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Role playing games are great fun and Dungeons & Dragons is the OG. If you are coming to D&D with no (or very little) experience or if you are simply overwhelmed by the torrent of advice online, then this series is ideal for you. In this series I will take you through the basics of role playing (and D&D specifically) introducing more complexity as you ’level up’ your game.

These articles are arranged in the manner of those old “Choose Your Own Adventure” books where you read a page and then at the bottom of the page you can select from several options where to go next. In the same way at the bottom of each article you will see choices for where to go next. These are marked with flags (‘P’ for player focussed articles, ‘GM’ for game master focussed articles, and ‘T’ for technical articles—these tend to be about the Foundry Virtual Table Top system, more on this later). Articles may be marked with multiple flags, don’t panic, just follow the ones that interest you, you can always circle back.

A lot of material online can be overwhelming. It is easy to be distracted by (even put off by) weird, arcane discussions about the game system, how spells combine, the problems with class ‘A’ or ability ‘B’, and so on. None of that in this series.

Let’s start at the beginning (generally a good place to start) with a few questions…

Do I need to learn the rules?

No. At least not all of them and not all at once. This series will introduce the rules you need as you need them.

Those books are way expensive do I need to buy them?

No. The core rules are available for free at https://dnd.wizards.com/resources/systems-reference-document. These are the ‘Systems Reference Documents’ (SRD). There’s still a LOT of content in these and it is presented in a less than helpful order for new players. But, it is there, it is free, and it is everything you need to get started (and more).

Holy Cow! That’s a 400 page PDf!

Don’t worry, you don’t need most of it to get started. Just treat it as a reference book (unless you want to read through it, in which case enjoy).

Okay, so I don’t need the books and I can do without reading the SRD. How do I play then?

Glad you asked. Let’s get you started…

The heart of RPG

The clue is in the name, Role Playing Game. An RPG (or more specifically a Table Top RPG—TTRPG) is a game of imagination. What this means precisely depends on the player, the game master (GM), and the group you play with but generally the Game Master will create a situation which they describe to the group, the group then use their imagination to describe how their characters (oh, yes, you play a character in the world created by the GM) act, then the GM resolves the outcome of those actions before describing the new situation. Rinse and repeat.

That’s it. Those three steps are the essence of a TTRPG;

• Situate (describe the situation),
• Act (characters do something in response to that situation), and
• Resolve (figure out what happens as a result of those actions).

Within those three ‘phases’ only the Resolve phase may need the rules. The Situate and Act phases are entirely in the hands of the GM and the players.

Let’s take a look at a simple example.

Situate

The GM describes the situation.

GM: As you walk along the path you suddenly find yourself at the edge of a chasm. A crack, about ten feet wide, has opened across the path extending as far as you can see to your left and right. Looking down you can barely make out what may be the bottom maybe a hundred feet down. What do you do?

This last ‘What do you do?’ will be said many times during your game. It is the classic way for the GM to start the player’s actions.

Act

Players may have questions at this point.

Player 1: Can I jump it?

GM: You? Not sure. Thrud (the player’s character) might like to try.

This is the GM reminding the player that it is their character’s actions that are important and as such the question would be better phrased ‘can Thrud jump it?’. That said, the GM is unlikely to give a yes/no answer to this sort of question as it is up to Thrud to decide if he wants to try to jump the gap.

Player 1: (Slightly irked at GM’s pedantry) Okay. Thrud tries to jump the chasm.

GM: Okay. He’s just going to jump it in full plate armor and carrying all his equipment?

The GM is being kind here, reminding the player that although Thrud is strong he may find things easier without all that extra weight.

Player 1: Er, no, I take off the armor and my pack. “Balock, will you throw these to me once I’m over?”

Player 2: (as Balock) “I’ll surely try.”

GM: With a mighty run up Thrud leaps into the air and… give me an Athletics check.

Resolve

This “give me an Athletics check” is part of the game mechanics. Thrud’s player and the GM are now in the Resolve phase of Thrud’s action. This is an ‘ability check’. The GM has secretly set a target Difficulty Class (DC) for Thrud’s attempt to jump the chasm. Player 1 rolls a twenty-sided die, then adds (or subtracts) any modifiers (more on these later) if the resulting total is higher than the DC then Thrud succeeds in his attempt, otherwise he fails.

Player 1 rolls a 13 and with his modifiers gets a resulting ‘athletics ability score’ of 16.

GM: …lands safely on the far side of the chasm.

Player 2: Balock starts throwing Thrud his stuff.

With this we are back to ‘Act’ with Balock.

GM: Everything is going smoothly until you throw the backpack. Give me a strength check.

Another dice roll, and back to ‘Resolve’. The GM is saying that throwing a heavy backpack is not simple and Balock needs to check if he is strong enough.

Player 2: Okay, 11?

GM: You heft the pack but it falls short. Thrud, give me a Dex save.

“Dex save” is a common short form of “Dexterity saving throw”, another dice roll.

Player 1: 18?

GM: As the pack disappears into the chasm Thrud dives forward and barely manages to grab one strap of the plummeting backpack. Grunting with effort he pulls the pack to safety.

Player 1: “Balock you fool! You nearly lost all my gear.”

Player 2: “Sorry”

GM: Okay, Thrud and his gear are across. How about the rest of you?

And so play proceeds.

What is with all these dice rolls and modifiers?

Don’t panic. Your GM will help guide you through what dice to roll and when. You’ll soon be anticipating what to roll and when.

Okay, how does the GM decide on the target number for these dice rolls? Well, they make it up. If the GM is running a pre-made module the type of roll and the target number will be specifed in the module, but often your character will be trying something the module does not provide information for, so the GM will make something up on the spot. The harder the thing you are trying to do, the higher the target will be. Sometimes the GM will tell you the target but often they will not. It depends on the GM and whether they feel it will add to the fun if the player knows the target number. If you are planning on being a GM we will cover how we go about deciding this later. Sometimes the rules offer guidance, but the GM can ignore or modify this as they wish. For example, the Dungeon Master’s Guide (DMG) says that a character can jump horizontally up to their Strength (one of your characters attributes) in feet if they have a run up of at least ten feet. Say Thrud had strength of 17 they can jump 17 feet horizontally. Why did the GM make the player roll a dice then? Perhaps they decided Thrud was tired as it was late in the day, or they had just been in combat. Perhaps the GM decided the terrain was uneven warranting the roll. Whatever the reason the DMG says that a DC 10 Athletices check is apporiate for tricky situations. Is this what the GM was using? Who knows. Again it is up to the GM to decide the DC for the specific situation.

Offsetting the difficulty of the roll target, your character has innate abilities, skills, magic items, and other effects that make the task easier (or harder). All of these effects are represented by roll modifiers that you add to or subtract from the actual dice roll. The final number is then compared with the target and the GM narrates your success or failure.

Why all the dice?

It would be perfectly possible for the GM to run this encounter without rolling any dice at all. Their narrative would be identical, just no one would roll dice, the GM simply decides on the outcome of each action. If fact, this will happen a lot when the GM is trying to keep the story moving forward. As a player this should not concern you.

Dice are a mechanism to introduce chance into the resolution of actions. They can be used to build tension into the story.

Key takeaways

• You don’t need to be an expert to start playing (as a player or a GM).
• There are three phases to a TTRPG ’turn’: Situate, act, and resolve.
• The game system (rules) inform the ‘resolve’ phase.
• The GM can choose to ignore, modify, or create rulings in order to make the game session flow and maintain the fun at the table.
• Dice add a random element (fate, if you prefer).