okay.

Okay. It's got to be done with Drankula, I think, right? Oh. I just don't trust this DM to do a pass at Drownkula. No, that's true. Yeah. That is true. I trust it.

I trust snails. with the droncula, but I don't trust this DM with it. What if we have this DM do a draft of dronculus, so we know what not to put in? Oh, okay. All right, so we have them do a decoy draft. So you write this, you try to get it into a publisher so that first DM gets distracted sues you.

Oh, that's good. And while you're caught up in the litigation, we patent our droncula. Oh, that's good. Some might say it's a fakerly fig. Yes, it's a fakerly fig. Get over here, man. That's my tattoo.

Okay, so you take the heat for us for droncula. Right. Cool. And then we'll change the name and we'll like just republish under a new name and new direction. Okay. All right. Perfect. So ordered.

Awquampires. Our next case comes from. Is it? Yes. Our next case comes from Namgork. Namgork writes. Hi, Namgork. My name is.

Hi. Everyone stopped flirting with Namgork. Hi, Namgork. Come on in. Emily just winked to NAMG. The house is a mess. I'm so sorry, NAMGOR. I extend a husband glove to NamGorke.

How are you doing, NAMGORC? Magnanimous judges, and I suppose Jake, Namgork. I bring you a doppelganger dilemma. Oh my God. Figgilik fig over here. Recently, I missed a session due to some work stuff. After the session, I received a text from the DM.

that read, by the way, you are now a doppelganger. Oh. Fast forward to last session. I played along, dropping hints that I wasn't me with my behavior while still attempting to meet the doppel's goals. Eventually, I successfully cornered the party really well. It was at this point that I had to leave, which was perfect because I didn't want to attack my friends.

I was okay messing with them, but I would hate to be responsible for a PC death, but I was. Later that night, I got a text from one of the players for whom this was their first session ever that read, you killed me. Judges. What is this DM? What are these DMs doing? Was I wrong for leaving and not controlling the doppel gang?

No. I feel responsible for this player's death and their potential future playing D&D. Okay. You have so much deniability in this crime. Also, I have to assume like you're not actually a doppelganger. It's like your body got taken somewhere

and this doppelganger is using your likeness. That's what it sounds. Oh, that's a good question. I was looking up how do you make a doppelganger now. Doppelganger. Yeah. You've been swapped with the doppelgamer. What a weird instinct as a DM to be like, this person's not here.

Time to target them. Well, I guess there's a version of this that is kind of cool. And it seems like this player was on board with it, which is like, hey, I've got a cool little idea. Like, your character was missing for a bit. And now they're coming back. So we don't know what happened to them. And I want you to play a doppelganger.

That's not what happened, though. They said right here, they texted and said, you're a doppelganger now. Right. Yeah. You're a doppelganger now. doppel game now. I mean, it's awesome. Imagine if you came back from paternity leave with Elder Morano, just like,

uh, Zerk is secretly a vampire now. I mean, that's awesome. Okay. Just one to one. I came back from my paternity leave. Oh, Calder killed Saul. Yeah, exactly. That's what it's like. Okay. Does Saul get to like come back as like a cyborg or something? No, dude, he's dead. Okay.

All right. Do I get to like have like a final scene where I like go to heaven? You missed the session. You're a murderer. I don't know what you didn't understand about my text. Some of these DMs are really just DMing for their own entertainment. Though when I say that, I don't resent that. I feel so weird. It feels very like, did you ever have like a friend's older brother or something?

Like while you're playing Nintendo just like tackle someone so they can't use the controller. And then like, yeah. Like they basically like beat you up while they're playing the game so that like you can't win. That's what this feels like. We're like literally the person doesn't have their hand on the controller. Yeah. Is everyone just trying to make their own dungeon crawler car now? Is everyone just like trying to like write a book?

And like they're just using like these players and sort of like there's a lot of springboard. Yeah. Like people have cool ideas and there's like got to got to force this. Yeah. And this person isn't here to have their character have agency. There has to be a middle ground. Like I respect anybody who's trying to write a book through, you know, all of the work you have to do in your DM. Yeah.

