Not Another D&D Podcast - D&D Court: Nasty Bards, Evil Dads, and Mustard Custard

Episode Date: December 6, 2024

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

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website or domain. Again that is 10% off when you go to squarespace.com slash pawpaw. Thanks for listening now go touch some digital grass. Bye bye! 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 Your supreme crit justices, Murphy, Axford, and then of course the lowly, lowly, lowly, lowly, lowly,

lowly, lowly, lowly, lowly, lowly, lowly, lowly, lowly, lowly, lowly, lowly, but not too lowly because we're missing Justice Tanner. Okay. And we need to step up a little bit. I think actually you should be a Justice today. Yeah, welcome, crit justice, Jay Keroux. Really? Yeah.

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

So help me, gods. How did you have that on hand? Did you think we might do that? I knew we didn't have a quorum with only two justices. Good for you. He's prepared justice behavior. I had it prepped aspirationally. I was not sure if it was happening,

but I thought there was a chance. All right, well as the- I mean, that's really, I actually think we should make a Caldwell bailiff next time we come back. Let's FaceTime him and see if he answers. Right, yeah. That's a good call.

Yeah, if he picks up, we'll let him be a judge still. All right, with that, let's throw to our newest justice, Jake Hurwitz, who still needs to do bail of duties. Hear ye, hear ye. Crit is now in session. The honorable supreme crit justices, Axford Murphy and Hurwitz presiding. That's right, motherfuckers.

Yes! Wow! And our first case comes from Garrett M. Garrett writes, to the illustrious judges and their foppish dweeb-jort turdblitz, not anymore, dude. Not anymore, dude. Take that right back. Unless we consider this part of like,

sort of the hazing process as part of bringing you to fun. Well, I feel like I already took the oath. I bet justices get hazed. Sure. Are you sure? I present the case of the cheeky death saves. After an encounter in my game, which saw aberrant zombies sacking a town,

the PCs ran down an NPC secret agent who was trying to invisibly escape after helping incite the chaos. The team took the NPC down to one HP and he surrendered. The greenscale shadow agent was ready to spill the tea when the cleric rolled to punch him in the face. Nice. It succeeded and the agent was reduced to zero. Cool. At that point, I began rolling death saves behind the screen as the team scrambled in real time to solve the problem.

I failed once and ended up rolling a nat 1 just as the cleric shouted, I heal him. I had the cleric roll a religion check with a low DC, but he failed and my lore dumper died cold on the gore covered streets. My PCs protested and said the death saves should have started initiative. I retorted that initiative isn't always required, especially when aggression is taken out of combat. Do all death saves need to be rolled in initiative or was I right to roll albeit slowly and obviously cheeky after an out of combat assault? I feel like 2018 Murph would have sided with you but new Murph he rolls initiative for pretty much everything. Yeah especially whenever there's a high-stake situation, I feel like initiative is helpful just to like make sure

everyone clearly and concisely gets a chance to do whatever they wanna do, but not too many chances. Initiative is not just for combat. Initiative is for any time people are racing to do stuff. So anytime there's a ticking clock, you do initiative to see how fast things happen. There is no such thing as really like aggression outside of combat.

It's just if somebody punches somebody, they did that on their initiative. You know what I mean? Interesting. I'm trying to see if there's like a precedent for if it is like death saves me and you're an initiative, but I think it seems that it's kind of dealer's choice from what I'm seeing.

Yeah, I mean, I do think it means you're an initiative, but I think it seems that it's kind of dealer's choice from what I'm seeing. Yeah, I mean, I do think it means you're an initiative, especially when you're, I mean, the players are trying to solve something within a time period, right? And also you can, it's literally in the rule book that you can have people do non-lethal damage. They didn't want this person to die. So kind of twice over this NPC shouldn't have died.

Died by getting punched in the face. Yes. You can die, died. Died by getting punched in the face. Yes. You can die. Obviously you can die from getting punched in the face. I do respect the cleric for wanting to do that. Yeah. I love when a spell caster just takes a swing. Yeah, just gives him a wallop.

But if the players wanted this NPC alive for lore dump reasons, they should have A, been able to do non-lethal damage that's just straight up in the rule book. You can just declare non-lethal damage, especially with like a strike. And then B, if they're trying to figure it out and if it is a thing of like, what happens first?

Does the character die first or does the cleric get off the heel? That's not a religion check, that's an initiative role. That's, we roll initiative now, you know what I mean? Also, what is a round? A round is six seconds. Yeah. So then that would technically be 18 seconds.

Sure. Right, but 12 for this one, because there was a nat one. But I feel like if you punch someone and you were like, oh, shoot, we gotta bring them back to life, I feel like realistically, that would take less than 12 seconds.

Yeah. I think so too. I mean, unless you guys like really panicked. If your players really were like, yeah, fuck them. Oh wait, do we need to, you know, like I guess there's like a version that it really wouldn't feel like that. Yeah, I guess.

But like punching him in the face doesn't feel like I'm trying to, like I'm gonna inadvertently kill him. That's, there's just like so many steps that this DM took to punish the players unreasonably, I think, including the fact that you can't roll slowly and obviously and also cheekily. Oh, wow. They admitted to rolling cheekily,

but they're saying they were doing it obviously, but I don't think you can really do two dice rolls. Yeah, cheeky and obvious? No, you know you were being cheeky. I think they must know they were being cheeky. I think it's also, I mean, I think you kind of have your answer right when the, unless the players are being ridiculous,

if you end your session with like an argument, then the moment didn't land, right? Like if it always feels better when you get an above the board whomping, when that happens, then everyone's like, oh, I can't believe that happened or whatever. I don't think this is particularly egregious. You gave the character a role and stuff,

but the rulings are pretty arbitrary. I feel like it's all right there in the book. They could have done long lethal damage. They should have rolled initiative. There's a couple of reasons. I think your players are right here. Also, I mean, take the compliment. They really want your lore.

Yeah. Yeah. They love the lore. They love the lore. They want more of it. And you deprive them, maybe they're edging. Right. They're lusting after your lore and you're trying to edge them.

This game sounds awesome. Is anybody on the other side here? Nah. No, I think we go ahead and we offer a cheeky punishment for this DM. Actually, you know what? Should we weigh in with, we could do a Caldwell take.

Just like weigh in. Okay, so I'm gonna do a Caldwell take. Okay, but what if the cleric did like a super punch that was like a powerful anime punch that actually sent them to another dimension. So you'd need to do like speak to death in order to talk to them. You'd have to plane shift in order to talk to them.

Okay, and I'll do the Justice Murphy response. Okay. What? All right, that's fun though. Although that does bring up a fun thing, which is that maybe now this crew has to bring around this dead body and try to speak to it. Try to speak to it.

How can you cheekily carry around a dead body? Interesting response, Justice Tanner. No, but I think, yeah, we're on the player side here. I also, here's the deal. It's a double edged sword, right? Not rolling initiative and just being like, whenever people shout stuff, they's the deal. It's a double edged sword, right? Not rolling initiative and just being like, whenever people shout stuff, they can do it. That's a double edged sword to establish as a DM.

