Not Another D&D Podcast - D&D Court: Monkey Paws and Ballin' DMs

Episode Date: July 24, 2025

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!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 Axford, Tanner, and of course, stop, you're all gonna get demoted. Loley, loley, bailiff. Jake Hurwitz, he's only too lowly. He can't demote all of us, he can't demote all of us. Because I would like to demote you guys, so by comparison, Jake is only a little bit lowly. Guys, you stay fucking firm, he can't demote all of us. Okay, you be shocked. That's true, wait a second, if we all banded together,

we could demote Murph. Interesting. You guys don't have the fucking guts. You don't have the guts. I would never, I would never, Brian. Okay, apparently we don't. Maybe if we demoted him. You don't have the numbers.

Guys, we could have cake all the time for every meal. Oh my God. Have you ever considered it? Incredible. You guys are always recusing yourself and stuff. You fall apart. Speaking of us, hear ye, hear ye, Crit is now in session, the honorable supreme Crit,

Justices Axford, Murphy, and Tanner presiding. Stop. Dun Dun. Our first case comes from Uncanny, or should I say Dun Duncanny? Duncancanny, that's a good name for a bad book. To the ever divine Justices and the ever dependable bailiff, I bring you the case of the wasted wish.

I've been a part of an online campaign for almost two years now, playing an Aladdin rogue wizard. My character was part of the thieves guild and stole a book that was actually some sort of prison for an ancient black dragon. I freaking love book thieves. Book theft. Even though in my real life, I use. Yeah. I freaking love book thieves. Book theft. Even though in my real life I use Libby.

I love book jails. I would never thief a book in real life. You'd never take a book from Barnes and Noble. Never! Because you never know if it's gonna be a book jail. You never know if one of Atrus' rotten sons from Myst is gonna be in there. We did read that.

We read the Myst book together. This is an 8-bit book club deep cut and you guys let me fucking scry on that. Caldwell, Caldwell, all of 8-bit book club has been, like, I had a hard drive reformat. It's all gone. Except for Wendy Koopa's feet. So hot, Jake. And Sonic's feet. I guess, yeah, I'm the sin eater here I just absorbed all of the 8-bit book club knowledge still in there anyway. Okay, we got distracted by how much I love your character Let's go back to this Aladdin book. Yeah, okay. No actually though because I know I just remember didn't wasn't You said one of a Tris's shit songs wasn't a Tris I do remember a Tris. I thought wasn't therus the shit son? Oh, I do remember Atrus. Is Atrus the, I don't know.

Wasn't the dad something with a G? Oh shit. Yeah, okay. We'll just say Caldwell forgets too, okay? So Caldwell had his hard drive mostly wiped. He's only. I can't believe this. After the dun duns, you're hitting me with this, man. There's some guy with a G that is the dad.

Anyway, Jake, go on. What was this podcast? Hey. This is why you're a guest. It was on my network? Yeah. Sort of. It was, didn't perform well. It definitely, you wouldn't have clocked it.

Dude, no, all right. I think Atrus is the main character. He has two shit sons, but Gin is Atrus' dad, who is a shit dad. And he's a shit dad. He's a shit dad. Okay, great. Atrus has shit sons.

Okay, you're both right. Cool. I would love to guest on this show again. All right. My character was now cursed and couldn't get rid of the book without getting an aneurysm. So specific.

Yeah, there really is. So he did what the book asked while looking for a way to cut ties to said book. At some point, the DM put a deck of many things in front of us through a bag of holding, which was stolen by the DMPC. I drew one card, one card only, and I got the moon card. I then rolled a three for the amount of wishes. I used the first two wishes for the party, but I used the third wish to end my curse. The DM made me roll the percentile

die three times and asked me to call high or low before my curse. The DM made me roll the percentile die three times and asked me to call high or low before each roll. I only got one roll right and my character instantly died. The DM said that my wish did cut my connection to the book, but there were quote side effects that ended up hurting me. The damage was so high, it killed me outright. Judges, I ask, shouldn't a wish just give me what I want without having to roll for it and without killing me?

Or was I asking for too much? May I ask the DMs, deck of many things, moon card, what is this percentile rule? I do believe with any kind of wish, you could do like a monkey's paw thing kind of and have it have like a bigger effect. One would argue and I would be the one that argues that this was anti-climactic and sucked and your DM is bad.

That's the name of your biography. Yeah. The one that argues. So I guess- One would argue and I'm the one who argues. That is a picture of me. It's just, I'm doing what every standup does. It's just me with a glass of whiskey at a bar alone. Or it's just you and like a black turtleneck with arms crossed and it says the one that argues

It's really good That's really awesome The book of atris 2 Turns out a third shit son named Murph. May we consult the deck of many things? The book of ages. May we? No! Okay, okay.

We need nothing from the book of ages. Okay, so I'm looking at the deck of many things. The moon card says you're granted the ability to cast the wish spell 1d3 times. Okay. So it's good, yeah. Yeah, this person rolled 1d3, got three. Okay.

I think that also, so rules is written. I do think the wish spell says that it's at the DM's discretion. Yeah. There are some things you can do just without having to roll for it at all. But I do think maybe this DM wanted to add more of a challenge to it, which I guess is like technically within their right. But also like a wish spell is such a rare thing that I would feel inclined to just give

that to the player. Do we think in the moment the DM was like, I had freaking plans for that book. Maybe, yeah. And you took them from me. So I'm taking your character from you. Yeah, just- Was it revenge? Doing this really anti-climatically, I think the DM thought they were being a hard ass

in like a cool way and it just wasn't cool at all. You know what I mean? Yeah. I don't know, just- Wait, what if, okay, okay. If you wanted to have a monkey's paw with this wish, if you were like, I'm the DM, shit, I have plans for this book. I want it to be involved.

If they say I want it to sever ties to me, I want to sever my ties to that book, couldn't you be like, and it attaches to another party member. Yes, totally, totally. That would be an actual monkey's paw. That would be like an interesting thing. This is a monkey's ass.

Yeah, or it could be like, maybe it's something powerful and the bad guy gets it. So the bad guy is cursed, but maybe the bad guy doesn't care that they're cursed because they're bad. Yeah. Yeah, there's a million ways that you could have done this that would have been fun.

And when I've had you guys pull from the deck of many things, I've had this card pulled out. Like this is not one that you guys can get. Really? Yeah, cause I'm not gonna let you guys get three wish spells. It's fucking ridiculous. It's just the situation where like the DM has to like put kind of regulation on it.

If you can't handle it, just don't do it. I gotta be honest. If we had pulled in the time when we encountered the Deck of Many Things, if we had gotten wish spells, we would have wasted them. Certainly, yeah. I guarantee. Yeah.

They would have been so dumb. Moonshine would have been like, I wish for three horses. Yeah. Y'all, we got horses now. Oh, Beverly would have had the best beard ever. You guys think that, but there's, I feel like weirdly, and I know you guys did some nuts stuff

in the beginning of campaign one, but you weirdly, when you're a newer player, you are kind of on better behavior. You guys might have been like, you know. I would have been like, I wish Crick Rock was gone. Yes, exactly. And it would have just undone the saga. Yeah, true're right. I would have been like, I wish Crick Rot gone. Yes, exactly. And it would have just undone the saga. Yeah, true, true.