But like the book is allowed to go a different way. Just take your lore. Right? Can I also suggest I think it's unethical to write a book based off of other people's improvisation? Yeah, yeah. Like, you should be paying them because they're interacting with your world and giving you ideas. But I think if you're like, if you're like, I've designed this whole space world where like these cities float through the atmosphere or whatever like that. And then you run a game there, but then you write a book about that.

That's fine. But you can't be precious about. Can you tell me more about this world? That sounds pretty cool. Sure, yeah. So basically everyone, the earth has gone barren. Oh, no. Because of the moon exploding?

Because of the moon exploding. Right. To prevent likeanthropy. Yep. And then a bunch of people live on the pieces of the moon. Oh, you know what probably also happened, too, is like when the moon exploded, the tides rose rolling high and all these vampires washed ashore. Yeah. Oh, they've been sleeping underneath the waves for centuries.

Oh, they're sunken vampires. Yeah. Well, they got washed up. And so there's astronauts that are trying to kill the vampires. Not another astronauts versus vampires. Astronauts versus vampires is awesome. Okay, shit. This is awesome random millennial humor.

We goofed our way into a really valuable idea. Shit, man. I'd read it. Gosling's attached. My God, what if we got Robert Pattinson to play a vampire again? Wouldn't that be cool? He's coming out of vampire. Retirement.

Yeah, because he's done space with Mickey, whatever, the number of life. And then we're like, what if you played a vampire in space? We have Keanu's playing your pet snail. I don't know if this is such a good idea, Robert. He's just deep playing himself. Well, yeah, because it takes place in the real world timeline. And he got bitten by one of the deep vampires. Yeah, it's a mockumentary.

Oh, that's good. It's really good. It's a mockumentary about the making of vampires versus asthma. Yeah. Okay. Well, this is a golden idea. Yeah. I think that we need to sentence someone else to write this for us.

And we have John Krasinski in it and he's not funny anymore. Right. No. So it's just like interesting. Really uninteresting. He's just like lifting weights and you can see his calluses and they're really rough. Yeah. He's not wearing husband gloves.

No, you don't keep around without husband gloves. And he knows he. I'm weird to he puts the husband gloves on as soon as he's steps into the door. John, you better treat her right. I hope you're wearing husband gloves at home. I have a press pass. John, I had a question.

What brand of husband gloves are wearing, John? Do you treat Emily Blunt right by wearing husband gloves at home? A restraint. And what about the wife socks? Is she putting them on? Wait, what are wife socks? So you don't have cold feet? Yeah, you don't have cold feet in the bed.

Oh, that makes it. Yeah. That's nice. That's actually really good. I'd never do it, but okay. So what's the punishment? Or, right.

To write the documentary. Okay, to write the documentary. The Montzinski's on board, but he doesn't want to be funny anymore. Right. Doesn't want to be funny anymore. But like,

we will wear his brand of husband gloves in the film. So, like, that's going to be like a really good product placement. Because he is attached but detached. Okay. Okay, so order. Shall we do one more case? Yeah.

Blapel writes to the esteemed. Blaple, hi. Wow. Hi, Blaple. To the esteemed. Blaple, hi. Hi. Hi.

Stop flirting with Blappell. Nomboard was just leaving. Way too thirsty for Blaple. You came on so strong to Blapel. Blapel. To the esteemed justices and then just a bunch of blank spaces, that's fair. More wine blabble? I bring the case of Shagadelic scheduling.

Okay. For years. For years, I've been running an online campaign for a group of friends. They are all wonderful players who are super invested in my world, but due to our differing schedules and time zones, I've had to do a lot of rescheduling and rewriting around player absences throughout that time. Not groovy. When my players finally reached a major plot reveal and climactic battle, I'd been building towards for the past four years and 100 plus sessions, I took my only planned hiatus from DMing since I needed more time to plan the final parts of the campaign. Cool.

