Not Another D&D Podcast - D&D Court: Perilous Poems and The Campout Conundrum (w/ Mike Trapp!)

Episode Date: July 24, 2026

Dungeon Court is back in session! This week, Justices Murphy, Axford and Tanner, as well as Bailiff Jiminy, are joined by the Majestically Mononymic Justice Trapp! Grab a seat in the jury box and listen in as they convene to pass judgement on your trials at the table!CREDITS:Sound Mixing and Editing by Trevor LyonDungeon Court Theme Song by Sam WeillerSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is a headgum podcast. Dungeon, Dungeon, Dungeon, Dungeon, Dungeon, Dungeon, Dunn. Welcome to Dungeon Court, everybody. Dun Dun Dunn, Dunn, we are your Supreme Crit Justices, Murphy, Axford, Tanner, and of course the lowly, lolly, lolly, lolly, lolly, lolly, lolly, lolly, lolly, lolly, lolly, lolly, loy, loy, loy, loy, loy, loy, Bayliff, Jake Hurwitz. Hi, guys. He's so little.

Look at him. He's on my shoulder. He's all of our consciences. That's right. And let him be your freaking guide. We couldn't afford Jiminy Cricket, so we have Jakeany Cricket. Yeah. My rate is really close to his, though.

I'm just not quite there. He does charge Pinocchio. They cut that. And then, of course, we've got a very special guest judge, Mike Trapp. Hello. Thank you for joining the show. I called you a judge. You're not quite a judge yet.

I'm a clerk. Yeah. There should be more clapping in courtroom. Maybe they clap occasionally. There's some cheerleaders in there? I don't know. I think people do clap, though, when there's a verdict sometimes. Probably.

You're definitely not supposed to do that. I think you're allowed to whoop it up after a minute. You're for sure not allowed to whoop it up. You're allowed to do a touchdown dance, right? But they're not going to punish you. Like, they just, they either did or didn't. So, like, you're allowed to clap. The prosecution just makes their argument.

There's just one guy like, yeah, yeah. He killed it, dude. I'm convinced that dude did it for sure. I got away with it. Wow, you're off the jury. You get to go home. I can be impartial. I just think he did a good job.

I just can't be impartial about that guy. If you bring one Roman candle, you're off the jury. That's an easy hack. Well, Trap, you will become impartial once you become a justice of this court. When you were ready, please take your oath. Oh, thank you so much. I think I'm ready. I, Trap, do solemnly swear that I will.

No first name. What? No first thing. No, I'm mononymic. The dana of justices. The Beyonce. Name another trap you know. When people report about the rulings, they say, and like, justice trap.

Yeah, you're right. Okay, go on. Proceed. All right. I trap. 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 this obligation of my own volition and that I would well and faithfully embark

upon this noble pursuit of justice. So help me, gods. Wow. Very well done. Welcome. Convincing. Welcome to leave you. That was perfect.

And with that, let me call us into order. Hear ye, hear ye, hear ye. Crit is now in session. The Honorable Supreme Crit, Justice's, Axford, Murphy, and Tanner and Trap. There we go. See? That's what I'm saying. It works.

Our first case comes from David H. David Wright's, Justices, et cetera. I present the case of party versus perilous potions to the esteemed and effortless judges and the other guy. What is his name? It's Jiminy. I've been stewing on this one for many years. Our level three party had just entered a dwarven tournament of games,

dungeon rooms filled with puzzles and monsters. The first room was a puzzle with five different colored potions, and one of them would open the doorway when drunk. Our only clue to the correct potion was a confusing poem handed to us by the DM. After 20 minutes, IRL, our fighter just picks one up and drinks it, gaining a permanent stat bonus. So following in his footsteps, my Goliath character quickly chugs one on the end,

a black one. This is important. Okay, okay. Without asking, are you sure you want to do this? The DM looks at me chuckling and goes, you're just dead. Cool. He offered no saving throws, nothing.

He points to the poem, and it reads, At the edge lies death. Therefore, GERTH just dies. Apparently, the two black potions, at the end. Okay. I just had to say

this poem is not confusing. That's the clearest poem I've ever fucking read. Pretty straightforward. At the edge is death. And there's a black sweet. Drinky knot. Two oozing black liquids sizzling at the end.

Maybe the rest of the poem is confusing. Yeah. This is no speak friend in inner shit. Yay, on the end. There's also only five potions. So one line. is so clearly don't drink the ones on the end, which means there's three left.

There's also like a picture like you get with packaging or there's like a big no symbol. Yeah. Skull and crossbones. Okay. It says rat poison. I think I'll try it. All right.

Dave, Dave H., I'm sorry. This is pretty easy. So I ask these truth seeking justices of D&D court. Is this fair the DM to do? Instant death at level three on our fifth session. P.S. later that session in a combat design

And for four players, the rest of the party was T-PKed by a room full of snakes. But the DM used a friendly cleric NPC to resurrect the whole party, except for GERTH, because I had died earlier. I mean, also, I would say that story makes me wonder about the DM's feelings about GERTH, specifically, because his name is GERTH. Yeah, GERTH is landing for me now in a way that wasn't earlier. GERTH trap is his last name. Yeah. Well, no, no, don't confuse it with the justice. I feel like that, that like little PS, the sort of addendum, is like, hey, look how unfair is being.

But I actually see it as like proof of like, the DM's kind of trying to throw you a bone or it's like, oh gosh, like this is going to be a real bummer of a session of everyone dies. So it's like, I can steer things a little bit back that way, but like I'm not going to undo all the stakes of this. Yeah. Yeah. It does see the, the DM just laughing and going, huh, ha, you just die. Like, there's definitely a world where if the DM narrates that, that you're not that mad. Like you feel your throat. At first it tastes like delicious cola.

And then your throat starts to constrict. If it was described that way, if it was described as delicious cola. And you at least had sort of like that to take the sting of death. A little silver lining. A black cherry Coke. It's the best soda you've ever tasted. And you can never tell anyone about it because you die moments later.

But it's so, it's honestly, it's worth it. It's worth dying to taste. I remember my family used to get the generic Coke from Acme. In the summers. That hit. Yeah, Acme. There's a real brand called Acme out there. You've never seen Acme supermarkets.

No. Wait, are you fucking kidding? I don't think I have either. Really? Is it maybe it's just in New Jersey. It's not just in New Jersey. Murph, did you grow up in a Looney Tune? You can't get the generic setup from Acme because it'll explode.

You think it's going to catch the roadrunner and it just never does. I'm looking at Acme supermarkets and there are a lot near New York and New Jersey. And as I zoom out, they disappear. Jake, you have no fucking excuse, okay? This guy doesn't even know who fucking future trunks is, okay? So he shouldn't be fucking talking. They're in Connecticut, man. They're in Connecticut. Where?

It says it on the freaking Wikipedia. Oh, shit. It doesn't say it on Google Maps, brother. In Jake's defense, it's also apparently in New York and I'm not. Acme, yeah, Emily should know this. The only people that shouldn't know this is Trapp in Caldwell. We're absolved. Is an Acme Markets Inc. is an American supermarket chain, originating in

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and operating 159 stores. Specializing in rocket skates. Not that many stores. Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania. I see there's one in Stanford. It was an hour from where I grew up.