We definitely would have all decided to waste one wish. I think, collectively, we would have been like, we get one freebie, right? Yeah, if you guys had three, you guys would have one dumb one that you'd wish for Crick Rot to be gone. And then you'd wish for- The genie to be free, off of a weapon style.

Yes, exactly. We've gotta do the Aladdin wish. There's no genie, but we would wish for the genie to be free. Yes, exactly. We've got to do the Aladdin wish. There's no genie, but we would wish for the genie to be free. Yeah. I think I might've pulled, I think I might've pulled one really bad one as well. I think I left in the one where you guys could

get turned into a gem. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. You like captured away. I remember that was there. But there was like another, obviously I didn't just pull a good one. And there was one bad one I think I took out. I've been like scanning through the wish spell

and it's pretty lengthy. There's a lot of stipulations. There are like some like actual concrete things you can give them, which is like 25,000 GP. You can allow 20 creatures that you can see to all regain hit points. You can end effects on them, describe the greater restoration spell,

grant up to 10 creatures. You can see resistance to a damage. Yeah, there's like six or seven things that are just like concrete. Yeah, these are allowed. These are just awesome things that can happen. Anything else is at the DM's discretion. Yes, but when they talk about the DM's discretion, it is kind of in the terms of a monkey's paw, like you were saying.

I think the example they gave us like wishing that a villain were dead might propel you forward in time to a period when the villain is no longer. Yes, exactly. That's so much more fun to me than just like making them roll kind of a divine intervention dice or something like that. Yeah. Definitely.

I think I would say if you ever wanna do a monkey's paw wish, it should never be, yeah, your wish happens and you die. And you die, dude. And now this is over. Yeah. Cause the monkey's paw should continue the story in an interesting way. Yeah, the monkey's paw should continue the story in an interesting way.

Yeah, the monkey's paw should be like, and here's the burden of your good fortune. A sudden death can be interesting if everyone's prepared for that, right? Like if you guys are going into the Tomb of Horrors or something like that, you guys know, okay, this is from like a really old edition. We know this is a scary place.

Any door could have a trap and then someone dies in the trap. That's scary and that's fun. And everyone's like elected to be part of that. If you guys just walked into like a random tavern in one of the campaigns and someone was just like, a random dude comes out and stabs you with a javelin in the back of your head, he crit, you're dead.

You just be like, what the fuck? It's not cool, it's not interesting, it's not anything. I feel like the table probably said, after the DM said, and you die, I feel like the first thing said was, wait, really? Yes, if the answer that you're, if your player says wait, really, after you did something to them,

that should be like a huge deal, you did a bad job. Yeah. And honestly, it's totally fine to admit that you did a bad job and just take a beat. Have a snack break and like talk with your players about like what would be better. I don't know. You're allowed to say, you're right, that's crazy.

Yeah. Yeah. You're right. I did a bad job. Hit him with the JK. Normalize saying oops as DM. Yeah. The genie laughs and said,

wouldn't that be crazy if that happened? Anyway, what's your real wish? I actually think that there's a lot of situations though where you would say wait really to a DM and it would actually be a good thing. So I think it's not because it could also be like, and all along it was your mother. Wait really?

Wait really? Wait, really? Yeah. So there are actually really good. The context of the wait, really is if it's wait, really? It's a tone read. Yeah. Wait, really?

It's bad. Wait, really? Yeah, that's good, that's good. Wait, really? Yeah, okay, that was a little confusing. That was a lot of good. Wait, wait, wait, wait, really? That one.

That one I'm worried about your health. That one I don't know. That one I'm like, time out. I think that this session needs to take a little break. No, I can keep going. Okay, so. I set the genie free. Obviously we're on the player side here. Yeah. The DM could have done

a monkey's paw thing, but instead did a bad thing. Yeah, okay, so I think we have to sentence them. I think that we should sentence them to read whatever the Mist book was that I can't remember. I think the Mist book was pretty good though. It was fun. Weirdly, I do think I remember being one of the better ones. Can we sentence them to finish Riven for me?

Cause I never finished it and I just don't know if I have the time. Okay. That'd be great. That'd be really helpful. Yeah, if they could just like do like a Riven playthrough, private Riven playthrough for me would be fantastic. Cause like the puzzles are tricky and like I'm always playing it at night on my iPad

and like I just can't see my notes very well is the problem. Okay, okay. So maybe they could also just shine a light on your notes for you. The DM has to do our homework. Yeah, they'll just be your flashlight. Yeah, they could be like, instead of a poison taster for a king,

a light shiner for a hardworking dad. My puzzle helper, yes. Hey, Suze, I hope it's okay. I've hired this puzzle helper because I'm real stuck in rooming. I've got a puzzle page now. Yeah, and there will be a live-in puzzle page. Are you cool with that, Caldwell?

I think so, yeah, yeah. Okay, sweet. We can adjust the shopping for sure. They need lodging and also food as well. Okay, yeah, just send me your dietary restrictions and I'll clear out some space. You can sleep in the basements, perfect. What about this?

Since they went so against the monkey's paw thing and did such not a good job with the wish spell, they should get a reverse Aladdin wish so we trap them in a lamp and they can't come out. Oh, wait. A Jafar. Yeah, they get J Oh Jafar yeah, they get Jafar. Yeah Yeah, but how who's gonna shine a light on? Caldwell's notes. Well, look and hold the lamp the lamp is a light. Oh, it's a lantern. Wow

Yeah, be very careful not to rub it ever. Yeah, don't rub it because then Jafar will come out Jafar is in there as well. Oh, and Jafar's nasty. They're roommates. Yeah, don't rub it, because then Jafar will come out. Jafar is in there as well. Oh, fuck. And Jafar's nasty. They're roommates. Yeah, they're roommates. You have to be roommates with Jafar. Inside a lamp, we got there.

Inside a lamp. We absolutely got there. Inside a lamp that illuminates Call Girl's puzzles. Yeah, that's the only light of day you see is Call Girl's puzzles on his iPad. And your only hope for Exodus is if he accidentally rubs it. And he's so tired and cranky. You could hear like a little wine coming from the room

as one of his children is crying. And he just goes like, oh, my puzzles. I have to wait. And I have to be very careful not to say, I wish I knew how to solve this puzzle. Cause like, boom, they're going to seize that opportunity. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I gotta be careful with my language. Cause I need this light and I do not need a genie. Okay. So Jafar. So Jafar. Our next case comes from Cass M. Cass writes, honorable justices and Mr. Crabster himself. Oh, pinch pinch. I bring to you the case of the armored wizard

versus the DM. I play a blade singer wizard in my good friends campaign. In our recent game, we fought an Aboleth that has the ability to charm creatures. Our DM was able to charm me, and the Aboleth commanded me to drop my Bladesong, Mage Armor, and my concentration on Haste that I had on our monk.

It took a couple of rounds of combat to get all of those effects up, and it feels wild that this beast would know exactly what magic I had active. Am I being the salty wizard, or is this worth bringing up? Is my DM just pissed I can get my AC to 21? Yes, well, the answer is definitely yes, that they are mad that you can get your AC to 21.

