Introduction: Beginners Guide to Dungeons and Dragons
Dungeons and Dragons can seem inexplicitly complex to play for a new player, and a lot of player guides are too complex to follow for someone with no experience. So, we have created a simple guide that will effectively go over the basics of playing or running a campaign. Most of them also assume that you have bought the Starter Kit, so this guide will help you play for free. It is important to note that this guide is not going to teach players how to make a character, this is specifically a guide for playing the game.
Supplies
To follow this guide, you will need the following:
Pencil
Paper
Dice App or physical dice
Divider or Vision Blocker
Access to the Internet
(optional) figures or tokens
(optional) Speaker
Step 1: Getting Ready
In Dungeons and Dragons, there are two roles that need to be played. The Players and the Dungeon Master. Each game of Dungeons and Dragons is called a campaign and for each campaign, you need one person to be the Dungeon Master. The rest of the participants will be the Players. The Dungeon Masters' job is to create and tell a story that dynamically reacts with the Player's decisions. The Players job is simply to go through the story and have fun. For this guide, we will be playing as a human fighter named Mclovin.
Step 2: Character Sheet
Above is a picture of Mclovin’s character sheet, made using a sample sheet inside the official DnD starter set. This sheet tells us everything we need to know about him and what he is carrying. It might look confusing right now, but as we go on we will slowly break the sheet down and explain it.
Step 3: Understanding Your Character
Now that we have our character, either a premade one or a custom one that can be made here: https://www.dndbeyond.com/characters/builder#/ we can move onto the main information of your character, your abilities, and skills.
Using Mclovin’s sheet here we can see on the left your main abilities that will directly influence your skills that will be up to the player to choose by using this scale. The skills that Mclovin is proficient in are also listed, notable by the black dot next to them. Proficient skills get a +2 modifier to them.
To put it in context since Mclovin has 16 points invested in his Strength ability, he will receive a +3 modifier to his strength, and then since he is proficient in his strength and constitution abilities he will receive a +2 modifier as well to make his total strength stat +5
These 6 ability modifiers then go into their respective sub-skills as can be seen by the abbreviations next to each skill, such as how Athletics has a Str next to it indicating Mclovin has 5 points go into his acrobatics because of his Strength.
The only exception to this is the Constitution ability that only changes your character's maximum health and stamina
15 14 13 12 10 8 is the standard point distribution for creating your own character sheet for all 6 abilities: Strength (Str), Dexterity (Dex), Constitution, Intelligence (Int), Wisdom (Wis), and Charisma(Cha) (Mclovin's sheet doesn’t follow these guidelines).
Understanding these abilities and skills now will help understand how to use your character later when you encounter different problems and conflicts later on in your own campaign.
Step 4: How to Use Dice
Dice are the gears in the machine that is Dungeons and Dragons. They constitute everything from what actions you can perform to how your character plays in combat.
The 20 sided die, commonly referred to as the D20 is used for worldly encounters outside of combat, or for determining initiative in combat.
(Worldly Encounter): Say that our character, Mclovin, is out on a stroll through the woods and comes across a deep pit blocking his path. Our character can then decide if he wants to jump over the pit, he will need to roll the D20 for a strength check to do so.
He will have to roll the dice and get above a set value decided on by the DM but for these purposes, we will say that he must have a value of 15 on his strength check to jump over the pit.
So if he rolls a 12 then you must add on your strength modifier that we discussed earlier (+5), and his final strength check value comes out to be 17, meaning he can jump over the pit no problem.
The other 5 dice are primarily used for determining combat abilities such as how much damage a weapon may do or how much a spell will heal a character.
A weapon or spell will tell you what dice to roll and how many to roll it in your character sheet.
For example, if Mclovin lands a hit with his greataxe he rolls 1 D12 die and then deals the amount he rolls plus the 3 slashing damage (damage type is something new players don't need to worry about).