You never made the trip? You didn't drive there for that freaking Acme Cola? I didn't know about it. If I knew there was a store named Acme near me growing up, I would be like, I got to go see if they got anvils. It does look exactly like it. Yeah. We got as far as I got the Acme Generic Cola.

Before we went way off the rails. Was it good or bad? It was great. I was going to say it was good. It was awesome. Well, because I feel like sometimes the generic brands, like, they're either like a perfect comp or they're just like, I will throw some chemicals in there, whatever.

I think it was because over the summer it was just like lawless time and it was just like, Brian can have soda. Yeah. It's just like, hell yeah, get him to acne cola. It's the summer. Brian can have soda. Hell is the summer. Take out everyone.

It's Brian gets soda summer. Fucking like Merv's standby me narration. It was the summer and I was allowed to have soda. I realized I never had as good friends as I did when I had soda. Was it the soda? Was it the friendship? It was the soda. Was it the fact that my body didn't hurt then?

Mer was the standby, any goony friends rolling into a friendlies. Sleeves rolled up on a big old frosty soda. All right. Shock to find out Acme is not as huge of the thing as I thought. 159 stores is honestly not that many fucking stores. Upstate New York, we were Price Chopper. Yeah, sure, okay. I feel like if you're getting like a generic soda, you're going to Sam's Club.

You guys are pigly-wiggly? You could say a Harris Teter more so. I mean, Kroger's everywhere. Yeah. O'Kroger is a plague. Yeah, anyway, I think this poem was super easy. And I do. Okay, wait.

But let's just, because I think it's fair that the submiter did not walk away with the best feelings because the death was kind of laughed at, even which like you should be being like, you're just dead. It's like, well, you did put these potions in here. It shouldn't come as a shock to you. Yes, that is fair. Right. If you knew the potions were death, like write something cool for the death.

But do you think also that just putting in, like, instant death in a puzzle feels like maybe a slight faux pot? I guess it's tricky because, like, if you watch, like, a Hunger Games movie or something like that, there are people getting murked, like, real quick right up top. Okay. So it, like, makes sense for, like, a puzzle dungeon for people to be dropping, like, full. lies. It's weird for it to happen to someone in your party, but that's just who the camera's focused on. So, like, you need to establish the stakes a little bit. So I understand

that point there. They did say Dwarven tournament, so I think we can assume it's a hunger game style. It has to be the Hunger Games. But I do think if you're doing... Thirsty games, because they're dwarves. I think it is weird that the DM apparently is not doing any narration and just kind of, like, laughing at people.

But even if... Sometimes I can be there. As long as the stakes are kind of stated, like, even if there was a puzzle where it was just like, one door leads to death and one leads to your future or something like that. If you walk in the death door and you die, like, how mad can you be? Oh, shit. Regardless of mechanics.

I think we are missing this element of like what was established before this. Because like, this is like a tri-wizard tournament, right? You know, it's like, and sorry to talk about Harry Potter. But if you get it, like, before that happens, like you get this thing to be like, hey, no one's coming to save you. There's very tricky puzzles in here. Yeah, yeah. If you get them wrong, you will die.

You will drown. It makes it very clear. It's like, hey, the stakes of these puzzles, you can't just like brute force your way through these puzzles. Because that's kind of the point of a like riddle, like puzzle dungeon thing. So it's like, I kind of think you need to have those like extreme stakes. If the challenge here is like, can you solve your way through this? You know, I also think if my character died from a puzzle,

I think I would be like when like the angel of life came to resurrect me, I would just be like, I'm good. Yeah, I didn't deserve it. I don't deserve that. I didn't have the chops, honestly. It's also better for this to happen at level three, because it would be really if you died from poison cola at level 20. It does feel like low level gets some crazy whoops deaths.

Yeah. Although this was not a whoop death. They could have been any level. The poem just said, don't drink that potion. Which is why I don't think that you can hold it against your DM that they didn't ask, are you sure? If there's instant death potion and you're like, I chug that potion, the DM doesn't have to be like, are you sure you do that?

Yeah. It feels like there's also maybe an. element of like like I'm detecting a little bit of like sour grapes here because it's like it's like the sour grape cola from acne but like the detail of like oh this other guy drank a potion he got a permanent stab and it's like that's kind of immaterial to your question here you're sort of bringing that up and being like why did this guy get something cool and I got I died it's like well neither of you solved the puzzle you just guessed randomly it's like hey guessing randomly sometimes you'll win sometimes you'll lose it is like straight up acne behavior though this is like

something that like bugs would drink a potion and he would be up and then daff he would be like oh yeah yeah i was gonna say that like maybe your then you got a backwards beak maybe your sin wasn't even like not reading the poem maybe it was the envy that i think caused you to act recklessly right you've sinned thou shall not covet your neighbor's potion that boost yeah yeah it's also possible that as we're reading it back we're doing the dm some disservice because there is a world where you could see giving someone a very easy poem and then they just drink the poison and then you're laughing so hard as you say you're just dead right maybe they had something amazing written but they were laughing so hard that they couldn't

focus yeah there there's a way for this to happen at a fun table i think yeah yeah yeah the giving the the dm the extreme benefit of the doubt right is if you imagine this is the easiest poem in the world they spent 20 minutes discussing it and the dm's losing his mind spending 20 minutes discussing at the edge lies death and there's just two potions on the edge. Are they like checking the corners of the room? David H is 100% listening to this. I know.

We're roasting. The way this question is written, like I guess it's important that it's black and on the end and he resurrected everybody else later. How are you going to punish this guy? This DM has done a ton of weird moves 100%. But we have to just litigate this one moment

Because, yeah, like if the DM is just willy-nilly killing everyone randomly in every single room and then also bringing in the back, sure, that sucks. But ultimately, it's more interesting to talk about this one thing. I mean, we could sentence the player to go to an Acme supermarket because that might either be so easy or so hard. Right, depending on where they are. I mean, there's 159 of them in the tri-state area. I think the DM should write another poem where there's a resurrection spell. It's like you get a chance of redemption here You can figure out this poem

You can come back At the edge lies resurrection Sorry, it's death again It was still the black potion Should we send us the player to take a poetry class So they can like increase their depth of knowledge Oh, I love that Yeah, that's nice

Add an Acme Honestly that would be a really good community building event Try the cola Yeah Cola and poetry Yeah cola and poetry You have to start a cola and poetry club at the Acme.

I'll fucking join. Because I did not stop for cola. He kindly stopped for me. All right. Yeah, I think ultimately I have to rule against the player here just because your one example of the poem made it seem so clear.

And so I am just like I just have to rule against you. I'm sorry. I do think the DM did also a bad job. There's no heroes in the story. I also think that you knew you're being a little reckless. You saw someone get a stapooze. I've been there. Someone does something and it works out for them.