I would say they would know your buffs. Yeah, Mage Armor is visible. Okay, the only thing I would say is that it takes an action to dismiss Mage Armor. So like, I don't think that you could have- Can you break concentration just willingly? So you could do those two things in one turn, right? Yeah, okay, yeah, cause you could, yeah.

What is that? What were all of the things that got dropped? There was mage armor, there was concentration on haste. Yeah, blades on mage armor and concentration on haste that they had on the monk. I don't know anything about blades song, but dropping concentration on haste and stuff. It's monk. I don't know anything about Blade Song, but dropping concentration on haste and stuff, it's just gotta do with the rules, right?

So it doesn't really matter what would happen, quote, in real life if someone like jumped in your brain. But I do think if you jumped into someone's brain and they were concentrating on something, you could think of something else. I don't think that's that hard to figure out. Yeah, if they're charmed, you can definitely just like throw them off the mental shit.

Yeah, exactly. You break concentration from like getting punched You know, you'd like getting your concentration broken when someone else was like directing your thoughts You just insert a Riven puzzle into their brain and then they're focusing on that and they like lose all concentration after that Okay, unfortunately, this is buttoned up. I looked it up. You can dismiss blade song at any time No action required takes an action to dismiss Mage Armor, but that's fine, you have one, and then breaking concentration,

I don't think requires any kind of action. I feel like charming someone and just being like, just drop all your stuff is not nuts to me. Is it worth discussing the fact that this does suck? Like it absolutely sucks for the player. Yeah, but sometimes you take this stuff as a compliment. You're like, oh, I got my DM. Like they're scared of me.

That is true. That's a good thing. Your DM is pulling out all the stops. If this is like a big fight and they're swinging for the fences, I think that's cool. I think like one time, however, if this becomes something that everything you fight does, then that could be annoying. But I feel

like if it's one time, they're just like, cool. It is fun when DMs create like, we know that this party has this one powerful ability here and like creates encounters to target, oh, this, I'm going to try and neutralize this powerful ability that the party likes. I'm going to go after this powerful party, you know, and they're going to have to get created. And it's, I'm going to bring something up. Okay. Oh, okay. So actually I'm gonna go after this powerful party, you know? And they're gonna have to get creative. I'm gonna bring something up. Okay. Okay, so actually I'm looking at the Charmed condition and the Charmed condition is pretty vague.

It's just, it's not the same as like a Dominate Beast or something, it is just like you have advantage on ability checks and the Charmed creature can attack you. That being said, looking at the Abolith, it does say that the Charmed target is under the Abolith's control. Yes. And the Abolith, it does say that the Charm's target is under the Abolith's control. And the Abolith can communicate telepathically with each other over any distance. Yeah, I do think this is pretty buttoned up. I think this is Abolith specific. This is one of their things. They get inside people's heads. Yeah, they can communicate telepathically and stuff. I think

it would be one thing if it was just like, they're in your mind for one round, they know all of your deepest secrets and everything you've ever done or something. That would be nuts and like a little bit of a game breaking thing, but just to be like, whatever you're physically doing right now, they disrupt it. That's not crazy at all. I think it's not crazy.

Also, especially like, I was like, well, maybe if there's, cause some things it's like to drop certain things. It requires a bonus action or requires an action, because some things it's like to drop certain things, it requires a bonus action, it requires an action, but I think it's all above the board. And I also think that like, again, as long as this isn't happening every fight, something like this is always a chance to be like,

oh no, I'm usually the strong one in the group, but I'm the weak one. And I have to like, the rest of the party has to kind of look out for me. And this is like a huge like moment of confusion and growth. Yeah, it's a good way to like shift the dynamic and also you are still a wizard so you've got spells it's not like you're like totally out of the battle. Yeah, you just have to run like a coward and throw some fireballs like the rest of us. You have to do whatever you have to do

everyone's favorite cowardly move and ask the DM is there cover? Wait, really? Although technically you're under the control of the Apples, so probably the fireballs were then getting thrown at your party. But still, I don't know, it's more fun for me, role playing, getting control taken of me than just like losing a turn. Yeah, it's fun getting to be the bad guy for a little bit. Yeah, this to me feels pretty buttoned up.

I think the bad guy would know just the bare minimum of the stuff that you're doing right in front of them and would probably see like the spectral shoulder pads that you have on with your mage armor and could just un-concentrate from stuff. I think unfortunately, I am gonna side with the DM here. And I'm gonna suggest maybe that your punishment is that you need to-

You gotta go in the lamp. Oh, I was gonna say just, well, no, I think you don't need to go in the lamp, but another puzzle page for Caldwell. What about visit the lamp? Visit the lamp? Oh, you know what? You could be on rub duty.

So Caldwell might rub the lamp. But you have to make sure- So you swat Caldwell's hand away. So you guard the lamp from being rubbed. I'll be so distracted. I'll be like, it looks like there's a little inscription on the side of this lamp. Yeah, we don't need another return of Jafar situation.

You have your little fly swatter to keep Caldwell on my path. Thank you so much. That's great. Just a little quieter though, my children are so. We'll get you the fly swatter. Yeah. It is electrified. All right. That's pretty buttoned up. Yeah. Okay. So I'm really happy for your like growing stable of puzzle pages. Yes. I've got a sofa bed

downstairs and I think it'll be great for them. They can share that. I think it's really gonna be fun for them. Well, I guess one of them is gonna be in a lamp. So like, it's just gonna be like really nice to have such a full warm house. And they're gonna be learning how to puzzle from like the best of them. I would say. Yeah, and this Bladesinger wizard that kind of,

that thinks that they got so screwed over by having their concentration broken and stuff can see like truly how magically screwed over you can be by getting trapped in a lamp. So just being near the lamp will be a lesson. That will be a lesson for you. We are gonna need to make sure that the new puzzle page doesn't get tempted by the lamp.

Yeah. Because Jafar is in there and he's gonna be being like, oh, if you rub the lamp, I will throw you in this car. Then we're gonna need someone to keep Jafar busy. This is great. Which is right. Which is why we're gonna have this next case. We need another case. We have more cases. We're gonna get a Jafar busy. This is great. Which is why we're gonna have this next case. We need another case.

We have more cases. We're gonna get a Jafar distractor. Yeah, because that DM that Jafar aren't gonna be on the same side. We've created problems. This is not good. That's true. I love triangle Jafar and the puzzle page

that's inside the lamp. Okay, okay. All right, let's see if we can corral Jafar. Kyle C. writes, Dear Nepo Baby Justices and the bootstrap bailiff. I play college basketball at a small school in southern Indiana and love D&D. Oh my God. Awesome. It sounds like a Disney musical.

The problem is I can never find anyone to play with me. The D&D club at school would meet on Saturdays early in the afternoon, right when I would either have practice or a game so I could never play with me. The D&D club at school would meet on Saturdays early in the afternoon, right when I would either have practice or a game so I could never play with them. I also felt very self-conscious attending the group as the only six foot three, 190 pound guy there. Why? Everyone is secretly admiring you. If they're shy or quiet, it's not because they don't like you.

