One of the responsibilities we as players have is to promote the game we love. Here’s how I explain D&D to people when they ask me what it’s all about.

D&D is….

In a nutshell, Dungeons and Dragons is a fantasy role-playing game. This means we play a game where a collaborative story is told. There’s the Dungeon Master, or DM, who is the narrator of the story. The DM creates the story, sets the mood and is the game referee. They also get to play the monsters and the characters our heroes will encounter throughout their travels. The players are the heroes of the story, creating characters who explore the world that is created by the DM. It is not an adversarial partnership between the DM and the players. Both sides should have fun and work together to keep the story interesting and moving along.

Characters can be of any number of races and classes, including but not limited to dwarves, elves, cat humanoids, or rogues, holy warriors, and wizards. These characters use a wide variety of skills they have to overcome the obstacles that the DM puts in front of the characters. Whether is be swinging a giant sword, picking a lock or casting a spell, each character has a plethora of abilities they must use to overcome whatever the DM throws at them and keep the story alive.

About those dice

Once the scene has been set by the DM, the players get to decide what they want to do. There are no set rules or guidelines for what a player can or cannot do. It’s an open-world setting and anything you can think of is usually something you can do. An action can be as simple as reading a book or jumping over a hole in the ground. But when a player uses a skill or ability that has a chance of failure, the DM will usually tell the player to roll dice.

When told to roll dice to see if your action was successful, the player will roll a 20 sided die. The player will then take that dice roll and add any bonuses they may have for that action along with their proficiency bonus to get a total. Bonuses vary on what type of character class they are. If you have a high Strength then you’d be good at Athletics. If you’re a Wizard, you have access to spells only a wizard can use. Basically, your character will be good a some things and bad at others, based on their ability scores and character class. If that total is higher the difficulty number, or DC (difficulty challenge) set by the DM then the player was successful. If not, then you’ll suffer the consequences, all of which depend on what kind of action the player was trying to do.

(If you want to use specific examples, I use the ‘jumping over the hole in the ground’ action from above. Jumping over a hole may not seem like that big of a deal. The DM would probably set an easy DC for a 5 ft hole. Typically a DC of 5-10 is Easy, 11-14 is Medium, and 15 + is Hard. So now, our hole is 10 ft and the DC is higher. If you make it, great. Failure could result is a variety of different things. Maybe you just fall down (prone) and that’s it. But what if the fall is 20 feet and you have to take damage from the fall. Even worse, the pit bottom is covered in sharp spikes that you’ve landed on, taking even more damage. Every choice has an outcome, so make sure you know what you’re getting into before blinding jumping across some hole in the ground!)

Time for Combat!

Combat works in a very similar way to ability and skill checks, with some additions. When you start a fight, the first thing you do is roll initiative, which determines who goes first and who goes last. Combat is broken up into rounds, and in each round, every player gets a turn. A round is 6 seconds of ‘actual’ time, so while each player takes their turn individually, everything is actually happening all at once.

During a player‘s turn, you have a number of things you can do. A character can move, take an action and sometimes a bonus action. Actions include, but in no way limited to such things as swinging a sword, casting a spell, healing a comrade or even shoving someone. A bonus action is much more limited in scope, and usually involves a special ability the character may possess or a quick but limited task. Once everyone has had their turn, a new round commences.

When you use your action to swing that sword, you roll the d20, add any bonuses based on your character’s abilities and checks it against their foes Armor Class, or AC. Armor class is a number that reflects how hard it is to hit someone and takes into consideration what kind of armor they are wearing, magical protections, and how good they are at dodging attacks. If the total for the roll is equal to or higher than the target’s AC then you hit and get to roll even more dice to see how much damage they take. Health is determined by what are called Hit Points. Once the amount of damage taken reduces someone’s Hit Points to 0, they fall to the ground unconscious. If they aren’t healed, then they die. Remember, that not only applies to monsters but to your character as well!

Roleplaying

A character is yours and yours alone. You get to create them from the ground up. Only you know whether your character is has a gruff exterior but a heart of gold or hears voices that them what to do. It’s up to you if you want to share information with everyone else or be the man (or woman) of mystery in the party. Feel awkward using funny voices? Then it’s probably a good thing your character sounds exactly like you do! In roleplaying your character, the only rule to follow is to respect the other characters at the table. The game is fun. Maybe you’re a grumpy half-orc that growls at anyone if they get to close. That’s fine. Just don’t be the shady rogue that tries to murder their fellow party members in their sleep. That won’t be allowed.

Make yourself available when people ask you what D&D is all about. We all had to start somewhere and ask someone how this wonderfully fun game works. There’s always room at the table for one more, so ask them to pull up a chair because their adventure has just begun.