And then I'm like, yeah, I'll do it too. And then I'm like, oh, fuck, I shouldn't have. There's also a very particular frustration to having a puzzle before you and not being able to solve it and have, you always have at least the DM going like, I can't believe you've gotten it yet. And like, like, I can see just being like, all right, we're Gordian nodding this thing. We're just cutting through.

And give me that portion. Then you've got to be ready to die. Yeah. Well, now you get to roll a new character who's really good at poems. Ooh. High it poetry master. Yeah. Yeah.

There you go. All right. So ordered. So freaking ordered. Poetry and cola. Whoa. It's like a coffee house, but instead of coffee, they serve just coals and big coffee.

I really think we're creeping in that direction. Based on the number of like fast food places that are just like, we sell a bespoke soda. Yeah. The dirty soda phase. Dirty soda weirds me out so much. Coming from like kind of a fat guy who loves sweets. I look like, I look like, go like, even I.

I can't. It feels religious, right? Yeah. It feels like people are just having fun when they're not allowed to, if that makes sense. Well, I think it's like, I can't do drugs. So we're going to make the soda a little dirty. I think it's because it's associated with, like, a lot of, like, Mormon wives. Because they get so, they are like mixologists for soda because they can't drink.

There you go. Or have coffee. Okay. Amazing. See you at the Acme for Poetry Club. I'll be there. And it's religious now. Poetry Club slash church

Save the Acme Our next case comes from JDM Hello Justice Justice Justice And Jack I'll keep it brief I'm based in British Columbia Canada And I was playing D&D while camping Let's check it out

Latitude, longitude No they don't do the regular zip code They do something different There's letters in there I think right It looks like it's either V0A Yeah they got some letters in there Okay so figure that shit out They got health care.

They put letters in their zip code. That country is so damn backwards. Give me five freaking numbers and let me pay for my health care. Thank you very much. Let me go into debt. Take the letters out of my freaking zip code. From my cold dead hands. Leave my poison.

Commonwealth. How about no one? Thank you. I'm based in British Columbia, Canada, and was playing D&D while camping last weekend. Oh. D&D is an amazing game. to play while backcountry hiking because dice add virtually no weight to your back. You're almost always with a tight-knit group of friends anyway so people are more willing to

cut loose and play. Right on. Here is the issue that arose while we were in deep grizzly country past sunset. Whoa, grisly country means bears. Yeah. Sure. That was the first line of David H's poem. You've got to be careful of the bears out in the V-9Z.

I just think I couldn't play D&D. if I thought a bear my house. Just simply like in a fucking Scooby-Doo episode. Wait a minute. Grizzlies means bears. Wait a second. Grizzly Peaks isn't haunted. It's got bears.

Oh God. Is that a bearer or a druid out there? As we played, we were not rolling the dice on flat surfaces because we didn't really have any. I was rolling to grapple another PC who had tried to brutally attack a pickpocket in a public square. I rolled a 20 to grapple him. Well, I think it was a 20. the dice was leaned up against a rock. Almost all of our roles were

and could have arguably been a two. I said 20. The other player said two. The DM said we should roll again. We rolled again. I rolled an eight, arguably. And suddenly my friend agreed to accept the role.

The DM agreed. I was outvoted and the role stood. Justices, both roles were leaned up against the same goddamn rock. The only reason the eight stood and not the 20 is because it was the second role. Was I wronged? There's nothing to be done at this point,

but I have to know. Okay, so first off, I just want to say congratulations. I really thought someone was going to get hurt by a bear. Yeah. Oh, you thought the bear was going to roll the dice? We started up by being like- I thought British Columbia was going to be more crackling of dyes integral. Bear and mine, this is in grizzly country.

Yeah. So you guys dodged. 2,000 miles from your nearest acme. A bullet. Right. You thought it was going to be like a country bear jamboree, but they play D&D instead of instruments. Yeah.

I guess my question is, my question is, And you were right to. Why did the dice roll against the same rock? Wouldn't you roll a little carefuler the second time? Carefuler? Carefuler. Wouldn't you be a little more carefuler?

There's Grizzlies out here. Jake, you said there was something, like, wasn't there some line there? It's like, like, they kept rolling against this rock or something like that? Wasn't there something that was like all our rolls had been, like, cocked or something like that? Yeah, because I think they're on uneven ground. The dice was leaned up against a rock. Almost all our roles were. After the third one, don't you establish a rule internally being like, hey, here's what we do when we keep hitting this rock?

Yeah. Yeah, I was going to say because, oh, Trap, you've done, like, a lot of, like, camping and hiking. Yeah. What would, like, what would be something that you could roll on to give yourself a better surface? Like, is there anything already on your person? We've probably got some, like, notebooks and stuff with you, right? Like, if you're doing this, you probably have, like, something you can roll on.

Because you're doing the artist's way. I'm almost wondering. I'm almost wondering if you keep rolling against this. I almost wonder if there was, like, a divot or something where they're, like, almost like a bowl. A bowl roll. Yeah. Bowl roll could work.

I mean, lift up a rock. That'll be a concave surface under there. Bulls got bottoms. And there's a part of me that kind of goes like, hey, like, first camping D&D sounds very fun. Yeah. And then I think like part of camping is always like, hey, you're like you're taking some of the smoothness off of everything.

Everything's going to be just like a little bit screwy. And like I sort of feel like in the spirit of camping D&D, you got to like kind of go like, all right, we're going to have some cockt rolls here and that's going to be kind of part of the fun maybe or like we're sort of planning around that. It sounds like at no point did you establish a rule for the cocked roll, which feels like the bigger. Trapp, I think that is the problem. It's that this player was looking over the shoulder and in the DM's ear being like,

this one's cocked, you can't accept that. The DM's got to be the arbiter of these roles. Like, okay, this one is cocked, but I'm going to call it a 20 and you have to just respect it. At a certain point, you stop rolling, right? Because if like you roll it, oh, it's cocked, roll again, ah, it's cocked. It's like at some point you just got to roll it correctly. Right, which is why there has to be one decider. I think it feels extra wrong that the other player was weighing there and being like, that's an eight.

That's an eight. And the DM agreed rather than just making the, the call without influence. I kind of like Trapp's idea, though, that like the whole, oh, it's cocked. That's not a good role goes out the window when you're like playing while camping. Someone's saying that nature is the ultimate deal. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, that rock was co-creating with you. Exactly. That was God. The rock works with dice Christ. Yeah. This is the dice druid at work. What if it was like more cocked though? You know how sometimes you see it and you're like, that's a little cocked, but it's not all the way cocked.

Yeah. Yeah. It's so funny hearing these questions because you kind of look through and see like, what's the part I'm not hearing here? Yeah. I think like the fact that it was a 22 was like, was it actually more cocked than you would have otherwise? And the fact that it was a 20 was like, I'm giving myself a little bit more of the benefit of the doubt than I would have otherwise. Or is it exactly as cocked as all the other roles were that were against this rock? That's a good point. They said it was a 20. The friend said it was a two. And then we rolled again. I rolled an eight. But they don't say what they thought it was.