Because that's going to get your BBEG whomped while they're giving their opening speech. So just tread so carefully. It's way better to roll initiative. Maybe since you did cheeky rolls, now cheeky rolls are just up for grabs. Cheeky rolls are up for grabs apparently. So while you have NPCs talking,

like they could cheekily roll multiple attacks and then be like, while that NPC was talking, I did seven cheeky attacks, three cheeky grits. You really don't want to introduce cheekiness to the people. This is gonna just hurt you as a DM more than it's gonna hurt the players, honestly. What were you thinking with these cheeky rolls? They were way too cheeky.

Oh, so we had to punish the DM. Yeah. So we are on the player's side here. I think we've already come up with a punishment. Your players now get cheeky rolls. Yeah. Right. You've opened this cheeky Pandora's box of cheekiness and long may cheeky rolls for NHK Bowl, unfortunately.

They could do cheeky sleight of hands to just steal everything. Yeah, and no initiative. Everything. No initiative, just you can grab stuff. No initiative, everything is cheeky, everything is shouting. Technically, death saves aren't contested, right?

So actually I think that sleight of hand can't be cheeky, but I think attacks can be cheeky. Sure, yeah. I guess. They're gonna be cheeky and they're gonna be sneaky. So ordered. And our next case comes from Z, to the ever increasingly effervescent judges

and my guy, Josh. Josh. I'm actually one of the effervescent judges now. Yeah. And I'm not Josh. I'm Justice Horowitz. Justice Josh. That actually does work.

So I'll accept Justice Josh. I present to work. So I'll, I'll accept justice. Josh. I present to you the case of the questionable plane shift during COVID my brother and my dad. And I started playing D and D as a family. Cute, right? I was really getting into it. Playing a nasty little bar.

A nasty little bar. Talk to me, sing to me. Nasty little bar in front of my dad. My dad made a classic wizard who shot magic missile and almost did nothing else. We were having a great time. That is until one battle when the last goblin standing opened a portal that sucked up all of the PCs

and transported us through the tunnels of flashing light and booming sounds until my brother slaps a big box of Magic the Gathering cards on the table. Apparently the bad guy had transported us to an alternate reality where the laws of magic had changed and to defeat him, we had to play by the new rules. OK, OK. Look, I understand this is incredibly disruptive, but I think for the lore of magic, this actually works, because in Magic the Gathering, technically you're summoning creatures.

So you could summon from. Sure. For some reason when I said that, my Zoom started doing balloons. Started giving balloons because you were throwing up the peace sign for some reason. Yeah.

I'm doing quotations. The quotations, okay. Right. Laser. I am drowning in balloons. Peace sign means balloons. We can't do visual. we can't do visual humor. All right, fine, but everybody at home,

just imagine that it's happened three times since you started talking about it. Just imagine just balloons showing up nonstop in Emily's quadrant. Okay, turns out my brother just wanted us to play a Magic the Gathering with him the whole time. The whole time, okay, yikes. So this was all a long con. But since neither me nor my dad had any interest or really knew how to play a Magic the Gathering with him the whole time. The whole time, okay, yikes. So this was all a long con.

But since neither me nor my dad had any interest or really knew how to play, we started to get up and walk away. My brother all but flipped the table, he was so mad. And he never DM'd for us again. My question, judges, is should we have humored him and learned how to play a whole new game on the spot or was my brother overreacting?

I leave my fate in your capable hands. Okay, let's dissect what really happened here. Was the brother like, damn, DMing is a lot of work. Yeah, well, it sounds like the brother just wanted to play magic, didn't wanna play D&D. I think that brother was like, I don't have the capacity to plan this anymore. The brother thought your bard was a little too nasty

and the brother was annoyed by your dad's constant spamming of magic missile. I think you should have humored with one game. If it was like a mini game, I actually think this could be very fun. You know, to be like, you got transported into this. Obviously you would be setting up a crazy multi-planar universe in which

some planes of existence feed card games and another plane of existence. However, I could see someone making that work, but I mean, just fully transitioning to Magic the Gathering is kind of a big ask. You should've given it. If you don't wanna play and you don't know how to play, and so you're all, also keep in mind, we play D&D all of the time because it is our job.

So imagine you're really excited to play D&D. You're especially, I think they said right that they started during lockdown. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so imagine you're just so eager for human contact and everything and play D&D and then you show up. You're finally connecting with your father. Actually, we're gonna play a different game.

That would be extremely upsetting. That's just gonna entirely throw out your father. Actually, we're gonna play a different game. That would be extremely upsetting. That's just gonna entirely throw out your character. I have a question though. Did they make thematic decks for your characters? In which case that is very sweet. I don't think, it doesn't sound like they did. It doesn't sound like there was a ton of thought. I think you gotta ask your brother,

hey, were you just kind of like tired of DMing? In which case- Sounds like the brother just wants to play Magic, doesn't want to play D&D. I think I need to abstain because I just like Magic too much. Yeah, I think you take it out because so these people don't want to play Magic, right?

Imagine it was Uno. Yeah, just imagine if, and Uno's fun. Oh, wow. Yeah, but imagine- That would be such a downgrade. Yeah, okay, so yeah, so imagine you're supposed to go to a D&D night, you don't play D&D as your job. D&D is just a fun thing that you're very excited to do.

You show up and they're like- You spent all week with like a character shoot. You made your bard so nasty. Yeah. He's so filthy. You have Stinking Cloud, you have all the nasty hits. And then you show up and then the person's like, what's up, I got a GameCube

and we're gonna play Luigi's Mansion. And you're like, okay. Yeah. I don't know. Wow, that would be whiplash. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. I mean, it is that level of whiplash. It's a completely different game. But if your bard was named Luigi and that's a mini game,

you got transformed into a TV. Right, also in this analogy, you have to actually have shown up several times at that friend's house and had a great time playing. This brother had been DMing and they had been having fun. So I feel like this Magic the Gathering curve ball, while annoying, is still only one instance of an otherwise good time.

And it's ruined the entire game. I think a very practical, functional sentencing for this brother is just go to a game night. You wanna play Magic the Gathering, your brother and your dad wanna play D&D. You can have it all, right? Yeah, sit at different tables. You are a woman with shoulder pads in the 80s,

you can have it all. You can have it all. You guys can carpool and split up. I mean, I'm sure this is just for brevity, but it does say that they just got up and walked away. So I will say, I do think- You should have played one game. I do think, well, not even played one game.

I think you could have just had a talk and just been like, I don't really wanna play Magic though. That's kinda not- Yeah. If you didn't want to DM, you could have just said you didn't want to DM. I think they should have played one game. Yeah, they should have been- The question of judges, should we have humored him

and learned how to play a whole new game or was my brother overreacting? And the answer is yes to both. Yeah. Yeah. But I think the brother, the brother's the bigger thing here because I do think it's a weird, it's a strange move to be the DM and then just bust out a different game.

Just bust out Settlers of Catan. Zooming all the way out is like, if you wanted to play Magic, there was a better way to do it. They were already sitting at the table. They were down to listen to you. Also just like to have it be so heightened and be like, oh no, what's happening to our characters? This is gonna be crazy.