Get out of here, Tali. Yeah, come on. Everyone's just gonna be like, you're willing to hang out with me? Yes, you're fine. Protect us. Trust me, you're fine. Yes. My muscles were too big to fit in the chair.

Everyone was friendly and welcoming, but I still felt like an outsider. So instead of trying to fit in, I decided to create my own game. Cool. The problem was, my basketball friends laughed at me when I brought it up. No.

Oh, you are stuck between two worlds. I was gonna make that suggestion because I was like, if you have away games, and okay, continue. They're great guys that would do anything for me, but they just couldn't wrap their heads around the idea of a game. After begging for months, they agreed to play.

So they wouldn't do anything for you. Oh, this is the problem. They wouldn't like, respect that you wanna play this game, but they wouldn't do anything for you. This is the problem. They wouldn't like respect that you want to play this game, but they won't do anything for you. Okay. Yeah. We did a session zero and built characters all normal and good with a little shenanigans to keep it light,

but nothing crazy. Normal and good. Come session one, after I worked for hours outside of homework and practice every night, one of my buddies decided he wanted his fighter to no longer use a great sword, opting instead to make his character have a giant penis with a helmet on the head to deal bludgeoning damages.

Justices, I'm sorry to say I allowed it. Oh, this is your fault. You know, you know. I was so excited to run my first real session ever. And honestly, I didn't want to rebalance all of my fights for one last party member, get it member. member the session was fun but I could tell the game wasn't vibing with anyone at the table and cut out a big room of my dungeon so it would be over faster I've yet to play since should I have made more of an effort to push back against the giant tip in an attempt to make my

players take the game more seriously or should I have turned the shenanigans up to 100 to try to get the players to engage with shit and piss jokes? Okay, I have a suggestion. I have two suggestions that are actually not related to the penis weapon. Why not? I have a lot of- Yeah, this is beyond the penis weapon I think.

We'll follow up with questions about the stats. I have two just like light suggestions just because I really feel for your situation. First suggestion, if you ever wanted to go back to the crew that you felt too tall and cool for, or like obviously you didn't say cool, I'm projecting that, but if you were like intimidated by,

if you were feeling shy, like, oh, okay, like I'm clearly like a jock here, you could. Yeah, just be an outlier, we are joking around, but I definitely get how you could show up to something and be like, I don't fit in right now. I don't fit in immediately. Even like Gandalf doesn't fit into Bilbo's house, but he looks really comfortable there. So my suggestion is you could make a character

that was really tiny, like play like a little roguish halfling or something like that. And that might make you feel like- It might be a fun icebreaker. It might be a fun icebreaker to show like, hey, like you don't have to be intimidated that I'm a cool basketball player. Yeah, so I think that the sort of fallacy here

is trying to get people to play D&D that don't seem to really want D&D. I don't think there's kind of any gymnastics that you can do here that's gonna make them get into the game. They're just not, they're not into it and that's fine. I think that, you know, the fact that the D&D group lines up at the same time as your practices or games

is unfortunate, but I do imagine there is some kind of group or something that meets outside of that. I would have to assume, or maybe on the rare time that you don't have practice that day, or you don't have a game that day, or maybe when it's not basketball season, you can go to it and maybe you can make some friends that you play D&D with there.

And I totally get that it's intimidating and you wanna kind of just take the game and bring it to your friends that you already have. I would encourage you to either maybe try to join the D&D group when basketball season is over and then carry those friends over once you get busy again. And I understand that you're, you know, having anxiety walking into the situation and you don't know anyone and you feel out of place, but I assure you, you will meet people that you end up really liking.

And there's kind of like no better way to bond with people than to play tabletop games with, because you get to act and solve problems together and everything, so you'll make friends fast. And then also, if it didn't work out and you didn't feel like going back to the club, maybe think of some friends that you have or maybe even acquaintances that have more overlap

with the kind of nerdy stuff. Because people who are open to it, maybe they're not huge fantasy nerds, but they like the Lord of the Rings movies or something. Like you might be able to work with that person. Or you might meet just one person at the D&D club that you're like, actually I do click with you. And then maybe you could extrapolate that.

My other suggestion, if you wanna try and make it happen with the basketball people, my suggestion would be rather than planning a separate night to do it, if you could do it like on the bus on the way to an away game, or like when you're staying at a hotel overnight for an away game or something like that, it might be like those kind of down times

might have them more open to do something like that. Yeah, sure. And this would be good for like teamwork and cohesion. If you're all like working together to solve problems, like that's essentially what sports are about, but also you're sweating. Yeah. But anyways, that I just took us away

from the penis weapon. Right, so what do we think, like, is there like a D6 of damage that's dealt to the penis weapon whenever it attacks because of the nerves and sensitivity? I think it should be an unspelled weapon. It should be able to shoot something. It's a penis after all.

I think the penis weapon is a non-starter, and I do think you unfortunately did make a mistake with allowing that. I do understand. I didn't even get the impression from your submission that you thought that it was the penis weapon that made the. Well, it seems like they just weren't having very much fun. So they were just kind of goofing off and weren't super interested in it.

And to that I would say, this sounds like this is your very close group of friends and you might have to either meet new people or you might just have some acquaintances that are kind of nerdy. I would reach out to a nerdy acquaintance and maybe they're not your best friend in the world, but you will bond over D&D.

Yeah, and acquaintance would have a harder time being rude to you to your face. That's also something a best friend can kind of do. You already have a huge leg up though, which is that like you have prepared a whole session. Yes, literally. Yeah. So you can go back to this group and be like,

hey, I tried playing this with some of my basketball friends and they weren't really into it, but like I've got this all prepared. Does anyone want to play? And the fact that you are willing to DM, like instantly, instantly puts you in such good graces with everyone else. That's another thing.

If you go back to that D&D club and you're like, oh, I actually have a session if anyone ever wants to play and suddenly you're putting yourself out as a DM. That's gonna be a real shifting tone. That's absolutely true. You could also try to, if you wanna work in your more like athlete friends into your games and stuff, maybe you don't wanna do D&D.

Maybe you wanna start them with something a little bit easier. I was also thinking too, if you wanted to try again with the athlete friends, or maybe it's the dungeon thing that isn't as interesting. You never know how people are, but you could just be like, make them a basketball team. And see if that sort of easy in.

You could do like a stranger things type thing or something like that if they're more into it. I mean, you could just find it, what kind of pop culture are they into? Do they play video games, but they play more of like, I don't know, I'm aging myself here, but like Halo or something like that. Like you can do like a sci-fi thing or something like that.

That being said, I don't know how hard I would bark up this people that aren't interested in playing, make them play. I'm giving lots of options here. I'm giving lots of options. This person has a busy schedule with being playing college sports. So I'm saying I'm trying to give options.

The options are lovely, but we have to punish someone. So we do have to. Let's punish the fucking person who wanted a penis sword. Well, okay, but we can do that. But that's cool. Yeah, that's so cool and funny though, Emily. But it is gonna be distracting to Jafar. Yeah, so here's what I'm saying.

Here's what I'm saying. So technically by allowing, so we're rooting for this person, right? We're rooting for the basketball player. We want them to go to the D&D club and we want them to succeed. That being said, in this specific instance, they were incorrect to give out the penis sword, right?