Oh, but there was no other, what other one there was. Right. So for that reason, I think that almost implies that it was less cocked. Wow. Shit, that was a really good dissection of the question. Dicection. Nice. Who was that kid detective that was like Sherlock Holmes?

Encyclopedia Brown? Yeah, I was going to say, Jake, you're regular encyclopedia Brown. We're, okay. Oh, wait, I'm looking at a dice that has two D20s on it. That's right. What? You're just using cheat dice? Wait, there's a cheat dice on our...

Hold on, wait. Wait, did someone send us dice that are... Somebody is sabotaging us. I want everyone, everyone listening to know that it was in front of Caldwell stuff. No, Godwell! Holy shit. What have you been doing? It's like what Sammy Sosa's backtack and we found out it was cool.

Toss it out. Wait a minute. Every one of the side says 20. What do you hell? Dude, why do you still... Why do you still roll so shit? Throwing an extra 20? I've also been doing a ton of steroids, which I, that doesn't really help with my dice rolls,

but I feel like I should confess that too. You've been rolling harder. Neither does the second 20. Okay, I actually, I'm going to argue, I mean, it is interesting, but I almost, I was really swayed by Trapp's argument of like, this is just camping D&D. It's like, it's just a little looser, goosier. But then what about Trapp's other argument? I know.

Look, Trapp has argued against himself, and now I have to decide which trap I'm going to agree with. This is a terrible lawyer, like, defendants. and prosecuting. Your honor. We must all agree that I'll make good content though. Objection. I'm a piece of shit.

But then to play my advocate. I'm siding with, I think, original re-roll, especially if it's like early in the session or something. And especially if it's two players against each other, maybe you're trying to like re-roll the early cocked dice. And then at a certain point, you accept it. It is a little fishy that the one, that the other player is the one who called it. But I think Trapp and Jake are right that like you did call out that it could have been a 20 or it could have been a what was the other option? A two. And the other one you just said eight. So the sort of encyclopedia brown of it all. Thank God we remember that guy's name. The Michelle Tractonberg, what was her detective?

Harriet Spire. Harry the Spy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Except I actually, I'm going to go ahead and disagree with you. I like Trapp's argument that this is that camping D&D. Which Trapp do you? You just got a role with the Cox. as it were. Okay. And so I think that I'm going to sentence the, I'm going to vote to sentence the people who initiated getting rigid about like, oh, that dice is. That would be the DM and the other player, right?

Yeah. I mean, like, the true fault here lies with the DM where I think, I think the second time you have a cocked dice and people start arguing about it, you got to issue like a blanket rule, like, hey, here's what happens. Yeah, that's fair. Right. Or a sleeping bag rule. Yeah.

Well, I'm still wish you watched me today because as soon as you said that, I was like, yeah, you're right. This is too much. Well, Trapp, tell me if you agree with this point. Like, if you're hiking, if you're doing backpack hiking, you probably got a latrine shovel, right? Yeah. Well, yeah, if you're backpacking?

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, for sure. Wait, really? If you're doing like a multi-day hike and you're, there's not going to be any, like, potty's anywhere, then, yeah, you got a little trowel with you so you can bury your poop. Yeah. You can roll in the turp shovel.

Yeah. Or no, you carve out a little latrine before you poop in it. Yeah, it's nice. Latrine. Yeah. Oh, I see. It's just, I take a shit. Or.

Or to roll, you eat the dye. And then later, like, you know, two to four hours later, you roll it. I feel like you can roll in your freaking hand. I just think it's not that. I'm going to roll in my hand right now. And it's not going to be cocked. You guys watch. Wait, my.

It's not cocked. It's good. Look. It's not bad. That's pretty good. It's fine. It's absolutely rolling your hand. Okay.

I'm rolling my hand right now. You have a little too much control. You don't have control. I can, but I can direct it away from my own number. You've got to direct it, though, is the thing. Mine's so legit. It's like it's a Ouija board. I'm not fucking directed.

I'm finding it very easy to cheat in practicing with that. That's because you're a fundamentally dishonest person. I thought I was Detective Brown or whatever. Encyclopedia Brown. You can't even get your identity straight. He's not a detective yet. He's like eight. You're here as a child.

You don't even know that you're parents are getting divorced. Is that what the book's about? I'll also say you can't, you can't, you can maybe roll a D20 in your hand, but I feel like a D6 or lower. You're just going to be talking. I just did a bunch in my hand. And first off, like, even hitting the hand, even hitting the hand was difficult. Guys, I keep rolling at 20. Wait, what do you mean hitting the hand was difficult? Because, like, I think to give a proper role, I think that you really need some power behind it. order for chance to be working. Yeah.

And so... This is why these camping rules are all over the place. And so in order to hit my hand, it's such a wimpy little plop that you just like a cheat in itself. You can't wimpy plop, you absolutely wimpy plop. If you must. Wimpy little plop. I think it goes against the spirit of the game. You want those big click clacks.

All right. So I'm down to vote against this DM because I do think they could have wrangled this. I think the DM has to dig a poop hole. Yeah. Oh. Yeah. I think I agree with this punishing the DM too. I think they could have taken control of the situation.

Okay, so I guess we're just sentencing them to... Sleep in a poophole. Sleep in it. Yeah. Sleep in it. After rolling in it, rolling in it, pooping it. Yeah. Then sleep in it.

In grizzly country, Murp? In grizzly country. I don't keep the grizzlies away for sure. Yeah. Okay, so ordered. So ordered. And God bless your soul. God bless British Columbia.

Let's get, let's have a t-shirt that has a grizzly bear on it. So it looks like the Calaisley. California State flag. Right. And then it says British Columbia under it. And it says, dig it, roll it, shit in it, sleep in it.

And then on the back, it says, it's summer. Brian can have a soda. Let's sell just one, but sell it for $11,000. Yeah. That's really good. Perfect.

It's like, how does a shirt you see? And it's like, hey, what is this shirt? And it's like to even explain it. It's like, all right, you got 30 minutes. Yeah. That kind of shirt you see in a thrift store and you're like, must have been someone's bachelor party. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. The chair made four people laugh. Yeah. Trap family reunion. Yeah. Okay, so ordered. Hey there, Nadpoles. This episode is brought to you by Wayfair.

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Thanks, everybody. This episode of Nadpot is brought to you by MintMobil. are things in life that you don't want to be transparent, like all the sneaky little rolls behind your DM screen. But when it comes to your wireless bill, transparency is everything. That's why Mintmobiles' wireless plans have no gimmicks and no gotchas, just high-speed data and reliable coverage on the T-Mobile 5G network. And right now, all plans are $15 a month, even unlimited. All plans come with high-speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. You can bring your current phone and your number, choose from three, six, or 12-month

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and coverage varies. See mintmobile.com. Our next case comes from Haley Cup to the talented and devoted horse actors of the court and the one who keeps shattering immersion by looking right at the camera. That was a Knight of the Seven Kingdoms.

Oh, right. Emily was saying that one of the horse actors was bad. One of the horse actors was worse than the others. Literally, she was great. What do they call it when someone looks at a camera? Spikes the camera all the time. Oh, hey.