I bet we're setting off on an entirely new adventure and taking out Magic the guy who got the characters. I would like to force you to play magic with me. This is a cry for help. This is a cry for magic playing, which I understand for sure. This would be better if it had been you're at a casino or something, and there are people playing like, or almost like this is like Gwent in The Witcher, where it's like you can go play magic against people or something like that. If it was an optional thing, it would be rad

because everybody would be getting kind of what they wanted. But it sounds like you guys don't wanna play magic. Your brother tried to mislead you into playing magic with him. So we gotta rule against your brother. Yeah, sorry, your brother's eaten it this time. Yeah, what do we rule for him? Cause he's already been punished.

He kind of flipped a table. Oh, what's a really bad commander that we could punish the brother to play? Oh, what was the commander that you had that you were sort of as a joke going to make a- Lady Orca? Lady Orca? Lady Orca?

I know nothing about magic, but I don't want to play Lady Orca. Okay. It's like a really ancient, I found it in Murph's old Magic the Gathering cards. It's technically a legend, so you can play it as a commander, but it's terrible.

It's seven mana to summon for a seven four that does nothing else, but have some pretty mediocre flavor text on it. Yeah. So she's technically a legend, but she does nothing and flavor text on it. Yeah. So she's technically a legend, but she does nothing and she costs seven mana. So unfortunately your brother has to make a lady Orca deck. And you don't know what that means

because you don't play magic, but if you tell your brother, your brother will be upset. And that's what's important. Your brother's gonna make the lady Orca deck and sit down to play magic against me. And then I'm gonna surprise him and be like, actually we're playing pickle ball. Whoa.

Yes. That's how it feels. And then, and then he's going to have to try to hit a pickle ball with a magic the gathering. Yeah. You don't get a racket. And I don't know how to play, but we're going to figure it out. Lady orca style.

Live. Jake's going to have a racket. Yeah. I get a racket. You have a Lady Orca card. I get a racket, you get a Lady Orca card. Cause that's what you showed up with. Sidebar, Jake, you don't know how to play pickleball? You seem so pickleball.

You're gonna have a pickleball phase? I'm just waiting for it to happen. Yeah, I'm surprised that hasn't happened yet. I've been avoiding it because I know that I'm prone to get overly into like athletic hobbies and pickle balls are, it's kind of like an expensive and gear heavy hobby. You have to lug around a net and you have to always beg people to play.

It doesn't seem like something I want to start doing. I have to avoid it until I play with, you know, the brother DM. Yeah, it's pretty gear light, I think. Yeah, especially cause the rackets are like really floppy. I think we have cheap ones, but they do the job. Although we don't play very much. We played like once.

Yeah. Yeah, the people I know have to, they lug around a net. Oh. They set up their own nets in the park. Oh, okay. God, okay, wait, new punishment. LA must have courts. LA must have courts.

Rich in LA, yeah. You guys have a lot of land. New punishment, this brother has to go to a tennis court with pickleball nets and just try to run them out. Talk to the tennis players and be like, we're transporting you to another world, pickleball. And then you start setting up your own net in the middle. There is genuinely a war going on

between the tennis players and the pickleballers, yeah. There is, my dad was like on one side and then switched to the other. It's a mess out there. It's a mess out there. Is he pickleballing? He was like tennis, but then they started converting all the tennis courts into pickleball and he was upset. But now in his elder years, post knee surgery, he's actually happy to have a little bit lower impact with pickleball. Hell yeah.

All right, cool. Well, so ordered to play pickleball against me with a lady orca card instead of a racket. And our next case comes from Crispy P. To the firm yet fair justices, that includes me, and honorable bailiff Jake, that's not me. May it please the court, my husband DMs a family campaign, another family campaign.

Woo, we're getting family drama. It is two days after Thanksgiving, and we're getting family drama. Someone brought up hoglodays in the Patreon comments, and I totally forgot that we call the holidays the hoglodays, and I'm so excited to have that back. The hogloday season is upon us. Anywayslidays. The hoglidays, yeah. And I'm so excited to have that back. Yeah, the hogliday season is upon us. Anyways, give me that hogliday drama.

Where's the Grinch fit in? What is the Grinch fit in? He's the Santa Claus of the hoglidays, yeah. Yeah. Okay, all right, perfect. May it please the court, my- He's the Santa hog. Sure. He is the Santa hog.

Oh damn, I'm getting the Caldwell treatment from her. Excellent fun. Without Caldwell here, I'm getting the Caldwell treatment from Murph. Excellent fun. With Caldwell here, I'm taking the entire front. You're taking the heat. Shit, Caldwell, get back here. Dude, your paternity leave is all, Murph is getting snarky with me. I'm in the hot seat.

My husband DMs a family campaign for me and our 12 year old twins. Our party was sneaking into a dragonborn war camp to rescue captured kinsmen of our daughter's character, a moon elf wizard. While stealthing into the camp, we decided to create a distraction and get a surprise round. The distraction is, this is, this person is so unfortunate that Caldwell's not here. I love it. Caldwell loves a distraction more than anything. I also do. So this is, I think distractions are always fun. If I were on watch, I would fall for distractions all the time. This is the perfect Caldwell v. Murph scenario.

A distraction at a war camp. Distraction, you should just kind of never have a distraction. You should always just kind of not make a scene in my argument. You should definitely always try a distraction. It should always be your A plan. Sure, yeah. We decided to create a distraction and get a surprise round as the soldiers and warlord were sleeping in their tents.

Okay. Our daughter used her pseudo dragon familiar to cast lightning bolt in a line that hit the greatest number of tents, including the main tent where we knew the BBEG was. I think that's just maybe, that's not really a distraction. That's a roll initiative, everyone fight. That's not a distraction, that's an attack, go on. We were expecting to create chaos with the fire,

do some damage to multiple bad guys, and each of us get a surprise attack. Oh, you did, this is the lightning bolt. Yeah, if you distract them by attacking. By attacking them, sure. Then you also get. So I guess you can assume, dear justices, that is not what happened.

Uh-huh, right? My husband said that since we couldn't see the people in the tents, they wouldn't take any damage from the lightning bolt. Oh, what? And instead, the tents would just catch fire. Furthermore, he said the fires alerted the enemies to our presence and had us immediately roll initiative, not allowing the rest of us to have a surprise

attack. Needless to say, we were not pleased. And after some arguing at the table, the kids yelled email Jake in order to correct this injustice. Jake and justices, who was right here? We humbly await your decision. PS, while the kids have heard several D&D courts, they haven't heard the main campaign yet because you know, dragon pussy. Right, yeah, that adds up. Good parenting. That adds up, that absolutely adds up.

Okay, so good news, everyone's wrong. Everyone here is wrong. Really? What? Talk to me. Why is everyone wrong? Because as this was being read, I was like, of course this just goes into initiative. You've just started a war in the middle of the camp. Of course, everyone's just gonna start fighting.

You don't all then get to, you roll initiative after the lightning bolt goes off. The thing that I don't understand is why a tent would protect you from getting hit with lightning. I think that's definitely not true. Yeah, yeah, so okay. So lightning bolt, I'm gonna read the description.

Lightning bolt, a stroke of lightning forming a line 100 feet long and five feet wide blasts from you in a direction you choose. Each creature in the line must make a dexterity saving throw. A creature takes 86 lightning damage on a failed saver, half as much on a successful one. The lightning ignites flammable objects in the area that aren't being worn or carried.