I assumed that everyone would appreciate a break from having to jump through scheduling hoops and also maybe some time to consider how their characters would react to the recent huge story developments, including the sudden death of a party member. Judges, I was sorely mistaken. After I announced there would be no sessions for a bit, my players continued to convene at the regular time for not one, not two, but three consecutive weeks. A fee I had only managed to successfully schedule a handful of times. Oh.

The reason for doing it. so were of course so they could watch all three Austin Powers movie together, which they did. Justices, am I right for being a little offended that the international man of mystery is a better schedule, is a better schedule clearing motivation for my actual campaign? Or do I need to accept that my DMing simply isn't shagadal as enough? As someone, as someone who has kind of a fresh perspective because I watched it as an adult, I think that Austin Powers requires. less of you to show up. It's a shorter time commitment than playing D&D.

And you can show up and kind of tune in when you feel like it and check out when fat busters on the time. I also think there's there's a chance that it just lined up three weeks. You know what I mean? Like it's definitely annoying, but you can't really be like just because I'm taking a hiatus, people can't hang out anymore. It's frustrating. I get it.

No, I do understand that as frustrated. It's frustrating. It's funny because it's like, it seems innocuous, but it is hard not to notice. I know. I know. What, like, did they invite the DM to watch with them? It's not that big of a time commitment. Like, you could certainly work it in amongst your prepping.

I'm going to assume the DM was invited for this. Yes. Yeah. Okay, there you go. As long as the DM was invited to enjoy in the Shagododelic times. But don't you guys feel like, though, like if someone texted you and was like, it's like, let's say it's Thursday. Right. Thursday's the end of the week.

You're starting, you're really losing steam. Uh, and someone's like, do you want to come over? we're going to watch a movie tonight, you're like, I'm beat, but I could get through a movie. But if someone was like, do you want to come over and play D&D, you might be like, I'm kind of a little too beat to be like thinking on the top of my head and like strategizing. I think I also like, if it's a long running D&D thing where it's just like, hey, every week for the next year, I think in my head I kind of know like, okay, well, I can't make every single one. Yeah.

But if someone is like, okay, every week for the next three weeks, we're watching Austin Powers. I'm like, okay, I can plan three weeks ahead. It's also, they're playing online. So I have to imagine they're using some sort of app to like all watch together from the comfort of the wrong homes. Wait, are you sure? They're doing it from them. I thought they said it was an online campaign.

Online campaign. Yeah. Pretty low commitment because it's just like, you could be doing something else. You're doing your laundry. I'm thinking people are just busy. That's rude to Austin, but you could. I think we're associating D&D with work

because it is our work. No, no, but I'm saying like, but like, don't you think about like there are sometimes a movie is always the easiest thing for me to say yes to because if I had a long, like, trying day, then I can show up. and be quiet. Sure.

Yeah. Especially if it's for mini me. Especially if it's for mini me. Right. If anything, you should be honored by this because your players are seeking desperately

to fill the hold that your story has left. Yeah. And the closest thing they can find is Austin. Yeah, I wouldn't say that your campaigns aren't shagodelic.

I would say that they're shagadelic enough that, yeah, for them to replace the time, they're like, we need the most shagadelic hero of all, Austin Powers.

That's really true. That's really true. They're just trying to get their mojo back. I would get in my head about this too. I would get in my head about it, but I do think that in all likelihood, it's just these three weeks lined up. And that, you know, rarely ever happens.

But I have to assume that's what happened here. Yeah. If they move on to the prequel's movies after this, maybe something's up. Yes, yes. Right. But yeah, it's an easy commitment to just be like, yeah, it's just a movie.

I was going to watch Austin Powers. That's true. You might have an hour and a half. Am I the only one who thinks that it's easier to show up to a two-hour movie than like a four-hour D&D session? Oh, no. Totally. After a long day. I agree with you as far as time.

But I think if I didn't play D&D all the time for work and was just showing up to play, I don't think it would be a huge lift to just go play. Yeah. I think I would just, you know, give what I had. But you're right. If it is like four hours, then people might not have four hours, but maybe they have an hour and a half. Right. Yeah. I mean, you could end your campaign in like Austin Powers World.