And like he was like a great, his character was really great. So it was all the more awkward. He can't get away with that on HBO. It definitely wasn't a bad horse actor. The horse did a fine job. Okay, anyways, just explaining that to chat. The horse is on the new season of True Detective. You're also explaining it to me because I forgot we did that.

I present the case of the Newsies musical anniversary session. Oh. A while back, my D&D gaming. group got together to celebrate our three-year anniversary of the current campaign. Oh, anniversary of the campaign, not of newsies. Not of the news. I guess unrelated. Newsies has to be freaking old because Christian Bill was in that.

Wow. He was in Cyclopedia Brown's age. Yeah. Christian Bill's still alive and an actor. Yeah. I know. I'm just saying like it was a long time ago that he was a kid as all. Like he didn't play a child.

I think he played an adult. In Newsies? Or was he a child? He's a child. Yeah. He's one of the children. He's one of the children. Well, he's like the oldest one, the senior newsie.

Oh, okay. He sings Santa Fe. Precisely. Okay. Anyway, this campaign is set in a magical variant of Earth and is a sequel to a previous campaign, so our DM decided to set it in New York City, where we would be infiltrating the headquarters of one of the BB EG's highest ranking lieutenants. The issue arose in the party's deliberations of how exactly to infiltrate this base.

As we were in New York, one of the fellow party members presented the idea of dressing up as the cast of Disney's musical The Newsie's. and put on a performance to be allowed inside. The party agreed to this, and the DM called for a group performance check, of which we ended up with a 30 average. Wow. Winning a Tony.

We began to act it out, and we ended up spending nearly half an hour earnestly acting and singing all the way to page 12 of the 116-page script. Whoa. During that time, our DM got quiet and ended the session right out.

after we concluded. After that session, we didn't talk for a week. Oh, no. Newsies killed as parents or something. But when it was brought up, she was a good sport about it, if not a bit disappointed. I still have some level of guilt

when I think about that moment. So I ask this court, was the party in the wrong? Did we ruin this important moment for our DM? Should we have not taken the bit that far? And did we derail the DM's plans too much? For this particular group of players I feel like I know where this

This is hard no This I mean especially because it's You're in New York and it is on earth Like the newsies do exist here Like this is all kind of Yeah you dug your own hoophole This is kind of buttoned up a little bit right Yeah unfortunately

I do understand where the DM's coming from With the DMs like God damn I set up this cool thing And I wanted this to be cool And I wanted my bad guy to be cool and I wanted everything to be fun and cool. You forgot about newsies. Good news.

But you forgot about the newsies. Yeah. Newsie is very fucking cool. Alternatively, though, isn't this the dream anytime you DM is like your players get so excited that they take the burden of storytelling off your shoulders? Yeah. Yeah, that's fair. And then you just read the script of newsies.

Okay, I guess they're kind of offloading it onto the shoulders of whoever wrote newsies. I also can't. I just, I really need to clarify something. I looked it up. Christian Bale and. Newsies looks like a goddamn adult. Yeah. I was looking at a picture too.

I stand by what I said. But how old is his character in Newsy? He looks, he looks like a year away from filming American Psychics. Like, okay, so, so I stand by what I said. How old was Christian Bailey in Newsies? He was 17 years old when he starred as the charismatic newsboy ringleader. I'm not going to weigh in on his age. I'm saying if you look at it, it looks like an adult man.

Okay. It does look like Christian Bail now playing a child. Exactly. Yeah. Even like you see like him. with his gaggle of fellow newsies and he looked five years older than all of that. He's doing the Batman voice.

I know why. Well, that's crazy that he did newsies and then Batman. I love to think that that was. And then American Psycho, that's a crazy freaking turn. Yeah, American Psychic before Batman. But I'm saying like two like New York begrudging orphans on different sides of the social straight of. I think Patrick Bateman is in New York.

I don't know if they're if he's an orphan actually, but it takes place in New York. He's very New York based. Tell you what. He's an orphan of society, I would say. Okay. Did we get a specific of what? Was the DM just upset that this party kind of got away from her and she had plans? And like it just, yeah, it doesn't get specific.

I think she, yeah, just that she gets quiet, ends the session. And then. And then. It's so funny. And then we don't talk for a week. I do have to. I do think if you're like, this isn't the vibe. If you're like, I'm Game of Thrones DM and this is you're talking to some bad guy or something, you have to just. be like, my NPCs attack you.

You have to nip this in the bud. Because that's also funny. Like minute 24. They're on page 11 of the script. You're just still sitting there. Yeah. As soon as they, don't even let them get the script

of the thing out if that's not what you do. You do have to wrangle your players before they get to page 12. Yeah. It is very funny to have, to be in the middle of newsies and just have like an orc behead one of the newsies.

It's like, hey, stakes reestablished now. Cast power work. kill. But with a 30 performance, you kind of have to do it in a way, though, that still honors that. So you have to be like, you could have been like, this is not the time or the place to start acting out newsies. Roll with disadvantage.

You're going for a DC30 or something like, you know? TC 30, the orcs are going to be stupefied, though. They're going to be like just totally just amazing. But you could have had the role with disadvantage if it didn't fit the vibe. Fine, you're the newsies, but don't do the performance in front of the gate. Like, you can with role play stop this from happening. There is a world where. Doing a reenactment of newsies wouldn't help you in a social situation.

There's lots of social situations where that wouldn't help. Name one. Regardless of what you do. It would help with me. It would help with me. Yeah. I think in this case, I would just roll my eyes and be like, fine. I think there is a specific context here that is the fact that this was like the three-year

anniversary, right? Yeah. So I think that is also like it is setting up for this kind of situation in a way because like I bet the DM was like, it's the three-year anniversary. I got to do something big and cool. And I bet everyone else is like, it's through your anniversary. We're going to have the most fun ever.

Yeah. And it's just like you're kind of like building in that dynamic of like silly goose versus like the silly goose wrangler. Yeah. I also feel like page 12, you've probably gotten through at least one song. You probably only need to sing one song and then you're good. It opens with carrying the banner, right? I think I would argue that you got the most important thing in newsies, which is just the really tragic mom solo.

There's a tragic mom solo? Yeah. She's like singing about her son that's missing. That's right up top. God save my son. Are you sure you're not thinking of American Psycho? Shit, you might be right. It's crazy because it could be American Psycho

because I think she says Patrick Darling, though you wander lost in a parade, lost and alone. Mother loves you. Jake knows so much about the newsies. God save. American Psycho. There it is. I do wonder if it was any other musical if I would be as

lenient. I think it's just because I love the newsies and I'm like, oh, this team is out. I wish I would there. Yeah. I think I just ultimately weigh in with the players, because if it had been swapped, if the DM did this to the players, that would be so awkward. Yes. Yeah. But like, I feel like the role of the DM

is to facilitate everyone participating. So when's your participating? If the DM just starts doing Hamilton. I guarantee that's happened. I guarantee 100% that that's happened. But if you're all right, do you guys want to go to a show? Like, why you're trying to solve the mystery? You guys start walking down the street.