The idea that you would just send a 100 foot long lightning bolt through a bunch of tents and not hit anyone, but light their tents on fire just enough to alert them is- It's a little far-fetched. Yeah, I'm centering myself because I assume the 12 year olds are gonna listen, but I keep wanting to say it's bullshit.

It's bullshit, it's bullshit. Yeah, 12 year olds can hear the word shit. They can hear shit. Bullshit's on TV, that's on TV. That's on TV. Absolutely, that's on USA. Kids are always watching USA Network. Yeah. They're always watching the USA Network.

They hear bullshit all the time. Yeah, they hear bullshit. Yeah. I think, yeah, unfortunately, I really wanted to be on the side of this, but I just think that an attack can't really count as a distraction, especially with a war camp, right? They're ready to go to battle.

They're thinking of battle. I feel like a distraction would have had to be less aggressive. Yeah, a distraction would be doing a Bullywog. Maybe a call. Maybe, okay. Maybe if the pseudo familiar had flown up into the sky and made it look like it was lightning from a thunderstorm

and just tried to light one on fire, then I would have let them make a deception check to be like, okay, but the fact that you tried to maximize how many people you attacked. Yeah. I think makes it less of a distraction. I mean, I think what you did was better than a distraction. It was a really great direct attack.

And that was a surprise. I feel like that should have been rewarded. This is why I would say everyone is wrong because I think the DM is super wrong here to be like this lightning bolt that goes through the camp. And even if you can't see anyone, if there's a war camp, like roll in front of the table be like on a on a um 15 or higher you hit five people on a 10 or higher you hit three people like you could

do that and be like because we rolled so terrible on your luck check you missed everyone but i don't know i think within reason if you're like there's a hundred foot long five foot wide thing that you do through a bunch of tents, you can assume someone will get hurt, especially if all the tents have now lit on fire. The fact that this was just used to then start combat is kind of BS on the DMs part. Yeah, don't say bullshit.

Right, yeah, yeah. Now we've covered it up. Let's stop saying, let's stop saying. I mean, FCC rules, right? It's like you're only allowed to say it so many times. You're only allowed to say it so many times. We've said it nine Let's stop saying it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's too much. I mean, FCC rules, right? It's like you're only allowed to say it so many times. You're only allowed to say it so many times.

We've said it nine or 10 times. Yeah. Yeah, which is fucking- I'll dub it in bull spit. There you go. Any other time we say it. Yeah, just add that up. I'll dub it in later.

Justices, that's bull spit. But the other side of it that is bull spit- Bull spit. The other side of it that is fucking bull spit is- Wait! It's fucking bull spit. No, it's fine. It's fucking bull spit. All right? So No, it's fine, it's fucking bullshit.

All right? So the other side of it that is fucking bullshit is that the players think that they're going to be able to electrocute the whole war camp and then get a surprise round on top of that. What should have happened, if everyone wasn't wrong, is it should have been lightning bolt goes off. It does X amount of damage to X amount of people.

Now everyone roll initiative, it is time to fight. The thing the DM did wrong was saying that it magically missed everyone. That doesn't make any sense. Do you think this DM is a bad father? It could be argued. It could be argued. No bull spit here, folks.

They have some groveling to do to their children. But the thing is- And the hoglodays are right around the corner. The great news is- What better way to grovel? The great news is that everyone's wrong. Yeah, you're right. When everyone's wrong, then no one's right.

Yeah. And- Go on. That's what the hoglodays are about. Then that's what the hoglodays are about. That's what the hoglodays are really all about. Yeah. And go on. That's what the hoglodays are about. Then that's what the hoglodays are about. That's what the hoglodays are really all about. Yeah. Nobody being right. Yeah.

So I guess the punishment here, since there are no, there's really no winners here, is that, I think, gather everyone. Yeah. I do want to keep figuring out though, what they could have done. I would have let them each, if they all did stealth checks, each like sneak up on one person, right? And each have a surprise round that way. If they had sent the pseudo familiar into the air

to mimic a lightning bolt, and rather than getting as many tents as possible, just like one on fire, I think I would have been like, okay, that can count as a distraction that will give you advantage on stealth to try to get it like a round of surprise. This has like mad dad at the snack bar energy where like dad is like,

I'm gonna go get everybody some French fries. And then like all the kids start being like, can I get a soda? Can I get some candy? Can I have ice cream? And then dad just goes, no one gets anything. Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. You think this was all no one, no one gets anything. Yeah. Oh, that's interesting.

You think this was all no one gets anything. Yeah. I think so. I think it's like, I'm gonna stealth. I'm gonna shoot a lightning bolt, but I want a surprise round. And it's like, you know what? No, we're not doing it.

Nobody gets anything. We're not doing surprise rounds. You lightning bolted the camp. A good penance in the Hogwarts spirit is that everyone just has to get each other one more small gift. Yeah. Or maybe you guys have to give each other

all gifts in game. Oh, that's nice. Save up your gold. Yeah, like an in game secret Santa type thing. Yeah, yeah. Okay, cool. They could be kind of like passive aggressive things too. Like you can give them like a non flammable tent.

Right. Actually that would be really helpful though, potentially. A lightning rod. That would be really helpful, yeah. The non-flammable tent is a good bit that we would later get a submission that was like, so I gave my friends a non-flammable tent and they used it to never have any problems in hell. Yeah, yeah. So ordered.

Happy Hoglides for this lovely family. Happy Hoglides to your lovely family. Yeah. Both done wrongful rassings on each other. Bull spits all around. Bull spit, fucking bull spit. Hold your loved ones close and tell them they're pissing you off.

Mikaela ZC writes, Dear Justice Axford and her little buddies. What? Wow! What the actual fuck? I fit in there. I side with you. That's fine.

Tell me no more. You're right, everyone else is wrong. Cool, let's punish Michaela's DM. About a year ago, I started a campaign as a blade singer wizard. I was excited to slash my way to glory with my arcane blades. However, early on in the campaign,

my whole party accidentally got cursed by various gods. Most of the party got minor inconveniences that never came up, and our barbarians quote curse actually doubles their rages and has it auto activate when they first take damage. What? That's not a curse. Yeah. I, however, was cursed by the goddess of luck, which means I can never roll a nat 20 or a nat one. If I do, I need to reroll and give my crit to someone I can see.

While this occasionally makes an enemy miss their attack, my wizard has ended up being my luckiest character ever, sometimes rolling four 20s a session. My party, especially the barbarian, loves their curses and the GM seems uninterested in ever breaking them. So I ask you, do I deserve retribution or should I resign myself to my fate? I see it, like I see the DM,

why the DM had the idea to try this out. I like the idea that like, oh, you can't crit succeed or crit fail, but I just think it's like, I like to crit fail as much as I like to crit succeed. Yeah, it's taken out. Yeah, it sounds cool. And I'm like, oh wow, this sounds awesome.

But then I think about it happening to me and I'm like, no, I would hate that. It takes out the highs and lows. It absolutely takes out the highs and lows of the game and it makes it unexciting. It's like, okay, cool. You can't roll really bad. You can't roll really good.