And the basketball player will be great at playing defense at keeping Jafar in the lamp, right? True. Right, you've got to box out Jafar in the lamp. Right? Oh, true. Right, you gotta box out Jafar. No! Why? No, we can't do this. We need someone to box Jafar out.

We've made a mistake by putting Jafar and the evil DM in the lamp together, and we need to sacrifice the basketball player. But I'm rooting for the impressive basketball player. I'm also rooting for the basketball player. Oh, wait, shit, guys, are we worried that Jafar is gonna be able to hypnotize this player though? Because they've got like, you know,

if they're a fighter, they probably don't have high whiz. I really think that we just need to take the guy with the penis sword and put them in the lamp. Oh yeah, cause Jafar's no match for the penis sword. Yeah. Is Jafar no match for the penis sword? I don't know. I think Jafar would be able to hypnotize the guy with the penis sword is the problem. I think no matter

what- Jafar has his own penis sword, the staff, right? And if he has it, if he hypnotizes the guy with the penis sword, what's that gonna do really? Look, I don't, the penis sword, I don't trust their intelligence slash wisdom saving throws. This basketball player, I do. You know what I mean?

I don't think- It's not a penis sword because they actually traded the sword for the penis. So this penis was dealing bludgeoning damage. So it's a penis- Penis like flail? Hammer. Yeah, hit it with a penis hammer.

If that makes sense, yeah. Okay, I think impressive basketball player doesn't go in the lamp. They go outside of the lamp to play defense with the hopes that them and the other puzzle pages can start a D&D game. Oh, that's cool. Okay? Yeah.

All right, we're gonna keep you outside the lamp, but you do gotta watch the lamp because you're the only one we trust to play defense here, okay? It is true, I feel like Jafar's pretty tall, so you're gonna have to match him for height. If Jafar gets out, we all know what happens. We've seen Return of Jafar,

we don't remember what happens because it wasn't as memorable as the first one, but we know it's bad. And we know he was ripped when he was a genie. So we're scared. And we need a huge basketball player to help. He's ripped and red hot. All right, that's perfect.

Well played. All right, so Jafar. Hey there, Natpoles. This episode is brought to you by Rocket Money. You know, a lot of people out there are not aware of how much they spend each month. Do you know how many subscriptions you pay for?

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So they know that we sent you. Don't wait, download the Rocket Money app today and let them know you heard about it from us. All right, thanks everybody. Our next case comes from Riley W. Honorable justices and the, if we're being nice to the bailiff, ruggedly handsome bailiff Jake. We are being nice to you today. We are actually bailiff, ruggedly handsome bailiff Jake. Wow.

We are being nice to you today. Yeah, yeah. Ruggedly handsome, how about that? I really appreciate that. That's better than if they were being mean, it was gonna be the guy with the lukewarm boiled hot dog energy. Okay, actually I like that better.

Let's go with that, sorry. Ruggedly hot dog energy. Why don't we put ruggedly handsome to Murph and you can have the boiled hot dog one? Yeah, totally. And we'll be the buns. So Jafard, I'm in a Curse of Strahd campaign, shout out, with my DM and four other players.

Interesting. Before we started, the DM laid some table rules, banning some spells and subclasses, including banning all summoning spells because they quote, bogged down combat too much. While I accepted the rules at the time, in a recent story arc, we spent several sessions saving NPC townsfolk and sending them back to a stronghold.

After literal months of this, we went back to the stronghold to defend the NPCs from an onslaught of enemies. At one point during combat, there were 14 enemy monsters on the field. Wow. They swooped in and killed several of the NPCs we spent months saving. At one point during combat, there were 14 enemy monsters on the field. Wow. They swooped in and killed several of the NPCs we spent months saving.

Playing a druid, I asked if I could use a spell like Summon Woodland Creatures to try to distract the enemies from the NPCs we had grown attached to. Our DM reiterated, no summon spells. They slow down combat. Huh. Well, with 14 opponents, combat sounds like it's pretty laborious already. Yeah, same thought. I retorted, okay, but your 14 monsters on the field

are slowing down combat way more than my summon spell would. He got very defensive. At one point, I think he spent 20 minutes describing the monster killing NPCs without a single one of us having a turn. I asked you, most honorable Supreme Crit, is this fair or should I have been allowed my summons? So there's a lot of problems here.

Yeah, this is the same thing as the penis hammer question, which is just, this goes way beyond the actual question. Cause the summoning is- You're trying to cover up the problem by putting a helmet on a penis. Yeah, the summoning isn't the problem. I think it's not the worst restriction to say no summons. I do think that the problem is the 14 combat. Yeah. I think your DM is just doing not a great job

running combat and has built up this, has built up you guys saving all these NPCs just to kill them in a laborious combat that makes you say, wait, what? It's a very wait, what? Yeah. That's like the worst when someone's like, okay, like this is actually railroaded for you to lose

and it's railroaded for you to lose by having so many other combatants that it's gonna be 20 minutes in between each turn. Yes, yes, yes. This is, I will say that Strahd as a module kind of does lean into this a little bit because- I believe that, I do. They're just tables upon tables being like,

if they're here, like 2d6 of this show up. So like you can, if you're not careful, you can end up with a situation where there are just like tons of monsters. But I think there are smarter ways to handle that. You like turn them into swarms, or honestly you just kind of have a separate battle going on, you've got the town militia versus these monsters

and you're doing individual roles and the players can aid those roles if they need to. I think yeah, it's tough though, I do sympathize a little bit, but I think that the DM is not meeting them in the middle here. Yeah, but if you have 12 dire wolves in a fight, it's just you roll them all at the same time. They all act on initiative 15 or whatever.

Or you split them up into two groups of whatever is half of what I said. I don't remember the number I said. Right, well you've got like the home team and the away team of the dire wolves. I think it's like so hard because it's like, I understand that realistically there would be battles in which you're outnumbered.

I think that the point of Tabletop is collaboration. And when you're really outnumbered, it doesn't feel collaborative anymore. 14 seems like a lot. Yeah, this is actually an interesting point though that Caldwell brings up that like the modules might just be like, there's two or three D6 of these things so maybe there are like 14 or 15 or 16 of these monsters to which I would say if you're going to go

by the book and not make any amendments then it is pretty bullshit to take away spells. Right. Because it's one thing in a homebrew world right to be like look I don't want to have a million combatants on the field before you make your characters, just so you know, we're not gonna do these type of spells. Yeah, I think it's fine. As long as everyone is on board, session zero, you can establish whatever the fuck you want,

as long as everyone goes in knowing what to expect. That being said, if you're going to have exactly what it says in the book, and you have these D-powered druids and shit, then the players aren't gonna be able to fight back. The module is made for them to have summon spells. Yeah. There are a few spells that do not work.

I think like astral projection, teleport and plane shift, I think. Got you, because you can't get out of Barovia. Exactly. Yeah. But like- That's fine. Yeah, so like within the module as written I don't think that like summon spells are prohibited. Yeah

Which yeah, it seems weird that you wouldn't be able to like call the creatures to your aid Yeah I would say the one defense that this DM could have is what Caldo was saying that like maybe this is just how the dice Rolled and they're just running a module But that being said if they are gonna do that, they do need to keep in mind that you can't summon allies or anything like that because they made it that way. You made your players less powerful.