You're chasing the murderer, but it looks like the murderer is going to hang out for a while. Oh, my God, you see there's tickets to Hamilton. Oh, shit. Or you're like the murder. The murder or ducks in to Hamilton. Yeah. Do you follow?

And if not, why not? You choose to follow. No, no, no. You sit down. You're not part of this. You're not part of this. It's the story of America. Should we, should we roll initiative?

No, no, no, no. No, no. You're good. Sit down. They start clearing their throat. Yeah. All right, so we're all on board with these newsies, right? I think that I am.

You got to nip this in the bud if you don't want newsies. I think I'm waiting in with the newsies, but is anyone saying like, no, actually, I'm siding with a DM? It's also just, they gave you their opera house moment. Like, you could have, like, made them roll initiative and have, like, waves of enemies trying to stop the newsies. This could have been the moment you're like, the show must go on, but, like, I'm going to try and stop it.

Who is trying to stop the newsies in the show? Hurst, right? William Randolph. William Hurst, the publisher? Yeah, he's raising the price of the newspapers. Whoa, okay. I thought I figured it was online media was trying to stop the newspapers. Oh, really?

Yeah. Wow, I think we found... 1992. Mark Zuckerberg is in this. Wait, what year is news he's at like 1930s? Jake? I was going to say, I think we've found Jake's Dragon Ball Z. Yeah, maybe.

I don't know. 1912, maybe 1914. No, maybe it is old. It's later. 1920. Does that way else want to guess? Do you remember any of the... I'm trying to remember if there was like a headline.

but apparently I don't even remember that a grown-ass man. That would probably be like 20s, right? It's like gilded age. That's what I was thinking too. 20s-ish. All right, so 20s. 1919. The answer is it was inspired by the newsboy strike of 1890.

Oh, 1890. So I was closest because I said 1919. Only off by 20 years. Pretty close. Turn of the century. Very cool. I think that even the person writing in this question is, and the DM too, like it feels like everyone's actually kind of on the side of the players because like the DM didn't

try to stop it. She just got quiet. And she didn't say, like, I'm upset. She didn't throw a fit or anything. And it was the players who recognized, like, oh, like, they asked her about it. It's like, hey, maybe, maybe we did something wrong here, you know. So it seems like, ultimately the DM was like, I'm going to let this silliness go forward. And then the players had a little bit of wherewithal to be like, did we get too silly there?

Yeah. A little wherewithal is the correct amount of wherewithal. Yeah. Several pages, several. Yeah. A tiny. They could have had 11 pages. more wherewithal.

They came out of a fugue state. Oh, my God. Wait, what did we do? Did we seize the day last night? What happened? Did we do the entire first act of newsies last night? I'm so drunk. So then do you weigh in with the players or with the DM?

I agree with you. Okay. That like, like, I seem like most people at this table were having fun. Yeah. The person who wasn't was the DM. And even the DM seemed like she was ultimately allowing the fun to continue. And it was probably disappointed that her plan, like what she planned didn't go through. I think it seems like she kind of came to terms of it.

You got to stop the newsies before they get singing. Exactly. You know, once the news starts singing. Stop the presses. That's what I say. On the back of the shirt, Brian can have cola. Stop the prices. Roll initiative before this gets out of hand.

All right. So let's punish the DM. DM has to incorporate William Randolph Hearst into the campaign. Really? How do you get to stab that guy? I mean, it was a great big bad in the film. Yeah. Yeah.

Because there's, I mean, if you go back to like that one James Bond movie, there's like a newspaper man who's a villain. And you could kind of like incorporate a little bit of that. Yeah. I'm trying to control the news. Yeah. I mean, a media giant being a bad guy? Who would have thought? It's a stretch, but it might feel really novel.

It might just work out for you. Let's flip the script. I mean, they're mostly good guys. Go against type. All right. So ordered. Our next case comes from Michael. That would be the name of the of the movie where the media guy was a villain against type.

Okay. sir. Sorry. Wow. Cut that out. Cut that out. I refuse. My brain had already moved on, but that's great.

Demand you edit this out. Edit in me singing newsies. Ain't it a fine life? Yeah. Okay. Michael writes, Dearest devilish judges and angelic baby bailiff. That's me.

I write to you regarding the case of the Blasee devil deal. I joined a campaign with some random folks I met on Discord after moving to a new city. I hoped this would be a, a good way to meet friends, and it has been. However, I didn't necessarily become friends with every single player at the table. In particular, one player will call Sarah. Sarah ended up leaving our campaign of dissent into Avernus about six months in. Frankly, I was not sad to see her go. Because she refused to her, Sarah, frankly, I was not sad to see her go, because she refused to roleplay or do anything remotely character-driven, and I found her disruptive.

She was constantly singing newsies for some reason. No, okay, I fell for that for a second. Cut to several months later, Sarah has rejoined the campaign. My character has become cursed, and our DM leads us on a fetch quest to find a powerful devil who we can barter with to lift the curse. The devil agrees to help us in exchange for selling our soul. It is very clear the DM has been trying to get one of us to take a deal like this, as it will become important later on in the story. Enter Sarah. Almost immediately, she volunteers to sell her hole to lift the curse, later saying that she wasn't sure if she would still be in this camp.

campaign down the road and that she doesn't care what happens to her character. Sarah. Sarah, you're such a pill. You have to stop. Sometimes you're too much and sometimes you're not enough. I love when I'm reading a book and one of the characters is like, I'll sacrifice myself. I don't give a shit. The stakes.

It seems like this is stakes for you and it's no stakes for me. She's like Goku saying like, I'm not even sure if I'm going to be here at a week. What? Ultimately, she did help me out, but I can't can't help but feel that her eagerness to take the deal and her meta reasoning made the whole thing anti-climacted. That's so weird. Am I right to be upset that Sarah undermined the drama of the moment or should I just be happy

that her character did a nice thing? Also, am I right to be annoyed that our DM let Sarah back into the game in the first place? Yeah. No, I think you got enough on your plate being annoyed at Sarah. Sarah's a huge pain in the ass and this DM let Sarah back in. Sarah's walking all over this. Yeah. I just, why is Sarah back for more?

I don't think she liked it. Yeah. Sarah disappears for six months and then she's coming back with his energy. And this DM's allowing it? This is like in high school when I played sports just because I did know how to hang out with other people. And it just like needed an excuse to be like, other people are here and it's like we're hanging out.

So I guess I'll play sports. Is this what Sarah is doing? Is this like, is they taking like the easier way out to be like making friends just being like, I guess we're all in the room. So we're friends. I actually, yeah, I did have that with baseball because I hated playing baseball. So at some point I realized like if I just swing. at every pitch, I'll be done sooner.

Because I used to just walk all the time. Because this is when you're like a little kid and people are pitching. So they're all, they're throwing all balls because no like 10 year old can throw that well. But baseball's also great because you're hanging on the bench. There's great chat. You're eating bubble gum.