You can just roll like 10s. I don't know. Well, the perfect way to do this is you did it in campaign one where I think we had a curse where like your next 20 becomes a nat one. Right. Yeah. And that's an extreme thing.

Which for a one time that was like really fun. Having whatever this is, is like a one instance thing. It seems a lot better than an ongoing thing that you can't solve. That sounds so frustrating. Even if it was a flipped thing, emotions would be high. Instead of being, instead of saying, there's no more net ones and no more net 20s,

which does not seem like something a god of luck would do anyway. That's not whimsical or cool or anything. It's just like, I as the god of luck would like for you to have no luck. What? And now I'll ruin the game a little for you. I as the god of, will minimize the spectrum

of success. If, as the God of Luck, you switched Nat 20s and Nat 1s, that would be really fun, because then you'd roll and you'd be hoping for a Nat 1, which would be really funny, but would also, I don't know. And you would be short-circuiting every time. You would be like, oh, Nat one, wait, Nat one. Yeah, it'd be a fun thing at the table

where you'd have these moments where, because you're used to feeling one way or the other about a Nat 20 or a Nat one, and it would like flip those expectations and it would be kind of exciting and fun. And this just kind of takes all of that out. I feel like you could be able to just like sidebar with your DM and just be like,

this has been kind of a bummer. Is there any way that we can resolve the curse? I don't think you need to bring up like, oh, these other people have better curses. But like, I feel like if I were a DM and I gave someone a curse and they didn't like it, they didn't find it narratively interesting. Cause also this is less narratively interesting, right?

Yeah. Then I think that I would totally be like, yeah, my bad. Yeah, maybe- I tried something and it didn't work. Maybe pitch swapping Nat 20s and Nat ones, be like, I'd be willing to have Nat ones back if I could get Nat 20s back. Or even just pitch like,

can we find a way to ameliorate the curse? Yeah. Yeah, I think that's fair. And it's a good point not to bring up anybody else's curse because it sounds like either one, they like them or they're not coming up at all. You just be like, my curse personally sucks for me. My curse is making rolling less fun

and the game is about rolling. I don't think you want that, right? Every time I hold a D20, I feel nothing. Yeah, and other people already have good curses and you're just giving them all your crits. It's like forcing someone into a sidekick role when they haven't decided it themselves. It's kind of strange.

Yeah, that's true. It's such a brutal one. You really got a brutal curse. That absolutely sucks. Yeah, for sure where I understand you. Because it's like not even that satisfying to make an enemy role in that one. It's like pretty good, but not, I wouldn't, yeah.

You wouldn't trade critting for it. Okay, so we're gonna have to punish or dare I say curse your DM. Yeah. Should we flip a DVD in Justice Tanner's honor? Oh, that's a great, do you have a DVD nearby? Do I have one? Yeah, hold on real quick.

You have to go get one, yeah. I have to go get one. All right, cool. And me and Emily will just bam. He's actually going. Yeah, he's gone. All right, cool. And me and Emily will just bam. He's actually going. Yeah, he's gone. The car's starting. Let's do visual bits while he's gone.

He's back. Okay, he's back. Okay, I'm back. Someone had sent us to the PO box, Avatar, the last airbender on Blu-ray, believe it or not. Uh-oh, it's not opened. Come on, give me that shrink wrap Foley. He has to get up again and go get a knife.

Sorry, what's the purpose of, sorry, I'm now, I'm gonna be the Murphy to your Tanner. What's the purpose of flipping this DVD? Instead of a coin, it's a little bit more fun. Okay, so we're gonna flip this one. What would be the purpose of flipping a coin in this situation? Okay, so what we're gonna do is,

we're gonna flip the Avatar DVD. If it lands heads up, it means that your DM has to buy you Avatar season one on DVD. And if it lands on the other side, they have to buy you season two on DVD. Okay, don't scratch it, man. That's a brand new DVD. Okay, I did and I did it on top of a notebook.

It's actually a Blu-ray and it was face up. So they got to buy you season one. Okay, season one it is. Man. And that means that Blu-ray is absolutely scratched. I think that what just happened was you continuing to be cursed by Lady Luck because that was just really, that was not a satisfying punishment.

I'm trying to honor the missing Justice Tanner. And he is honored. Wherever he is right now, he's smiling. Oh, I have a better punishment. What if they- Impossible. If we record, or if you guys play at your DM's house, they have to get a Froyo machine. Okay. How awesome would that be to just like, while you're playing, be have to get a Froyo machine. Okay. How awesome would that be to just like while you're playing,

be able to dispense Froyo to yourself? Yeah. Or soft serve. I actually don't know if there's a difference between soft serve and Froyo. Should we flip a DVD to see what the difference is? Well, let's flip a DVD to see what flavors there are. If it's heads up, there's chocolate and if it's- If it's face down, it's mustard.

Okay. Oh, what? That would suck. We're gonna flip the DVD. Face up, there's chocolate. And if it's- If it's face down, it's mustard. Okay. Oh, what? That would suck. We're gonna flip the DVD. Face up, luckily. Okay, it's chocolate. Yeah, chocolate. Damn.

Chocolate instead of mustard. Okay, so you can have chocolate fro-yo. Don't put the DVD away. Let's flip for toppings. Okay. Okay, okay. Damn. All right.

Heads up, sprinkles. Fuck, all right. I have to be myself now. I'm getting tired of the DVD flipping. Heads up, sprinkles. Fuck, all right. I have to be myself now. I'm getting tired of the DVD playtime. Heads up, sprinkles, heads down, mustard. Mustard, yeah. It's over. Play it one more time,

and then they get mustard. Come on, dude. Fine, fuck. John, bro you have a mustard drizzle. It's face down. Er, yeah, you got it. You got your way. We got mustard.

Okay, and toppings aren't optional. The toppings are mustard. Can we flip to see if they have cups or cones? The toppings and the brooios dispense with one member. If it's up, it's cups. If it's down, it's cone. Up cups, obviously. All right, so it's up for cups.

That's good. You're gonna catch all that mustard. Mustard and chocolate, yeah. And you get a sense of Avatar on DVD. Amazing. And actually, that really is such a curse to have to have in your house a chocolate, fro-yo and mustard dispensing machine. And it's one lever so you can't not have mustard.

Yeah, does the swirl, does the chocolate vanilla swirl, but the vanilla is mustard? Yeah. And sometimes you want the fro-yo so you're like, okay, I'm going to eat around the mustard, I guess. Oh, just the strong, strong smell of mustard. I also feel like soft serve is kind of a loud machine. Yeah. Yeah, certainly. So that's going to be like just a loud piece of large equipment. Okay.

Sometimes have to get service. We've worked it out. We've worked it out. This is the punishment. Yeah. For the DM. The DM has the soft serve machine in their house. It's half chocolate, half mustard. It's chocolate, but it really does the swirl. It's chocolate, but it does a mustard swirl. So it does a mustard swirl. So it's instead of vanilla custard, it is mustard custard.

Mustard custard. And it's called mustard custard. Mustard custard. Wow. It's actually shocking that it hasn't been created. It's kind of perfect. But think of the health benefits of turmeric. Yeah. Next question. Moving health benefits of turmeric. Yeah.

