May 15, 2019 by [ "James R. Miller"
]
Categories:
rpgs
Tags:
5e
dnd
learn-to-play
This is the first article of several to give some help and guidance to brand-new Dungeons and Dragons players.
In 1974, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson orignally published the original edition of Dungeons & Dragons through their company Tactical Studies Rules, Inc., which is frequently abbreviated “TSR”. I will be using Dungeons & Dragons to refer to Dungeons and Dragons, without any specific version or edition, throughout the rest of this guide.
Evolving out of wargames, Dungeons & Dragons was unique in that the players began to control a specific character in the game, as opposed to controlling an army; with the focus shifting towards the exploits of the player’s characters, including the characters’ social interactions, skill advancement, battles, accumulation of wealth and knowledge, and even death.
Many different editions of Dungeons & Dragons have been released; the current version is “Fifth Edition”. I will refer to the fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons as “5E” throughout this guide. Other editions I will refer to similarly, for example, third edition will be referred to as “3E”. For a brief overview of the editions, please see the following table:
| Date Published | Edition |
|---|---|
| 1974 | Original |
| 1977 | Basic Set Version 1 |
| 1977 | Advanced Edition 1 |
| 1981 | Basic Set Version 2 |
| 1983 | Basic Set Version 3 |
| 1989 | Advanced Edition 2 |
| 2000 | Third Edition |
| 2003 | 3.5 |
| 2008 | Fourth Edition |
| 2014 | Fifth Edition (current) |
Note: there was also a distintion between “Basic” and “Advanced” editions in the earlier editions, but this distinction ended decades ago. You might hear people say, “AD&D” when talking about older editions to make this distinction. Dungeons & Dragons has no advanced or basic editions in the later editions. Also, third edition had a minor update a few years later and was known as “3.5”, with many players calling it “three point five”.
Dungeons & Dragons is played as a form of cooperative storytelling with a small group of people. One person in the group assumes the role of the “Dungeon Master” or “DM”. The rest of the group are “players”.
The DM’s role is to serve as a combination of a storyteller and referee, and also has the responsibility to role-play any non-player characters in the game world as well as all of the enemies and monsters.
The players each control at least one “Player Character” or “PC” and they interact with the DM to control the PC’s interactions with the game world brought to life by the DM.
Typically, there are three to five players and one DM. More players than five can become unwieldy for a DM to handle, and is particularly difficult for a new DM. Fewer than three players and many adventures will need specific tweaking to accomodate the fewer than normal PCs.
This section will show a few short examples of how to play a role-playing game. The first will be of a non-combat scenario, and the second will show a short snippet of how combat works in the world.
This will be a short example between a DM and 2 PCs: Jeff, who plays Grak, a dwarven fighter; and Sally, who plays Irene, a human wizard.
DM: “As you crest the hilltop, the road descends beneath you to a small village of a dozen small houses and two or three larger structures. As your horses draw nearer, you see that one of the larger structures is an inn with a sign that says ‘The Bumbling Butcher’. You also see a blacksmith and a general store. What do you want to do?”
Grak: “Grak wants to go to the inn and get a pint of ale and see if there are any town rumors.”
Irene: “Irene will tag along with Grak and will order a glass of wine instead of ale.”
DM: “As Grak and Irene approach the inn, they see a drunken beggar sitting on the side of the building with a cup held out towards them. The beggar says nothing.”
Grak: “I ignore the beggar and head straight on in.”
Irene: “I toss him a few coins but otherwise ignore him.”
DM: “The coins clink in the beggar’s cup and he mumbles his thanks.
“You enter the inn and see a large common area with a bar towards the left, and a large fire to the right. A rotund human lady approaches and says ‘have a seat, I’ll be right with you’. You also see several locals nursing drinks, as well as a two human soldiers in uniform at the bar. One of them turns and menacingly glares at Grak; he looks already drunk from his mannerisms.”
Grak: “I’ll order my ale when the hostess gets back; but, in the meantime, I’m going to keep an eye on those soldiers. I don’t trust them.”
Irene: “Does Irene recognize what army that the soldiers belong to?”
DM: “Irene hasn’t seen their banner recently, if ever. Please roll a History check.”
Irene: Rolls a die. “I rolled a 7.”