So you can't throw everything a module has at them. I will also say like, I don't know, when I started reading through the Strahd module, I was just like, I want to play this as straight as possible. I wanna like really follow the rules as closely as I can. But like that's impossible and kind of makes it not fun. The module is there just as a guide, as like a source of inspiration

and basically to give you like a little chunk of text to read if you're lost. Yeah. And you need to treat it like that. If you're gonna be completely by the book, then you have to be completely by the book. You know what I mean? Yeah, you should have summons. Yeah, I think you should have to live by the book, die by the book, then you have to be completely by the book. You know what I mean? Yeah, you should have summons.

Yeah, I think you have to live by the book, die by the book. You should get to summon Bahamut. Yeah. You should be able to use whatever Final Fantasy summon you want. Yeah, ooh, Ifrit. Ifrit would be great.

Which Ifrit are you thinking of? Because there's a lot of different Ifrit's. Final Fantasy VI. What does he look like in Final Fantasy VI? I think he's like a fiery guy. Okay, cool. He's always a fiery guy. Yeah, but different. Final Fantasy six. What's the, what does he look like in Final Fantasy six? I think he's like a fiery guy. Okay, cool. He's always a fiery guy. Yeah, but in like Final Fantasy 10,

he's like a real buff fiery guy. Oh, he's always a real buff fiery guy. Oh, he's so yeah, he's, he's, he kind of looks like Blanca from Street Fighter. He's got kind of a dog face in Final Fantasy 10 though, which is pretty cute. I don't recall. Okay, I do not recall.

I'm telling you, cause you don't recall. Yeah. This is Atris all over again. Yeah. This is Atris all over again. Yeah, this is Atris all over again. So I think that we're gonna rule against the DM. We're not mad if you rolled that many combatants. We're mad that you're not letting people summon. And it is kind of your responsibility

as the DM to make combat interesting. You know what I mean? So if you look at the book and the book is just like, have the worst fight ever, you do have to be like, maybe I change that, maybe I change it for the worst fight. A monologue narration of killing your allies is really funny. Yeah.

You gotta treat it kinda like an eighth grade dance or something like that where it's just like, oh wow, there's too many people on this side, so I need to summon a lot of other people so they can all dance together. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you can definitely have, especially if the dice roll that way where like, you save a bunch of people and then they can all dance together. Yeah, I mean, you can definitely have, especially if the dice roll that way

where you save a bunch of people and then they end up dying anyway, that can be what the story is. But generally it is better to have a Pyrrhic victory or something where something bad does happen, but still the thing, some of the stuff you worked for did something. Like, yeah, kill one ally, kill one NPC.

That's more meaningful. Their best friend, one of the ones that was fighting alongside of them dies, but the other people get away. I don't know. I also wonder if they're sitting back there and it's saying like roll 2d6 or roll 3d6 and they roll a 14, it buys you some grace to say,

oh shit, I rolled really high guys and then lift up your DM screen and show everyone how high you rolled. So it's kind of like we're in the shit together. Yeah, we are advocates for some meta gaming when it comes to that. It's like, it's always more fun to be like, there's gonna be two D6 of vampire spawn

and they can be pretty tough. So there can be two or there can be 12. I'm gonna roll this in front of the table. That would, I can almost guarantee people would have responded better in that case because otherwise they just think that you're pulling some bullshit on them. Yeah, you can villainize the dice a little bit if you want.

Yeah. But that being said, it sounds like the DM was going by the module except when it hurt you and benefited them. So that's strange. Unfortunately, we're gonna throw them into the lamp. They're getting lamped. Ideally, you start a love triangle with Jafar. And then it just is too confusing.

Yeah. And maybe the 14 monsters are on Jafar duty guarding the lamp outside in Caldwell's basement. Yeah. Yeah. And maybe the 14 monsters are on Jafar duty, guarding the lamp outside in Caldwell's basement. Yeah. Yeah. Them and all their monsters are, yeah, that's good. And Jafar is honestly kind of Strahd core. He's kind of Strahd core.

Yeah, he is. So I think that you can really learn a few tips and tricks from monitoring Jafar and maybe falling in love with him. I think I can 100% say that Jafar has been Strahd for Halloween. Yes, definitely. I think I can 100% say that Jafar has been strapped for Halloween. Yes, definitely. I think I can say that with 100% certainty. I think you can say that with confidence, yeah.

Yeah, I'm saying, and I'm going to. Jafar has been strapped for Halloween. We don't have to fact check that. Yeah, we just know it's real. Yeah, I'm sure there's a Halloween episode of Disney's House of Mouse, the TV show where I think that Mickey Mouse runs a nightclub and all the Disney characters show up

and maybe there's a Halloween episode and Jafar is dressed as strong. Although actually it would be cuter for them to do an episode where all the villains from Disney movies dress up as the heroes. That's cute. Oh, that's really fun. Unfortunately.

That's so fun. Jafar is Aladdin and you can finally see his abs poking out from that vest. We already saw his abs when he became a genie in Return of Jafar. Right. Yoked. He was yoked as hell.

He's absolutely yoked. And you think that maybe he gets those when he's a genie, but I think he had the abs the whole time. Maybe. Oh, I guess I see him as a naked beggar man for a little bit, and I don't think he's got the abs. But he is shape shifting. Oh, you're right, he's using the genie.

Although he's always had 0% body fat. True. True. Yeah, he didn't have the bulk that he had as a genie. Yeah, he's always had 0% body fat. True. It's true. Yeah, he didn't have the bulk that he had as a genie. Yeah, he's eating a lot of functional nut butters. Well, this DM is gonna find out. You will find out. If the true Jafar is yoked or not

because they're sentenced to a love triangle in the lamp to keep everyone from leaving and distraction call throughout while he puzzles. Keep us posted. So Jafar'd. A little Jafar fetched, but I'll allow it. And our next case comes from Ally. Dear Justices, a holy Kong Trinity of Donkey Kong,

Bluster Kong, and Diddy Kong, and the one I think is Tucker's little buddy. That's me. I feel so excited because I think I might be Bluster Kong. Take him. I want to be Donkey Kong. I definitely don't want to might be Bluster Kong. Take them, I wanna be Bluster Kong. I definitely don't wanna be fucking Bluster Kong. Jesus. Bluster, do you need an intern?

Oh no. Oh, you could be Kucky Kong. Me? Yeah. Thank you. Creeping all the time. I don't remember what that song was. The song?

It sounded like a chicken from Parappa the Rapper. Let us know if anybody out there is doing Bluster Kong's song for their first dance at their wedding. It's a very disappointing sound in Bonanza, go ahead. I come to you with the case of the railroaded DM. My friends and I have recently started a new campaign. I always ask my players for their feedback to build a more collaborative game,

including asking what themes players want in their characters' narrative. Love it. Aw, that's really beautiful. However, this is backfired. What? This wasn't just a nice one? We knew it was going to be.