Next question. Moving on, next question. Yeah. Hey there folks, this episode is brought to you by Aura Frames. From big events to the silly little moments you capture every day, doesn't it sometimes feel like all your favorite photos are just stuck

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There's a feeling of goodwill around town. It could only mean one thing. McRib is here. People throwing parties, ugly sweaters everywhere. Stockings hung up by the chimney with care. It could only mean one thing. McRib is here. At Participating McDonald's for a limited time.

That's why you're gonna fill up a cup with your mustard custard, your turmeric. The next case comes from the fun yawns. Mustard custard does sound like if Imagine Dragons had a side project. To the breathtaking judges and the bailiff that's scarcely worth mentioning, well, good thing I'm a fucking justice. Wow.

I present the case of the campaign setting switcheroo. Ooh, why is everyone doing this? We're having a lot of look this direction. What are people flipping DVDs over here trying to decide what game they're gonna play? Come on. Yeah dude, you're about to get mustard custarded. A friend told us he wanted to DM a sci-fi campaign.

So we all made characters using spell jammer. Mustard custard also sounds like a Frank Zappa album. Go on. You have to literally. No, please. To our complete surprise, our first session ended with our characters being sucked into a time machine that deposited us in an 1800s American cowboy world.

No. No. Unfortunately, the sessions that followed involved hours of fruitless role play. Townspeople had no information to share or were simply too freaked out by us to interact with us. Out of ideas, we tried offering the local sheriff our services as bounty hunters only to be told this town

had no need of bounty hunters. What? As a result. What is this person doing? As a result, my fellow players are checked out and spend most of the sessions on their phones. This is tough. I privately texted the DM to share

that I felt pretty lost as a player and would love more direction. The DM said he didn't want to quote railroad us, but promised to make his hints less subtle. The NPCs in the following session still had little to say, but we did have a fight on a train, one of my suggestions. Is my party justified in losing interest or does our DM deserve more opportunities

to develop his story? I await your judgment. Let's have a conversation about if them saying, okay, we wanna be bounty hunters and the sheriff saying no, that feels like railroading to me, doesn't it? That's true. That is, yeah, that is actually very true.

It's so, yeah. It's so funny to transport them to a world and everyone just be like, ah, what are you, witch? Yeah. It sounds almost cool at first. You're like, whoa, these spell jammer characters in like the old frontier town.

Yeah, cause you're imagining you're like, okay, you're just gonna, you'll have a laser blaster as a cowboy. And it's like, okay, that could potentially be fun. And then this DMH- Totally. It feels like the DM is saying, all right, step into my crazy world. I have a huge idea.

But instead they're just like, yeah, no, it's crazy. You guys are space people. You gotta figure it out. Everyone's scared around you. I don't know, man. Do you think that the DM is writing a book or a TV series about an 1800s America town and they're like, just like, hey, I need my D&D to be the research

and world building for my historical novel I'm writing. They're trying to stay focused. Yeah, trying to stay so focused. I don't know, I mean, wasn't there a movie called like Cowboys and Aliens or something like that? Yeah, Cowboys and Aliens. I saw it in theater. There was that.

Hell yeah. What'd you think? Whoa, nice dude. I thought it was bad, I think. You thought it was bad. Yeah, did you get popcorn? What kind of a sass? What kind of popcorn did you get?

You know, yeah, I was in Long Island. I was visiting a friend's cousin, oddly enough. Incredible. And yeah, I'm glad you guys asked. I'm just trying to go. This is riveting. It's a trip down memory, oddly enough. And yeah, I'm glad you guys asked. I'm just kind of about to go, it's a trip down memory lane. Yeah. Incredible.

It's such a specific memory. And now that I think about it, I got popcorn, I had a Coke. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. I just love, I love when you're meeting someone's cousin and then you spend the afternoon in the dark not talking.

Love that. And I haven't seen them since. I wonder how they're doing. So, yeah. Reach out, reach out right now. God damn it. To my friend's cousin. Yeah.

I gotta text my friend and see if I can get their cousin's number. All right, so this is why you have to railroad because we have to get back on track here. So yeah, they might've been trying to do like a Wild Wild West thing or like a Wild Wild West thing or like a Cowboys and Aliens thing.

But it sounds like the DM themselves isn't even on board for that world. Right. Are they a history major? And they're working on their dissertation. We've brought this up many times that like the fear of railroading is so much worse than railroading.

Like just putting players out there and being like, figure it out. Most of the NPCs are unhelpful and don't know what you're talking about is not fun D&D. You know what I mean? You do want to be railroaded to an extent. You just want to be able to stop the train wherever you want.

You can stay on the tracks and just have frequent stops. I also think that like railroading is like, people think of it as like having any hand on the tracks and just have frequent stops. I also think that like railroading is like, people think of it as like having any hand on the story, but I think that the opposite of railroading is hearing what your players want to do and actively trying to facilitate what they want to do. Railroading is actually imposing your story on them, not imposing any story.

Yeah, just walking around and just being like, everyone is scared of you and no one has a quest or anything is so boring and weird. What you did is worse than railroading. It's like transporting you somewhere where there are no tracks. There's just no story we had. If you wanted to do this world and you had a quest, right?

And you didn't want to railroad, what you would do is you'd say like, there's all these wanted posters for this one outlaw, this one outlaw band, and you see everybody's scared and they've all got their windows boarded up and everything like that. And then the players understand, hint, hint,

we need to go get this outlaw, right? But, you know, railroading would be like, you show up and you're already in a fight with the outlaw or that the person, an NPC makes you go do it and they sign the papers for you that say you're gonna go, you know, it's not railroading to just put quests out there for your fucking players to find. Right. Yeah.

It's not railroading to prep. Yeah. Or to just be like, this is the adventure that I planned. Would you like to do the stuff that I planned so we can have a good time? I really think that they're a history major who's working on a PhD and don't have time to come up with a story, but they're trying to use everything that they're researching. Yeah, perfect. I mean, I'm ready to flip a DVD on this. Yeah, yeah, flip a DVD. I think we should just mustard, mustard custard. Okay, you wanna just mustard custard this DM?

I don't even have to mustard custard this DM. Okay, we don't, we're not even flipping. Yeah, this DM needs to now do a quest in their campaign about mustard custard and really railroad them towards it. Yes. Like the old saloon is like slinging mustard custard. Yeah. Yeah. And then you keep saying,

you guys know slinging mustard custard. Yeah. Yeah. And then you keep saying, you guys know about the mustard custard because you guys made mustard custard in space in your old life. Because it's like prohibition era. It's like this mustard custard is outlawed in this town. You're not allowed to have mustard custard. Yeah. Yeah. It's too dang delicious.

And you guys have, y'all have to go on a quest to bring mustard custard back. There's mustard custard in your land? Tell us of your mustard custard. This sounds more interesting than the game they're currently playing, so. Kind of not a real punishment, but. But also, like, I guarantee you this table

would not be on board with it if it was like, if it was like, if it was like, okay, there are three objects you need to acquire to make mustard custard. Mustard, custard. Custard and a Froyo machine. You need the machine. Okay, so order.