DM: “Irene thinks that the banner must be from some local lord and not a nation or major city since she’s not familiar with it at all.”
Irene: Whispers to Grak, “We need to be careful with those two; they’re drunk and they are just some local lord’s lackeys.”
Grak: “I grunt in agreement.”
DM: “Before the hostess returns, both soldiers stand up and stumble towards your table. The one who glared earlier, drunkenly slurs, ‘We don’t welcome dwarves here. Get out or we’ll throw you out.’ The other one winks and blows a kiss at Irene.”
Grak: “I’ll have an ale here whether you like it or not. Apologize to my friend, go sit down at the bar, and I’ll forget you threatened me.”
DM: “Grak, roll a persuasion check for me please.”
Grak: Rolls a die. “I got an eight.”
DM: “Unfortunately, they’re not willing to listen to your arguments and then lunge towards both of you with fists swinging.”
This example continues the non-combat example above.
DM: “Grak, you get to go first. What do you do?”
Grak: “I stand up and run to the nearest one and punch him!”
DM: “Make an attack roll.”
Grak: Rolls a die. “I rolled a 15.”
DM: “That’s a hit! Go ahead an roll your damage.”
Grak: Rolls a die. “I rolled 4 damage.”
DM: “Your punch catches the soldier in the jaw and stuns him for a moment. It looks like one more good punch will knock him down. That’s the end of your turn. Irene, it’s your turn!”
Irene: “I’m not strong enough to fist-fight these goons. I’m going to try and put them to sleep with a spell.”
DM: “Ok. Roll your dice for the spell.”
Irene: Rolls a few dice. “I rolled 12 total.”
DM: “As you uttered your spell, a flickering light flashes in front of the two soldiers, and they fall to the ground, sound asleep. What do you do now…”
There, now you have a better idea of how a role-playing game works. Another way to think about typical gameplay, whether in combat or not, is that the DM describes what is happening, asks the players what their characters do, and then resolves the consequences of the characters’ actions with the world. Combat will just have more detailed rules on what the characters can and can’t do. Each edition of Dungeons & Dragons (and most other role-playing games) uses this same basic back and forth between the DM and the players. They’ll each differ on how numbers are calculated, and on the specifics; but, if you understand this back and forth, it makes learning a new game much easier.
For most beginners, I strongly recommend the current edition, known as “fifth edition” or “5E”. The publisher of Dungeons & Dragons, Wizards of the Coast, held exhaustive play tests and conducted extensive polls of players to come up with the current rules. The resulting product is fantastic! It’s the edition I play almost exclusively as of the time of writing this guide and is likely the most accessible and easy to understand for newer players. (I am, however, vastly looking forward to the upcoming Pathfinder 2 release in August of 2019!) First Party (official) books, third party books, and other first- and third-party resources are readily available for 5E.
However, as compared to earlier editions, the amount of official material is less than in earlier editions. Further, since older editions are no longer actively marketed by the publisher, you can sometimes find older books for a fraction of the cost of the current edition. The publisher has also put a large amount of the back catalog of resources online in PDF form for very reasonable prices too. Some players prefer the previous editions and that’s great! Each edition has its strengths and weaknesses; and, once you’re more experienced, you’ll learn to appreciate the older material even if you only play 5E.
My favorite use of older-edition material is to read it for ideas to incorporate into my games, even if the numbers aren’t exactly right. The stories in those classic adventures all have good “bones” that are great to interweave with the new rules.
Again, for most new players, 5E is where you want to be. After you gain some experience, you’ll learn if you want to also branch out to an earlier edition. Once you know 5E, it will be easier to learn one of the earlier editions as well.
The rest of this guide will primarily concern itself with 5E.
If you are interested in learning more about the creation of the early versions on Dungeons & Dragons, and specifically about Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, I highly recommend reading the non-fiction book: Playing at the World by Jon Peterson. However, Playing at the World has very little to do with actually playing Dungeons & Dragons. The Wikipedia article on Dungeons & Dragons is fantastic too.
If you would like to see more examples of play, the internet is your friend! Popular choices include Acquisitions Incorporated, Critical Role, and Dice Camera Action. Head to YouTube and search for one of those three and you can learn more about what the game is from an audio/visual standpoint that you can’t get from reading text alone.
Stay tuned for my next article, which will discuss how to actually start playing.