I hated all of it. And I just wanted to not have the pressure on me. So I'd just go up and be like, you know what? Swing three times in a row and you're done. Three strikes Murphy. Back up to the point. I'm done. picturing you celebrating,

striking out. Anyway, that's Sarah. I feel like you're redirecting your anger from Sarah to the DM isn't going to ultimately serve you. Sarah just made, she ruined a moment,

I agree. Like she ruins everything. But she's gone now. You can just be happy that she's gone now. Wait, is Sarah gone again? Yeah,

because isn't Sarah taking the deal? She's taking the deal and she doesn't know what if she is going to be there. She's waffling. Sarah's not at the table. She's in the moment saying it's like, oh, I might as well do this bad thing to my character. Because I'm not going to bail on this campaign in a little bit.

It'd be like if trap at the beginning of this episode was like, I'm not going to be on next episode. So I'm just going to give bad. Yeah. And then we have to sit here for an hour. There is a level of commitment here that is worrying. Because we are piling on Sarah, I will take a moment to play Sarah's advocate. Okay.

Let's hear it. You got it. Just because I feel like maybe someone. Someone must speak for the Sarah's. Because what we don't have here is a sense of tone. There's a possibility, however remote, that maybe this was like a self-deprecating joke. Self-repoena. To sort of acknowledge the fact that she left and then came back.

Sarah's shy. And you're being so mean to Sarah. Well, no, but even beyond that, it could have been said in a way that was like kind of like, ugh. I mean, who knows of I'll be here because I, yeah. She's not looking forward to the future. She's looking back and saying, I already did this thing. and I know that that was the wrong thing to do. And so I am making this deal with the devil

because this is going to help the campaign for it. And then I'm going to acknowledge that I already did this wrong in the past where I had made. You think this was Sarah's classic dry wit. Well, I think it all depends on how Sarah said this. If Sarah said, I don't know, I won't even be here in a few weeks.

It's like, oh, come on, Sarah. But if it was kind of joking and she was trying to like, was this a tense session when Sarah came back? Maybe. Because it seems like people don't like her. Yeah. I think there's one way that Sarah could have said it

that if she said it that exact way that I would feel bad, but I feel like there's a million other ways that she probably said it and are bad. Yes, I need to acknowledge this was largely an exercise on my part of could I argue Sarah? Yeah. And you did. And you did. Wow.

Let's each take a stab at how you could say, I'll do it because who knows if I'll be here next week in a way that exonerates Sarah. Okay. I think I actually have one. Okay. Okay. Oh, I'll do it. And then she turns whispering.

Because I don't even know if I'll be here next week. I don't give a fuck about my character. Okay. That's really bad. So she's making a friend. You improvise because I don't give a fuck about my character. I don't keep a point about my character. I think this game sucks.

I think this is all bullshit. What are you? We're adult clean, make believe. What are we doing? I have a job. I don't know what this is. She holds up the dice. What is this weird little ball?

Nobody's playing shit to me. I don't get it Honestly, I'm convinced I'm convinced No, I got it I got it Here ready Okay

Huh Guess I'll do it I don't even know If I'm be here next week Oh it's in character She's an edgy robe Yeah Fucking Halloween town

Yeah That's actually really good But what if we're not What if we're not getting Like word for word So it's like I'll do it Because like Who knows of I'll be here next week

Right? I'm so flighty Oh, and then she's self-deprecating Sarah? We're like, Sarah, stop beating yourself up. Yeah, she's so funny. That's also true. Taking totally out of context. I don't even know if I'll be here next week.

I mean, I really want to. I plan to and I really, really hope I will be. I feel. Sarah is a Phoebe. Does that make sense? Sarah the Phoebe of the friend group? Oh, so maybe it's a little more like, yeah, I'll do it. Don't even know if I'll be here next week.

Well, that sounds like what are you up to? Right. That sounds like what are you planning between now and next week that you don't don't know if you'll be in jail. I think there's something that Sarah knows that she's not telling us. I'm imagining a very arch, like, jokeiness. If it is trying to, like, cut the tension. If it's like, if it is Sarah being like, I bailed on this campaign already, I can tell

people don't, some people aren't excited to have me back. You know, and there's some tension at the table. And it's like, it's like, I'll do it. Because who knows if I'll even be here next week. And it's that. Right. It's like an awkward joke trying to be like, I fucked up, guys. Let me call it out.

And honestly, it's a defense mechanism. Yes. Okay, I really think that all of us except for Jake's showcase version. I do think Jake's is the way she meant it. Yeah, no, I do. I do agree. Okay. If she has a pattern of behavior of not being in character and like metagamey.

Yeah, just throwing the stakes away sucks and just being like, who cares if we die right game? I also will say I'm okay with some people like not being in character a ton when they play D&D because everyone has like different interests and comfort levels doing. that, but it's the meta thing. The meta thing of just taking away stakes. Just imagining someone being at the table and being like, you know, are you crying right now, dude? Yeah.

You know this is pretend. You know your character's made up, right? Or even just like. The character who died is made up, dude. Or even just like. What are you doing in your brain? Being like a cleric and like someone's down and they're like, I could heal you

because like I actually don't even enjoy casting spells anyway. So I might as well. We sit on a heel. Yo, this guy's pursuing something noble that separates us from the apes. Can you see this? Can you see this shit?

He's freaking pretend. Wow, he's showing the dignity of humanity through his actions. All right, so we're going to roll against Sarah. Yeah, how do we punish her, though? That's the question. Sarah needs to take a freaking hike. Yeah.

Like up in Gn 90s. Literally? She needs to take Improv. 101. And learn about being a little silly and investing yourself in some silly stuff. Okay.

I don't hate that. She takes an improv 101 in British Columbia, Grizzly. I like that. That's really funny because I was going to. Yeah. They're getting that in Canada this year. Really?

It's coming to British Columbia. Yeah. First time. Okay. So maybe put on in like one of those sort of like in the wilderness, put on Newsies the musical improvised. Well, you need to be News A's because it's in Canada. Yeah.

Improvized Shakespeare. Improvized. Yeah. Because improvised one musical. Just improvise sort of around selling newspapers. The flyer says, if you can find it. You can find it. Just somewhere in the woods, British Columbia.

If you stumbled upon a full Broadway performance in the woods. I would think I was in Station 11 or Station, what was that called? Yeah. I would just assume I was on a TikTok prank. Oh, that is true. Yeah. They have gotten very expensive. cool moments, I think.

Yeah, right. You just always assume that it's for TikTok. You can't, you can't freaking stumble upon newsies in the woods anymore. Yeah, without doubting it. It's true. Without being like, I don't want to be on camera. I didn't sign a release. It fully replaces any opportunity for whimsy with self-promotion.

It's like, what if we killed whimsy? It was just like, I really need to get more. What's up? I'm called while I got newsied. Yeah. It's pretty fun, I guess. I mean, someone newsy me. Okay, so ordered.

And with that, shall we step into church? Yes. Of course. With our dirty sodas. This confession comes from Balthasur 24. Oh, most divine deacons of the dice, I come to you with a confession of maybe not a sin, but I leave that to your judgment.