They had a printing press, so they had Froyo machines. We know this. Yeah, it's possible. It also feels like you guys are almost being like too polite to this DM. Look, you should be polite to your DM, but in this situation, it's like, oh, you don't need a bounty hunter?

Okay. Is there a nearby town that does? We'll just move on to the next town. I'm imagining- Cool, we're just, we're gonna move on to the next town. Can we go? Can we leave? We're stealing a horse. I'm gonna gallop out into the horizon. I'm imagining being a DM and running like three sessions

where you guys just walk around to different rooms and my NPCs go, whoa, don't come around here and nothing happens. I would readjust for the next session surely after the one time I fucked up. Yeah, unless you're writing your dissertation on frontiers towns of the 1800s. Slice of life frontiers towns.

Yeah. I mean, this is, it's the equivalent of like, if we did a campaign or something where it's like, you guys get sucked into like a game of Thrones world, it's you do the initial like, well, you have strange clothing, you must come from like the outer realms or something like that. But then you'd have them involved in the plot. It would be the equivalent

of just over and over again, being like, you're not from one of the great families, get out of here. Right. It's like what maybe one person like will engage with you just so you kind of set the stakes of who they are, but somebody else has to. If a spaceman with a laser gun came up to me and said, what can I do to help you? I will be like, awesome. Let's get started. I have a chore list. I need blackout lines for my. I would be like, there's this guy on the block

that double parks every time there's street sweeping. I need to laser his tires. Yeah. I need him to not be able to move. I need his car getting towed. I guess by this logic, I would be kind of like this DM because if somebody with a laser gun walked up to me and was like, how can I help?

I would be confused and scared and say, I don't know. Really? Yeah, for sure. I would definitely have come up with some tasks. Yeah. I would be like, my rainwater catcher is getting a little stale and needs to be emptied. Emily's right, you would want to keep him busy because otherwise stale and needs to be emptied. Emily's right.

You would want to keep him busy because otherwise he goes and asks somebody else. And favors, yeah, the favor somebody else asks him might be a little less. Yeah, true. All right. So ordered. So ordered.

All right. Our next case comes from Guy B. To the absent yet most honorable of all, Justice Tanner and the imitators. Huh. The fuck? Wow. We're gonna flip a DVD to see if that's true. I'm ruling against you.

I wish you a mouth full of mustard custard. Flip that DVD, see if he has it. I have to get it out again. All right, top up and you're wrong and top down and you're right. Top up, you're wrong. Wrong, okay, you eat the custard. Yeah, you eat the custard.

The mustard custard. You eat the mustard custard. Yeah, you eat the custard. The mustard custard. You eat the mustard custard. Okay, they do bring a case that Tanner would have loved, but I'll read it for us. I bring to you the case of the rat in the hat. My players were trying to infiltrate an enemy base. The Beastmaster Ranger decided to use their hat of vermin to summon a rat, which they cast animal messenger on.

The alchemist artificer then used her elixir of flight to send it up the tower. The message was, quote, "'The Rat King approaches, flee or die.' I had the rat roll an intimidation check, which failed. Rats have really bad charisma." And the enemies captured the rat instead of fleeing away. Cool.

The ranger thinks I should have let them use their charisma instead, which wasn't that much better than the rats, to be honest. The session was fun either way, but what do you think? Since the caster is sending the message via animal, should they get to use their charisma or are they limited by the charisma of the animal? I submit to your ruling.

I think that I fundamentally think that the rat king is approaching Flea. Maybe that worked with your campaign, but that just feels kind of like what? Yeah. If that happened in real life, I mean, I guess I would run. I guess if a rat flew at me and said the Rat King is approaching Flea.

But you don't live in a fantasy world, right? So this is a world where a creature speaking, hypothetically based on how high or low magic your world is, could be somewhat normal. Right. And I still, I wouldn't flee like my town. You know what I mean? Like if a rat flew up and was like,

everyone flee, the rat king's coming. If I was in like a small room and a rat flew at me, I would absolutely get the fuck out of the room. But if a rat just like climbed a bell tower nearby and was like, everyone leave, I'd be like, I don't know what kind of TikTok prank this is, but I ain't falling for it. If I was with a bunch of other guards and it happened,

I would be like, hey guys, get that rat. I don't think it's really a king, but I would not engage with the rat just in case it was the king. We are scared of the rat king. That is, yeah. So actually it was a really compelling message. Now that I'm looking at Animal Messenger,

there's nothing in it, but I'm kind of thinking like, so the basic question is, should the intimidation check have used the ranger's charisma or the rat's charisma? And it is, the rat is cloaked in a otherworldly supernatural magic, which is kind of like charisma, right?

So here's the argument that I would make is that this is a debate that you should have before the Dicer rolled, instead of afterwards, you know, being mad about it. That's a good call, Murph. I think you could, as a DM, you could rule either way. You could say, this rat is not the messenger to bring this out. This is not going to be a particularly charismatic speech,

but you could also say, you know what Emily was saying, that this is like an act of magic from the caster. Like it's cloaked in other worldly magic and therefore it's not just a simple, at least in the act of intimidating, it's not with just. It's the equivalent, right, of if you have a monk or something and you're grappled

and I'm like, go ahead and roll a strength save to get out and they roll it bad. And then afterwards they're like, I should have been able to use acrobatics. And it's like, you should have asked me that beforehand. And then maybe we would have, you know, come to that conclusion together that that would have been okay.

This whole plan sounds like something that could only work if they crit. So like, you can't get over the hump with just the rats charisma. Yeah, because I think that even with a success saying I'm the rat king, the rat king approaches flee. It's like, it kind of does need a crit to have everyone flee the castle. Yeah, that's never gonna happen. Yeah. It was kind of a stretch to begin with. I think you could have had them roll with advantage, right?

To be like, because of the magic. That's cool. Roll with advantage, but we're using the rats charisma. And that would be cool stakes to set before the world, just like Murph is saying. That might feel more satisfying. So I think that I'm kind of in the middle. I think that maybe they were asking too much,

but maybe you were too hard as well. But it seems, I mean, it just seems funny, right? I mean, they're doing a ridiculous Hail Mary play. They had to know there was a high chance of failure. Had this been like a more buttoned up plan where it was like, we send them in and the rat is going to stealth around and try to hear some gossip and bring it back to us.

Then I think you don't have to be a hard ass DM, but when it comes to, we would like to say that the voice of God is speaking down to everyone and get everyone to flee. You have to know that that's not going to work unless everything aligns. Like you'd have reasons to roll with disadvantage there. You could be like, yeah, maybe they'll all leave DC 25

and roll with disadvantage. Right, and you succeed wildly and now we don't have a game to play today because that was what I prepped. You know what I also think is a satisfying way to deal with it, if it's like, you make this call, it's a little contentious with the players, you could be like, okay, well, I'm gonna roll in front of the table, the. If it's like, you make this call, it's a little contentious with the players, you could be like, okay, well,

I'm gonna roll in front of the table, the guard that it spoke to, I'm gonna have that guard roll like in a wisdom saving throw or like an insight check or something like that to be like, to have one more roll to make them feel like, okay, we are really getting a shot with this plan. But presumably that might've happened. I mean, it's just passive insight versus,

it sounds like they rolled really bad and a ranger's not gonna have good charisma anyway. So the argument's kind of neat in the first place. And it was a normal-sized rat too. Yeah. There's really only so much that that voice can really carry and only so many people that could even be intimidated to begin with.