Is that crazy? Totally. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Well, you said that there was just 1970. Right. You said there was a big story reveal that they just got to.

So like, I imagine that's what the reveal was. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sudden death of a part. They were killed by a lot of vagina.

Ah. Deep pull. Thank you. All right. So who do we side with your, because I'm. Obviously, we sympathize with you. Yeah. But I do understand it is possible that these three weeks just lined up and also it lined up just because

two hours as much easier to give than your court. I don't think I could blame the players. I don't think I can blame the players. So I think we should just sentence you, the submitter, to just not take it personally. Oh, that's nice. Or enjoy the Austin Powers trilogy. Oh, it's meant to be enjoyed. Three to one.

Oh, that's good. Yeah. You have to watch it Axford style. Right. You think you watched it, but you actually haven't. You will feel the loss of mini-me. It's going to take you six weeks to watch Austin Powers the right way. You did one, two, three, now you have to do three, two, one.

Watching it three, two, one did completely affect the way Emily felt about the first one, because, like she said, she really misses mini-me in it. Right, too. The first one, I guess, I feel like maybe the second one is the one that I like the best. The first and the second one are both really funny. I think the second one was the funny. Right. Because that's where they really get into this weird mini-mey thing.

Yeah. And they have the rap parody. Yeah. It's like, yeah, I guess they figure out that like Dr. Evil's actually the funniest not awesome hours in the second one. Yeah.

That's definitely true. Yeah. And the third one's not very good. Although Dr. Evil's very funny in it. Yeah, he's still funny. Yeah. But it's interesting that you kept watching after watching like gold member and

Fat Bastard both time. Although there's fat bastard in the third one. I think he shows up. I don't remember. Yeah. I think he's in the series. He's primarily second. Primarily second one.

All right. We're getting lost to. We obviously have to watch it again. Yeah. Clearly. We're getting lost in Austin. We're getting lost in there. Lost in the loss.

Very good. That's really good. All right. So watch the movies at Axford style. Okay. There you go. Watch a maxford style. And then, hey, slip a little reference to Austin into the rest of your campaign.

Just so you know that everything's cool with your players. Maybe you just give someone a mojo feet. There you. Oh, there you go. That's good. Okay. Shall we step into church? How would a mojo feet work?

You roll a certain charisma score or something like that. Oh, maybe you get like a bonus to it. Oh, maybe you can like add your charisma to attacks. Oh, that's cool. That's really cool. That's really cool. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah, we sentence you to make this feat and then give it to us because I would use it. This confession is from Shears. Forgive me, O Deacons of the Dice, as I have committed the most grave of sins. Whoa. Underestimating my players' word game skills. Ooh. I was DMing a mini campaign where my players are firefighters protecting a magical forest. Oh, cool.

That's so cute. Love that. And MPC had alluded to a secret chamber hidden in the fire station. One successful investigation check later and my players discovered a hidden wall with a five by six grid of squares on it with a keyboard underneath. My intention was for the players to figure out a hidden code word through playing a game of wordal. This was a few years ago during the height of the wordal craze. And all of them were avid wordal players. To match the firefighting theme, the hidden word was flame. To my dismay, the first word they tried was flame. Oh my God.

They are firefighters. This is giving Bown or chicken. It is. I panicked and quickly changed the word to Ember. The players solved the word all after a few attempts and all was well. But Deacons, I can't help but think solving the puzzle on the first blind try would have been a fun, authentic moment for my players. And I stole that by pivoting to a different word.

Yeah. Deacons, I humbly seek your forgiveness and the forgiveness of our dice overlord. Wow. So forgiven. I think it's sweet that you even know that I would have been more fun if you just let them, like, take that double. Yeah.

I will say this is better than a lot of cases where a lot of times people have written in and been like, they made us play Magic the Gathering in the middle of our Dungeons to Dragons game and no one knew how to play. That's okay. This is like the rare exception where it's like everyone here likes a wordle. It's a very simple game. So they're going to do this puzzle. I think this is like well implemented. If they're power wordle players and they're playing all the time, maybe they don't want the answer to be. Yeah.