A new player is giving such specific feedback about where they want their character to go, even saying how specific NPC interactions should go. Obviously with the dice and player decisions, there's no way to guarantee an outcome. And when the story has deviated from the player's fixed idea, they have given me negative feedback. Even saying things like, quote,

I wouldn't have run it that way. Oh, kick them out. Get them in the lamp. They're gone. Lamp their ass. Jesus. This player has one chance for you to be like, Hey, we're not writing fan fiction.

I'm mad in real life. I know. It wouldn't even be fan fiction. It would be like, I invited you to my home and did a lot of work. We're not friends anymore. This is a weight really from the DM. Yeah.

This is making me feel insecure in my DMing because I'm always dreading the inevitable text message from this player post-session. Yo, fuck this person. Fuck them forever. God damn, I don't like this person. Yeah, kind of block their phone number. Yeah, block them.

Be a level of entitlement. I am so mad at this person in real life. This is not a D&D question. This is a personal grievance I have with them. I think you have to do a smoke screen text thread where everyone says they can't make it. And there's like, you're having a lot of trouble scheduling the next session.

And then you just like fully make another text. I'm just gonna say it. We gotta let Jafar out. Let Jafar, let Jafar at him. Whoa. We got to let Jafar loose. We gotta let Jafar loose I guess. You think so?

You think so? This is so bad. I don't know if this is, I don't know if this is like too far. Who let Jafar out? What? I don't know if this is too far. Who let you far out? What? I don't know if this is too far, but my feeling is that the only text

you should be sending your DM after is like. Thanks. Thanks for every time. Or even after this session, I'm thinking about going in this direction with the character, do you like that? I do that shit all the time. And then you get feedback from the DM

on if they're excited about your story. I could see making a mistake and being like, oh, because they're giving feedback, they're giving too much feedback and giving too many notes and they just don't understand fundamentally what the game is and are over prepping or whatever. I understand how that could just be like a snafu, but this person is just fucking rude.

Yeah, this really taps into some of my real pet peeves in the world. Yeah, go ahead, Jake. Is there any more? I mean, I don't think they're gonna be redeemed or furious, go on. I mean, we already, yeah, they do close out with a question. I think we already know the answer.

Am I right to feel this is overstepping or am I being too sensitive and I should just DM the book this player wants to write? No. Jafar's gonna turn into a snake and swallow this person. Yes, yes, okay. Jafar is unfortunately loose. Holy shit.

And they're gonna bite. A snake with stealth ass. All the effort we went to corral Jafar is just, it's, oh, he's been overrun. I mean, my basterd is not soundproofed enough. Jafar is fucking loose now. He's loose in my goddamn house. We had so many people guarding him.

Yeah, he had so many people guarding him. We had a freaking 6'3 basketball player. Yeah. I know. Okay, all right, yeah, so this is, yeah, I mean, this is really unfair, and this is rude on so many levels. Like, as the DM, you have to do truly so much.

So to say, like, I would have run it differently is so passive aggressive, bordering on actually aggressive. And just really sucks and I hate it. I really do too. This person I'm like, I'm actively mad at them for you. Yeah. Yeah, okay. So the punishment is they're getting Jafar.

Yeah, Jafar is loose and it's their fault. Yeah. Jafar as a snake with stealth abs is coming after. Yeah. And then I guess, how do you, I don't, honestly, I know we as a joke sometimes, but also for real, sometimes tell people that they have to break up their group and get new friends.

This is, I think one of those situations where you stop running the game for this person. I do think it's possible that you haven't expressed this to this person, that you've been too polite. And so, I think that you have one chance to be like, hey, just so you know, D&D isn't really like you trying to write the book that you want to write. It's much more, we let the dice tell the story, it's much more collaborative. So like, if you wanna continue, I think that you can tell me the direction you're interested in going in,

but you do have to be open to where the story goes outside of what you envision because you don't have control over the story. I would say that and be less polite, but that's, I mean, what Emily's saying is perfect. Yeah. Yeah, I just think the fact that they're so disrespectful, I can't imagine being at the table with them.

Like my head would always just be cocked. Like, what are you gonna say? What are you gonna say? I know, I know. They'd be like, they're just rude. Do you know they're judging you and stuff? Like, yeah, I don't know. Get this person out of your fucking,

you don't have to get all new, a whole new party, but you do need a new party member. But I'm saying, if you want to hang on to this, then there is a chance, like there's a small chance that this person just doesn't understand it, and you have been so nice that you haven't tried to communicate that to them. So you have a chance, and if they are even vaguely

snotty to you when you say this to them, then yeah, they're done. They're not meant to do anything with other people. They're an entitled person who's only interested in their vision. Yeah, but at least you gave it your best shot if you say something. Yeah, yeah, I guess if you wanna be really generous,

yeah, you can just have this conversation with them about how it's not part of the game to decide everything ahead of time. That's literally not what the game was. It's also so transactional and entitled to be like, hey, you tell my story. It's so weird on so many levels. I would just not play with this person anymore.

Just start a new text thread. I would pay to read the text messages. I would pay to read the text. Yeah, I think you start a new crew with the rest of the people. You give them a chance, right? I think you start a new crew with the rest of the people. I think you know what? You give them a chance, right? Cause that's the, you give them a chance if you explain this to them.

I would have run it differently. Right, I know, but I'm saying like, if you want to do this with the least amount of friction and coming out without anyone having any reason to have hurt feelings, you give it a chance to describe that this is different than them thrusting a story upon you. And if they don't amend to that, then that's that. You give them a nice tea ball, easy shot

to apologize for their behavior essentially. Or you throw them in the lamp, or you throw Jafar at them. Oh wait, but you actually aren't gonna have to deal with them because Jafar as a snake is going to eat them. Yeah. But Jafar is still snake is going to eat them. Yeah. But Jafar is still bound to the rules of the lamp. So like, is somebody wishing for Jafar to destroy them?

So we already wished, we wished for, so the problem is we have two more wishes from Jafar. And I do think Jafar does do monkey paw wishes. So I think we don't know what's gonna happen after Jafar. Can we free another genie? Not Jafar, just for fun. We already, all right, Jafar is already loose though. Okay, my wish, because we have two more wishes,

my wish is that every genie to be free. Oh no. Oh wow. That's cool, now nobody gets wishes. That's really cool. Nobody gets wishes, is that how it works? Well, because every genie would be free. Yeah, I guess they're free,

but then I think Jafar just has a ton of power now. Yeah. And then there would just be genies running loose with crazy powers that we don't have. It would be so destabilizing for the world. And then I guess final wish is like the pasta pot from Streganona, but like with perfect control. Oh.

What do we think? I'm just spit balling her. I'm almost like, I just don't want to eat that much pasta. Okay, but again, it's perfect control. So like, is there a different type of food? I think maybe that's what the perfect control element is. It's like, it can be different types of pasta. Okay, okay. You could do chickpea pasta.

Yeah, it could be a vodka penne. Yeah, yeah. It could be a stroganoff if you wanted. It's gonna have trouble with bow tie, but it can do it. All right. That's the monkey fart element. That's the monkey fart element. Soju fart trouble with bow tie, but it can do it. All right. That's the monkey's fault element. That's the monkey's fault element. The bow tie always comes out as a regular tie. But obviously we're on this DM side. Don't let your players push you around in like a way that is honestly quite rude.