Okay. When I level up my characters, I will always roll their appropriate hit die, a D8 for my monk, D12 for the barbarian, et cetera, but with a slight caveat. If I roll really poorly, a one or a two, I will instead just plug in the average number plus con as the PHB offers. So rather than taking the one on the D8 con modifier, I put in the PHB average of five plus con.

I have justified my actions by pointing to the rules as written. But in my heart, I fear that it's meant to be taken as one or the other rolled or averages. Rather than a somewhat loosey-goosey way, I have been doing things. In your heart ends in like rules as written, kind of. Yeah, yeah. Is this an acceptable practice in the eyes of dice Christ, or have I damned myself to an eternity in dice hell? I prostrate myself at your mercy.

You're in danger of dice hell right now. Yeah. You can be redeemed, but like you're teetering. Yeah, you're teetering. We're going to save you from the cusp right now. Yeah, you're not supposed to do this. I have ruled this before, where if you roll really bad, just the average, like essentially the average is the lowest you can get.

Because rolling for hit dice is kind of nuts that you can just have 12 extra HP. or one for a barbarian? I have changed to almost exclusively just doing, like every once in a while I'm feeling spicy during a level up and I'm like, I'm gonna gamble, but a lot of times I do just defer to the average. To the average? Because I'm like, this is too precious to get a one. I think like maybe

if you are leveling up after like a big moment and you're not sure how you feel about it, like maybe you can roll the dice then just to like see how, if that'll dictate like your character moving forward. Like if you had a big fight and you only get a little extra HP and you're like, well, I guess maybe my body is still recovering and I'm still learning from that experience. You can like spin that as a story thing. But yeah, I think in general, it's totally fine to average your HP.

But this is a different story here. This is a trap of a different color. I would just ask the DM be like, hey, can we roll but have some kind of fail safe because it is a huge, like the fun of rolling your hit dice to me is like, oh, it would be cool to get extra. But when it swings in the other direction, I personally don't think it's that fun if like the wizard gets like NHP, it's like that. It's literally like a pretty big hindrance.

And some people might be like, well, that's kind of the point of the role. I understand that. But I'm like, to me, a level up should just be good. Yeah. So just. Right. They don't happen that often. What you're doing, I think, is only bad because you're lying about it by omission.

You're like not telling the DM. Yeah. I do think you should be consistent with what route you're going for. Yeah. But I also think that like. Do you think it's wrong then that? Sometimes, like, when I do level ups, it's like I usually just do the half. But if I'm, like, feeling like a little cocksure, I might be like, I'm going to roll this one.

I wouldn't, I wouldn't defer to half. Yeah. I would just be like, oh, this level, whatever I roll, I'm going to take. Yeah. I think if you're choosing to roll, what you're saying, if you're going by rolls, what you're really saying is, like, I want the extremes, right? Like, I have a chance for something great and I'm willing to risk something terrible as a result of it. Yeah.

If you're doing a mix of rolling and then defaulting to the. average, then what you're doing is I want the chance for something great, but I don't want a risk that's something like that's bad. Well, no, but you still get the risk, though. If I'm every level, I'm like usually doing the half, but then once in a while, I'll roll. Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah. And then I get a one. That sucks for me. There's nothing wrong with that. Yeah. The problem is rolling. And then as soon as you see you got something bad, you're like, actually, I'm just going with the average. Yeah. Yeah. I think that like, to me, I mean, sounds like you already believe that you're doing something wrong.

which is maybe the bigger thing of like, hey, and so if you're feeling weird about it, like, I guess just stop doing it. It depends on the kind of campaign you're playing. But if you're playing the kind of campaigns I've played, I kind of prefer having the wild swings of like the highs and lows. Because it has an interest, like what that is for me is like, oh, this tells an interesting story, like the fact that it's so low.

And like, if it's becoming a hindrance in the game and like, hopefully the DM will recognize that and like do something to kind of be like, all right, let's give you some artifact or something. Like, if you're, it's like, oh, you've only got one hit point. And it's like, well, why? Why is your character of one hit point? That's kind of weird and interesting. And maybe you can have like some armor or something, you know, like something to just

kind of like help you survive. Yeah. The feeling you're feeling is guilt. Yeah. It is a human. Because you know it's a little dirty what you're doing. You need to go to British Columbia. Yeah.

You need to ask the newsies for forgiveness. Yeah. You have to go to Newsy's church. And after you go to Newsy's church and ask Patrick Bateman's mom for forgiveness. Yep. Ask Patrick Bateman's mom for forgiveness.

She's in the newsies. I presume she wasn't a very good mom because he is a serial killer. Right. And so it's

going to be pretty scary out there. You could maybe write some fan mail to Christian bail. You can do that too. If Christian bail mail response to you,

you don't have to go to see the newsies in the woods. You can do some bail mail. All right. Every day in Christmas open up the old bail bag. That's what he says as he cracks

I love my bell bag. That's what he was yelling about. Who's my bail mail mail. Who crack in my bail mail? This master with the fucking lights. All right. That was a while ago. You guys remember?

Are you performing? What bloody postcard? Where's the wrist? With that, so forgiven. We're going to go ahead and wrap this one up. Thank you all so much for listening. We're going to be doing something fun. We're going to be playing the biggest lorser.

Yes. With trap over on the page. Patreon. It's a quiz show where we ask about nerdy topics. We'll compete. I believe the last one being called all tied. Is that true? Yeah, I think so. And it was Flintstones and Donkey Kong. Again, the only way to win is to lose. Yeah. So we're going to play that with Trap. Patreon.com slash Nadpod. That's NADD-D-POD. Don't sing yet. Don't do it. Don't do it. Trap, you have anything you'd like to plug? Yes. Season 5 premiere of Big City Greens. Friday, August 21st on the Disney Channel, the 22nd on Disney. Plus, it's going to be a five episode drop so you can just plop down. Old Saturday morning cartoon style. Get your big little cereal.

Sit cross leg in front of the TV way too close. Watch five episodes in a row and have your mom yell at you to go outside. Have your mom realized you've been watching TV? And instead of feeling guilty about that, she's just going to yell at you. It's summer. What are you doing? And with that, you can follow us on social media. There may or may not use at stage versus me at Caldice.

Caldice, Adi, at Extra Demily. At Jake, which is Jake. Trap, what are you on socials? I am at Mike W. Trap. I am highly inactive on everything. So I'm there. If you want to see what I was up to seven years ago, I think I made a souffle.

It's still up there. Check it out. Like a Newsy in the Woods. He's out there somewhere. But on pretty much every platform, I'm at Mike W. Trap. That's awesome. Like a Newsy in the woods.

It's such a funny statement. The Newsy sells a newspaper in the woods and no one's around to buy it. Does anyone want to read it? Anyone read it? Think about it. What the fuck were we talking about? You can talk about the show using hashtag Nadpod.

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you can do so by going to patreon.com slash nadpod. That's going to do it for us this week. Thanks again for listening. Until then, this is Caldwell, saying farewell and be well. Bye-bye. That was a hate gum podcast.