They really might have wanted to actually play. Yeah. Yeah. You did the right thing, which was don't admit it to your players and just. tell us. Yeah. Otherwise, take it to your gray.

Your secret. You'll eat your sin. I have a confession. I've never played word all. Yeah. Oh, really? That's fun. Is it like scrable,

but you just play by yourself? You're like guessing the word and then like every time you guess a correct. It's almost like hangman kind of right. Yeah, you like guess a word and it like highlights either gray if the letter is not in the word at all. Yellow if it's in the word but not in the right place. I don't mean if it's in the right place.

Well, I don't think it sounds for me. Yeah. It's a fun little game. It's kind of addicting. I've only ever, I've only ever. I never cheated.

Yeah. So the best way to be world is you do, I would write something like plate and it would be like gray, gray, yellow, gray, gray. And I'd be like, well, I'm not going to figure this out. Sure. You just Google it. I prefer the Donkey Kong country game. Oh, yeah. I prefer for Haiti.

Yeah. I think that I would agree with Emily. Like, I like Haiti's better than that game. Yeah. It would be cool if like in a future Final Fantasy game, like when you do your limit break, you just have to solve a word. I'm going to say it. I like Final Fantasy better, too. Yeah, I like Final Fantasy better than the idea that you guys are going to go on the New York

times game section just comment on every wordal puzzle. I also just feel like the hangman game is like a really fun game like with other people in the room and the idea of playing it by myself. Yeah. Sounds like I would wish I had a substitute for a long time when like my family was all into wordle, we would like, or like you could share your score. So like I got it in three. I got it in four and people would send them. But we realized at a certain point that our group chat was completely dead. There was no conversation. It was just scores different wordals. And we're like, this is not. We're not talking to each other.

Guys, they have great news. Apparently, the New York Times now host Final Fantasy 14 a Realm reborn. Holy shit. Yeah, that's cool. So we all just play it on there. So you don't have to play Wordle anymore. Rortals should have Sephiroth in it. I've been saying that.

He kills you if you don't solve it in time. What kind of weapons do you get in Wurdle? You can guess the word sword because it's five letters. Okay. That's pretty sweet. I would often guess swore. Yeah. That's a good pivot to get to Ember. Yeah.

Good pivot to Ember. It's true. Yeah. Probably should have guessed that they would guess flame pretty quick. Yeah. No, I wouldn't have thought that. Yeah. Can I just say, though, this was a textbook confession.

Really great. Yeah, this is a solid down-the-middle confession. Thanks for that. Yeah, I think you've already lived through your punishment because I agree with you that as someone who's fucked up in major ways and had my players instantly figure out a puzzle, it's pretty funny when it happens. Yeah. And everyone has a good laugh.

Your language of like, I robbed them of this, it's like, okay, but also you've given them so much. Yeah, you also, you gave them a fun puzzle. So, like, you decided to pivot at the last second and be like, uh-oh, this wasn't actually a challenge. I don't have enough planned for the rest of the session. It does kind of depend on what you, like, your notes there, right? You're sitting there being like, what-oh, this is supposed to take 10 minutes or whatever.

Yeah, yeah. We're all going to have to go hold up for this. But ultimately, I think your instinct is correct, which is that you probably should have just let it run. And I think it would have been funny. Yeah. And, um, I think I'd rather play past the pigs than, um, Oh yeah. Pass the pigs.

What's past the pigs? It's where you roll pigs that are dice. Okay. It's one of my favorite pastimes. Yeah. Wow. Okay. So you roll the pigs that are dice. The pigs are dice.

Continue. Each way the pigs land is associated with a point value. Yeah. Or if they land with like one dot and one blank, it's a pig out, your points go to zero. Yeah. And you have to pass the pigs. At any point, you can lock in, you know, okay, that's two trotting pigs. That's worth 10.

You just don't want to get a pig out. Yeah. That's a roders. That's a five. All right. This sounds better than final fan. than whartle. Yeah.