Step 5: Starting Combat
Uh oh, Mclovin seems to have accidentally stepped on someone’s shoe(He never was very coordinated) and he doesn’t have any social skills to talk his way out of this. He’s going to have to fight.
First things first, Mclovin and his adversary have to roll for initiative. This is simply determined by rolling the D20 and adding your initiative bonus. This is labeled as Initiative on your character sheet, and Mclovin has a bonus of -1. He rolled a 13, but that gets taken down to a 12 because of his bonus. The enemy on the other hand rolled a 4, so Mclovin goes first.
There are three different types of combat moves in DnD. A standard action, a move action, a reaction, and a bonus action. Ignoring special cases, you only do 1 of these moves in each of your turns. So, let's go over each phase.
Step 6: Standard Action
In this phase, depending on the situation, your primary goal is usually to do damage(it is worth noting that your standard action does not have to be an attack, you can use any ability that is labeled as a standard action during this time).
This is done first by rolling a D20 again plus your weapons attack bonus(found in the middle of your character sheet), this time trying to get above your enemy’s armor class(Calculating your attack bonus will be discussed later).
Mclovin rolled a 13, but his attack bonus is plus 5. This makes his role 18, which is enough to do damage. After rolling his attack die, Mclovin does 8 damage to the enemy.
Step 7: Move Action
This action is relatively simple. Your character can use a move action to move somewhere, and how far he can move in one turn depends on your character’s speed. Mclovin has a speed of 30 feet, so he immediately starts to run away after his attack. However, it is important to note something called an opportunity attack.
If a character is within melee range distance of another and leaves, the other character can make an opportunity attack. This works the same as a normal attack, the only difference being that this is brought on by another’s actions.
Step 8: Reactions and Bonus Actions
Reactions are specific actions. Certain abilities will be labeled as reactions, and these will happen in response to something and during another character's turn.
Bonus actions are similar to reactions. Certain moves and abilities will be labeled as bonus actions, but instead of being used during another character’s turn, this is an action you can make during one of your turns. No special circumstances required.
Step 9: Calculating Attack Bonus
Your attack bonus is calculated based on 3 things. The weapon you are using, your character's statistics(Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Wisdom, Intelligence, and Charisma), and your character's proficiencies. Let's go over each of these.
The first thing we look at is your character's equipped weapon. The weapon you have equipped will tell you what stat type it is. For example, looking at Mclovin’s weapon, we can see he has a greataxe which is a strength weapon( if you don’t know what type stat type your weapon is, either ask your Dungeon Master or look up the item’s information on the internet).
Since the greataxe is a strength weapon, we will add Mclovin’s strength bonus to the attack bonus. So right now, Mclovin has an attack bonus of +3 on his roles.
Now we look at if your character is proficient in the weapon. This can be seen by looking at the bottom left corner of your character sheet. This is a list of things that your character is proficient in. If your character is proficient in something, then you add your proficiency bonus. Looking at our character sheet, we can see that Mclovin is proficient in martial weapons, which is what a greataxe is(once again if you do not know what weapon type you are using, ask your Dungeon Master or look up the item’s information.
Since Mclovin’s proficiency bonus is +2, and his strength stat is +3, we know that his attack bonus is +5.
Step 10: Non-combat
Non-combat plays out similarly to combat. If you wish to do something, you will ask your Dungeon Master if you can do an action. An action in a non-combat setting is anything you want your character to do.
For example, your character examining something would be an action. If he permits, he will tell you what skill check it is. To do the action, simply roll the D20 and add the specific skill modifier depending on what the Dungeon Master tells you.
Depending on how your Dungeon Master runs their campaign, these instances could come up a lot. Luckily, these instances are mostly run on the Dungeon Masters part, allowing you to act creatively in your environment without having to worry about the complex rules of the campaign. As long as the Dungeon Master says it’s okay, you can do an action.
Now that you know the basics, you are ready to go out and start your own campaign with you and your friends or with others in your area. Check your local board game shops for frequent sessions for new players.