To help you avoid some of the pitfalls I have encountered, I am writing this article to give you a better understanding of how to play and what you need to start.
When you first start a game, there’s usually someone who knows the rules and explains them to you. Sometimes the rules are simple and sometimes more complex, but the procedure is the same: You sit down with others who are playing and someone explains the rules of the game. With D&D this can be difficult to achieve because of its complexity. When I first got interested in D&D, my friends told me I would learn by playing—but I didn’t know what to do or how to do it. The game progressed, but I wasn’t sure what was going on or which dice to roll when trying to determine success or failure. Unfortunately, this game ended with me taking a pause from playing D&D for a whole year until I gave it another try.
What you need to know before playing
Roleplaying game
So, let’s start by saying D&D is a roleplaying game. That essentially means you create/imagine a character (PC- playable character) you will control/play during the game. Imagine it as a game of make-believe. There are rules for how to create a character but we will get into it later. For starters, you’ll need to know that your character is a hero of sorts and has the interest to join a party (group of adventurers played by your friends) to travel the world and combat the great evil. One of the players is a Dungeon Master or a DM for short who guides the storyline and controls the NPCs (non-playable characters). The name of the game suggests that the game is set in a dungeon and you’ll probably fight a dragon of sorts but it’s mostly up to the dungeon master to come up with the plot.
Tabletop game
Secondly, D&D is a tabletop game. So think of it as any other board game. You will probably play sitting around a table potentially with a board in front of you. In D&D you could use a grid map or for more advanced and committed players a miniature terrain. This helps you visualize the positioning of your friends and foes during the battle. Coming back to fighting the great evil. During the game, you will encounter various monsters and creatures that you’ll fight. And even though this is a fantasy game, you can’t do whatever you want! There are rules and a lot of them which we won’t be covering in this article. All you need to know is D&D is a forever learning game but it is also a game where you can make your own custom rules which makes each game different from the other in some way.
Dice
The last thing you need to know about D&D is how your character choices and decisions during the game are measured. And this is where the dice come in. You’ll have to roll a dice every time your character does something that is in some way challenging to his abilities. A D20 (20-sided die) is the most important die you’ll use. Simply put, the result of the roll determines the success or failure of your particular action. Number 1 being a complete failure and 20 being a complete success.
Creating a character
To summarize, to start playing Dungeons & Dragons firstly, you’ll need to create a character. Since there are different editions with different rules of this game I will focus on DND 5th edition.
Basically, you imagine a character you would like to role-play and notarise their details on a character sheet. A character sheet is a form type of paper where you can fill in your character statistics. This will help you determine the result of the dice roll during the game.
A character is defined by race and class.
There are many different races to choose from. So just to point out some of them, you can choose to play a human, elf, dwarf, orc, or even a fairy. Races define let’s say more of a genetic side of your capabilities, for example, orcs are strong and can see in the dark while fairies have magic and can fly.
The same goes for classes, but classes define more of something you learn through life. You start with level 1 and through experience in that specific field, you progress to level 20. Think of it as a professional career. Only, in this game, you dedicate your life to something like sword fighting or mastering a specific branch of magic.
After you have chosen your race and class your character mechanics are determined by your ability scores. Ability scores consist of strength, constitution, dexterity, intelligence, wisdom, and charisma. The higher the number, the better your character is at a certain skill.
Ability scores explained
Strength defines your character’s physical ability. Simply put, weak or strong.
Constitution determines a character’s endurance and hardiness.
Dexterity defines how quick and agile your character is.
Intelligence is simply an intelligence quotient and defines your character’s language and script comprehension and learning.
Wisdom is more of an intuition, understanding something instinctively.
Charisma is a character’s personality and charm. A charismatic person is a compelling and inspirative person.
After you have your character’s mechanics determined you can also define your alignment. In a nutshell, it means, is your character good or bad? Does it have good or bad intentions? You also set personality traits for example they are very withdrawn and shy. They can have flaws like maybe they chew loudly. You can set their ideals and bonds, and choose their background to be an athlete or a criminal. You can write a whole backstory of your character and choose what kind of events may have happened to them throughout their lives or whether they have siblings. All of this can help you role-play your character and guide your choices thorough the game. But not all of this is necessary to start playing the game. It is just the flavor you learn to use after a while.
What do you need to start playing?
Firstly, you’ll need a character sheet that you can download from almost any website today or even fill out online.
Secondly, you will need a group of friends that you can play with. Preferably a friend with some basic knowledge of the rules to guide you.
There are lots of books to help you start your game. The most important ones being the Player’s handbook and Dungen Master’s guide By Wizards RPG Team which you can find in pdf.
Thirdly, to play you will need dice. And these are polyhedral dice. Usually, you can buy a set of 7 different shaped dice in your local game store which contain a D4, D6, D8, D10x2, D12, D20. A number represents how many sides a die has.
And lastly, you’ll need imagination and the desire to have fun and tell a story. The Dungeons & Dragons game is based on storytelling so get creative!