You know, I would say there are moments that I would prefer. Yeah. All right. So I'll say play some past the pigs and then you're forgiven. Perfect. Yeah. Play one round of past the pigs. Yeah.

Watch us empowers, Axford style and you're forgiven. Okay. And with that. Write droncula. Yeah. You don't have to write droncula necessarily, but you have to read it. You have to prove it.

Yeah. Oh, snail is going to write droncula and then you can prove it. Yeah. If here's the good news, snail is never. You're going to finish it. Never going to finish it. Nails is still now. Too slow. Snail.

All right. With that, we're going to go ahead and wrap this one up. Thank you all so much for listening. We'll have some bonus cases over on our Patreon. Patreon. Patreon. Notepo. N-A-D-P-O-D-D-O-D-D-O-D-D-O-D-Sing.

We've got some stuff to plug. Hey, next week, next week. Yeah. There we all. Gangs of Mio-Galera on. Gangs and Neil Galena later on. We've recorded some episodes. It's really fun.

We love it. We'll be on the lookout for that. We didn't mess up. We didn't mess up. We've got our Radio City show coming up. April 10th in New York City. Come see us there with Zach Oyama. We got the band Boobes.

We've got the Hot Boys of Summer. My man. The Bon Frayers. Get those tickets at madpod.com. Live. Anyone else have anything else? We are. We are.

All right. Any follow us on social media. The room. At C. I was going to talk I was going to talk I'm actually identity

and enjoy dung Dungeon Dunjinn Dunjinn Dunjinn Dunjinn Dunjinn

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Dunjin Dunjim Dumb Dunjim Ah Would you look at that it's time to thank our benevolent Council of Elders

and they are Brad D. Jeffrey S. Lord of the Fjord. Later, Mick Skater, Matt M, Cutter W, Olivia A, Daniel G, Danielle the Dastardly Dame, Carpe Liam, Victor T, Balnor's boy, Hoyt's friend, Justin I, Danny Danster, T.J. M, Haley, the Cray Faye, D. Rohee, Now you have to say it. Jordan L. Cyborg version of Josh the Cobald, Stevie Wags. Hellish rebuquer, the NBDM, Ph.D. Jack L. Nicholas C.

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lobbying for another Atlanta show, Mr. Adams, James F. Wayfarer now has to do something with the trolls. Get rid of them. Turn to page 42. Keep them turn to page 69. Soft lose, uncertain hand. Oreo, city name. Barpo Good Barbarbar Baird. Charlie Brown's best friend. Renee, the monster captain. Olivia, the enchanting bard and Jared the soap opera cleric who are prepping an epic playlist for the final battle. Blue A. Fico. J. K. Guard. The sugar bomb fairies are out caroling. Happy Hoglet. Cantrip Dumbledore, the bear onesie wearing barbarian, Lexi H, MJ the BFG, Roger L, No Drag, the pacifist barbarian, goose toes, John Luca, Leon K, legendary hero of Bohumia from a future campaign, shenanigans O'Connor, Joshua S, Lens W, Sky the Y, the Spud fucker himself, Johnny Dude K, the mischief of Nadpods Familiers, Papu Escanor, the Gliath Paladin providing service with a small. mile. Jakewell Murphily, Tim M., Dragon Knight, 86, Richard, Scrungle, the main event,

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Toxic Ghost, Daniel M.C. Chris A. is super stoked to see you all at Radio City. Us too. Angie H. Melissa A. And of course, without porpoise. Thank you, everybody. That was a headgum podcast. Hey, everyone. This is Natalie.

And this is Charlie. We're from the podcast Exploration Live. It's really funny. It's really, really good. It's really, really very good. And now we have a YouTube. channel to go with it. That's exactly right, Natalie. You can watch full video episodes of our podcast Exploration Live at YouTube.com slash Exploration Live podcast. That means that in addition to the audio component, you're also getting a video component. Exactly. Where you're seeing our reactions,

what kind of clothes we're wearing. You know, and there's a whole suite of dynamics and physical expressions that you can really only get from a full video. Body language experts to the front. Exactly. So come check out X-person Live, either audio or video.