Yeah. Though a rat can really make its way around a room. Sure, yeah, especially when it's flying. Yeah. Though a rat can really make its way around a room. Sure. Sure. Yeah. Especially when it's flying. Yeah. I think the time for these arguments is before the roll.

It's not, you do your rolls lawyering beforehand. You make your deals, then you roll. So everyone knows the stakes. You don't do this afterward. The DM said roll the rats charisma and they did that. And then they were mad that they didn't get their nat 20. That's not how the game works. We side with you, the DM.

Though I do think you were a little hard. Really? Just a touch. I think that you could have given a little more wiggle room in there. I think it was a pretty weird plan. That they knew it was a goof. They knew it. The rat god is coming, come on.

That's a plan you don't even want to work. Unless we don't know what was a rat god, is a rat god the main bad guy of this campaign? Is it in lore? It could have been completely not silly at all and only strategic. DM has to look into their heart right now and know if the players were honoring the lore

and they just didn't have, they didn't tell us. Were you withholding information? I 100% agree we're sentencing the players. Yeah. Okay, so what should they be sentenced with? Well, of course, mustard custard. Mustard custard, of course.

Of course. Yeah. But also I don't, I sentence them to play in a different campaign with a DM that allows for intimidation checks from challenge rating one eighth animals to clear castles and see how much fun you have. Maybe Justice Tanner should DM for them. I would sentence them to like a really brutal knockdown drag out like overpowered fight

against the Rat God. Yeah, they've anger against the Rat God. Yeah, they've angered the Rat God. I think that's right. You have invoked my name for selfish gains. Their plan should actually work and this should actually be the Rat King. And that's who they have to serve from now on.

The animal, you like awakened the Rat King. Oh, the castle is actually the Rat King's castle. And they're like, the Rat King would never tell us to leave. We serve the Rat King. Right, well, we told you to say that Rat. Yes, but I said it because it's true. I didn't know how true it was until it came out of my mouth. Okay, so the DM is going to incorporate the Rat King

into the campaign. This could be a punishment for the DM, no. A challenging 30 Tiamat. Yeah. A Tiamat with five different rat heads. Whoa, I love it. And they all do, oh, that's great. Yeah.

And do really lazy. I mean, you could do a rat king style. Oh, like they're all tied together. How it's actually five rats. Yeah. But Tiamat stats. There's huge dire rats, but they have Tiamat stats and you do a really lazy job of transferring it

from dragon to rat and you just keep being like, it doesn't blue rat. You keep calling it Tiamat. You keep, you go, oops, Tiamat. Right, cause we don't want to sentence this DM to prep anything more than they've already prepped. So you keep saying Tiamat. You keep, you go, oops, Tiamat. Right, cause we don't want to sentence this DM to prep anything more than they've already prepped. So you keep saying Tiamat, I mean the rat king. Yeah.

Is gonna use its blue dra, I mean blue rat head to breathe cold rat damage down onto you. Okay, so ordered. And with that, why don't we step into our Diceice Christ confessional for a confession. Jacob H., not me, somebody else, writes, Dear most honorable justices and third most honorable bailiff achy-brakey Jakey, I do not know if this should be presented in the high crit or the high church,

so please evaluate it as such. I accept whatever judgment, divine or mundane you see fit. I was playing as the only experienced person in a group of brand new, but very enthusiastic players. We were playing in Curse of Strahd and they were excited by the world and the possibilities. But there were multiple occasions where I saw that they were afraid to try something because they felt like they couldn't

or they would get in trouble. The DM was also fairly new and was having trouble encouraging them. Enter me, an assassin rogue based on Agent 47 from Hitman. We were watching a corrupt governor give a dystopian speech and I saw an opportunity to both show the group that big swings are something you can take in D&D and take out a cruel noble with one well-thrown screwdriver. I sneaked behind the stage and rolled in the mid-teens to make the assassination attempt. I was almost certain this

would hit, but was afraid that if it didn't, it would discourage the new players even further from taking risks. So I instead reported a roll in the low 20s that I knew would hit the AC of a petty noble. The screwdriver struck true, flew clean through the governor's head and we all had a high stakes escape from the town. Years later, we still talk about the scene and one of the players has even said it helped show them what was possible in D&D. So Justices, am I good?

Wow. This is a tough one. I think your heart was in the right place. Yeah. I think they might've learned even if you missed. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I think that's the lesson to be learned here is that A, it sounds like the DM was willing to swing with you anyway.

Yeah. Because if the DM really was afraid of big swings or something would have been like, they cast shield. They're actually secretly a wizard. They have super armor on under their clothes or something like that. So when you rolled in the high teens or low twenties, I think it didn't make a big difference.

So I think you probably could have just said your actual role. I bet you would have hit no matter what. Especially in noble. You should have just said your actual role because then you'd sleep easy, right? Yeah. No, you wouldn't have to question it. And also, I think that you're thinking,

oh, it was the success that makes us talk about it to this day, but I think it was just the big swing. Because it sounds like since your DM was willing to roll with it, they were into that. So I think that if you had missed, then it could have started some chaos and you guys would have had to like scramble and get out of the situation.

Yeah, because then you would have missed and then you would still had to escape and it would have been this fun escape thing. And then you'd have this bad guy that knew that you tried to kill him. And so that would be a rival and stuff like that. So I think that the lesson here is go with dice, Christ. The rolls are there for a reason.

The dice help tell the story. I think ultimately you probably told the same story that the dice were gonna tell anyway. So you're all good. You are good to answer your question. You don't have a tiny sampling of a mustard custard. It's the, it's the hoglodase and Santa hog is all about forgiveness.

Right. Yeah, sure. Look, you're good, but you're not great. Yeah, you're good, but you're not great. So you do have to have a spoonful of mustard custard and then all is forgiven. I looked up if mustard custard was a thing. Cause I was like, maybe it already, maybe it already is a Frank Zappa album.

Okay. And it's really just like actually a recipe. Yeah, of course. That's why we mentioned it. We knew it was a thing. That's why, yeah, we knew this whole time. Yeah, but we want mustard frozen custard and it's like, it's way sweeter.

We want regular, like, spicy. We want spicy mustard coming out of one tube while vanilla ice cream comes out of another tube and for them to swirl around together. No way it exists in a Froyo machine. Yeah, there's no way. We invented that. This ain't your grandma's mustard custard, okay?

We came from the spell jammer future and we invented frozen mustard custard. And no one knows what's going on and no one will give us any quests and everyone's scared of us, okay? Yeah, but we're just here to eat frozen mustard custard and serve the Rat King, and I don't know what the big deal is. We're here to serve the Rat King, and so we are all dispersed.

Thank you all so much for listening. That's gonna be it for this one. You can head on over to patreon.com slash nadpod, that's N-A-D-D-P-O-D, don't sing yet, to listen to our after show, The Short Rest, for D&D courts, where we always do bonus yet. To listen to our after show, The Short Rest, for D&D courts, we always do bonus cases, so listen to bonus cases over there.

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