And maybe this person isn't as bad. And so sorry if I went in too hard on them. They just like really kind of made me feel mad for you. Jafar is gonna find out and Jafar will let us know. I'm furious. Yes. All right, let's see if we can cool down by entering church.

Okay. Okay. All right. I'm gonna dab some holy water on my face. I'm gonna eat some of my pocket pasta. This one's from Gabba Gublin. Forgive me your honors for I have sinned. I play a support class and a curse of Strahd. Shout out game with basically-

Whoa! Strahd themed, loving it. Did it just mark Goon in your campaign? We'll find out when we do stories of Strahd. Stories, yeah. I've run the campaign before, so I have enjoyed sitting back and just helping the group explore the game

and occasionally explain things from the side while the DM does their thing. Cool. In our last session, we all rolled like 100% grade A certified dog shit against a group of vampire spawn. I was struggling to keep people from going down and we were all banking on our assassin, rogue, and his sneak attack damage.

However, I realized about halfway through the combat that he had misread his assassin feature and thought it gave him advantage and auto crits against anyone who hadn't taken a turn yet each round, basically anyone who went after him in initiative. I knew it was wrong, but even rolling four times per turn he was barely hitting, and so in the interest of party morale I said nothing. In the end we defeated the vampires and the rogue got in a cool finishing blow but as my CCD teacher loved to remind us a lie by omission is still a lie. Therefore I kneel before Dice of Christ and his holy justice ears and beg for forgiveness." I do think Jafar is going to get a free hit on you. Oh really? I was

then you want to know what I think Jafar gets a free hit on me too. I have seen people do things wrong or take two bonus actions, two reactions, stuff like that, other people in the party. And if I think it's gonna become something that people debate and it makes them look bad, I try to say something, but otherwise I let it happen. I do get this though,

because it's such a momentum. I'm so sorry. Rules voyoring on someone else's behalf can be kind of strange sometimes, especially I think in this case, it sounds like maybe you picked up on it after it had already been happening for a little while. I think the move here would be to the next time, be like, or before the next session.

So everyone knows the stakes going into the next time be like, or before the next session. So everyone knows the stakes going into the next thing, that that's not how the assassin ability works. We've had a ton of combats and stuff where like, we realize afterwards, oh, we shouldn't have been able to be allowed to do that. And next time we just don't do it. You know what I mean? And I think sometimes when you already establish

that something can happen in the middle of combat, you just kind of let it happen for the rest of that fight. Very important to establish the stakes with Vampire Spawn. Go ahead. Yeah. But sometimes though, I mean, like, it's kind of like, it sounds like Dice Christ was having, you were getting your punishment.

The bad rolls were coming, right? So it seems as though, you know, you've served your time. Yeah. Yeah. I'm I would say I'm 50 50 on rules lawyering someone else when it's like that. I don't know when the situation is super, super dire and it's just like, actually, you need to hit a DC 18, not a DC 17 on that. I'll be on that cup or something. When we like perform it, I'll be like looking out for people

so that people aren't mad at them, although I won't always or something. When we perform it, I'll be looking out for people so that people aren't mad at them, although I won't always say something. If I'm playing with just my friends, I'm never, I'll never say anything. Sure, sure. Yeah, it is a little bit like- Trying to remember my spells. Yeah, it's reminding the teacher

that you have homework at the very end. I think the best way to correct this is maybe next time they start doing it, to be like, oh, is that, I feel like maybe I'm wrong, but you kind of put yourself in a position where you're like, maybe I'm wrong about this, but I think it's supposed to be like, oh, is that, I feel like maybe I'm wrong, but you kind of like put yourself in a position where you're like, maybe I'm wrong about this, but I think it's supposed to be that way.

Even that's a little icky, but like that's the way to get it done. I think you just say it at the top of like a session so everyone knows what's happening. If you think, you know. Or you could secretly just be like, hey, I actually clocked this during the thing and I didn't say anything,

but just for the next fight, this is a thing. Oh, actually maybe like invite them to like a parking garage at night and then like just confess that you knew this the whole time, but you didn't say anything. But they were wearing a wire and they play it for everyone else in the group. And then you show the DM, yeah. And then Jafar pulls up in a car and gets out

and beats the shit out of you. A jacar. Right, it is a jet blacked a car. A car, it's a Jaguar. Oh, sick. A car drives a Jaguar, a car. Shit. Yeah, yeah, I think it's not.

Is he even a villain at this point? He's just cool now. Trap me in your lamp, friend. Trap me in your lamp. It's a freaking power car. I think it's, yeah, it's not really your, as, as essentially a like helper that has already run through this, it's not really your responsibility to like tell on the other players.

Yeah. I, I, especially in a situation where it's like the stakes are already dire. This is your only hope. I don't know. I don't think this is that big a deal. I think tell them next time. Cause you don't want to base your whole campaign on, you know, this thing that the character shouldn't be allowed to do.

They'll be unbalanced. Maybe it worked out this one time because everyone's rolling like shit, but in the future it will, you know, work against the party to a certain extent because this one person will just be playing their character wrong. But for this one fight, I think it's not a huge deal. We've had this happen. Not that we knew going into it that something was wrong, but we've definitely had it be where we thought this spell

wasn't concentration or something. Maybe they would have the character would have died had we not known that. It's like you're not going to retcon and go back and be like, actually, the character is dead or something. Yeah. That would suck. That'd be a wait what moment.

Yeah. So understand why you feel guilty, the character is dead or something like that. That would suck. That'd be a wait what moment. So understand why you feel guilty, but circumstances were pretty dire and you decided not to raise your hand and tell everyone that you had homework. And so, Dex Christas forgives you. You guys rolled like shit that whole thing. Yeah, you rolled like shit.

Dex Christas was already furious at you for something else. We don't know what. Tell them next time and you are forgiven. So forgiven. So forgiven. So Jafar. So forgiven. Jafar-given. So Jafar.

Thank you all so much for listening. We'll be doing more bonus cases over on our Patreon, patreon.com slash Natpod. That's N-A-D-D-P-O-D. Don't sing yet. Don't do it. Don't even think about it. We stop.

Jafar, Jafar. We've got some things we'd like to plug. We've got Dimension 20 live show in Vegas. Vegas! In November, so be on the lookout for that. Search Dimension 20 live to get tickets for that. We're gonna be playing Starstruck. Oh yeah.

I might try to wear a bodysuit. She might try to wear a bodysuit, ladies and gentlemen. You're gonna wear your Fred Flintstone costume, right? Pillowcase? Yeah, I'm gonna rock the pillowcase for sure. What do you think I meant when I said bodysuit? I'm also talking about wearing Fred Flintstone pillowcase. A Dino bodysuit.

Skin tight. Purple. Does anyone else have anything? Yeah, sure. I'll plug one of my favorite web comics I've been reading recently. It's by this person named Beetle Moses on Instagram. He does web comics. I would describe as like, you know, new age far side in the best way possible. I really love them. So check out Beetle Moses on Instagram. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. And I'm on sub stack at Jay Kerwitz over there. Sweet. Check that out.

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