D&D: What It's About (Part 2)

You read right ladies and gentlemen - it's time for part 2 of our beginner's guide. In this post I'll cover Exploration - it's basically how your characters interact with the environment, and what can come of it.

Exploration

Between encounters, your characters explore the world. You make decisions about which way your character travels and what he or she tries to do next. Exploration is the give-and-take of you telling the DM what you want your character to do, and the DM telling you what happens when your character does it.

Don't quite understand? Here's an example of a little exploration going on:-

The players in this example are: Dave, the Dungeon Master; Toby, whose character is the human fighter Ammar; Cam, playing Isidro, a halfling rogue; Daneen, whose character is an eladrin wizard named Serissa.

Dave (DM): “Old stone steps climb up about 30 feet or so into the mountainside, alongside a cold stream splashing through the cave. The steps end at a landing in front of a big stone door carved with the image of a bearded dwarf face. The door stands open about a foot or so. There’s a bronze gong hanging from a bracket in the wall nearby. What do you do?”

Cam (Isidro): “I’ll creep up and peek through the opening.”

Daneen (Serissa): “I want to take a closer look at the gong.”

Toby (Ammar): “I’m going to hang back and keep watch, in case Isidro gets into trouble.”

Cam (Isidro): “Not a chance, I’m a pro.”

Dave (DM): “Okay, first Serissa: It’s a battered old bronze gong. There’s a small hammer hanging beside it.”

Toby (Ammar): “Don’t touch it!”

Daneen (Serissa): “I wasn’t going to! It looks like the doorbell to me. No sense telling the monsters we’re here.”

Dave (DM): “Okay. Now for Isidro: Since you’re trying to be sneaky, Cam, make a Stealth check.”

Cam (rolls a Stealth check for Isidro): “I got a 22.”

Dave (DM): “Isidro is pretty stealthy.” Dave compares Isidro’s Stealth check result to the Perception check result of the monsters he knows are in the next room. Cam’s roll beats the Perception check, so the monsters don’t know the halfling is there.

Daneen (Serissa): “So what does he see?”

Dave (DM): “You’re by the gong, remember? Isidro, you peek in the door’s opening, and you see a large stone hall with several thick pillars. There’s a large fire pit in the center of the room filled with dimming embers. You see four beastlike humanoids with hyena faces crouching around the fire pit, and a big animal—like a real hyena, but much bigger—dozing on the floor nearby. The hyenamen are armed with spears and axes.”

Toby (Ammar): “Gnolls! I hate those guys.”

Daneen (Serissa): “Looks like we’ll have to fight our way in. Can we take them?”

Cam (Isidro): “No problem, we’ve got the drop on ’em.”

Dave (DM): “So are you going through the door?”

The players all agree that they are. “Show me where your characters are standing right before you go in.”

The players arrange their characters’ miniatures on the Dungeon Tiles that Dave has prepared for the encounter. They’re now on the landing just outside the room with

the gnolls.

Toby (Ammar): “All right, on the count of three. One . . . two . . . three!”

Dave (DM): “You’ve surprised the gnolls! Everybody roll initiative, and we’ll see if you can take these guys or not.”

This is just one example of how exploring an area can lead to a combat encounter. Can the PCs beat the Kobolds? Of course, that depends on how they play their characters, and how lucky they are with their dice. Remember that the only limit to exploring an area is the one you put on your imagination. Be bold, don't be afraid to try anything!

In part 3, I'll explain how the core mechanic works. See you soon ;)

D&D: What It's About (Part 1)

Hello everyone, and welcome back!

In the next three posts I'll explain to you what D&D is all about - from how to play the game, to the core mechanic. Now on to our first subject!

How to play the game
Your character represents you in the world of Dungeons & Dragons. Through your character, you can interact with the game world in any way you want (yes, literally any way you want!) - the only limit is your imagination (and sometimes how high you roll on the dice).

Basically, Dungeons & Dragons is about a group of player characters (PCs) taking on an adventure created by the Dungeon Master (DM). Each adventure is made up of encounters - challenges of some sort that your characters face.

Encounters come in two types:-

Combat encounters: battles against whatever enemy you may come across. In a combat encounter, both characters and monsters/enemies take turns to attack until either side is defeated.

Noncombat encounters: these include deadly traps, difficult puzzles, and other obstacles to overcome.Sometimes you overcome noncombat encounters by using your character’s skills, sometimes you can defeat them with clever uses of magic, and sometimes you have to puzzle them out with nothing but your wits. Noncombat encounters also include social interactions, such as attempts to persuade, bargain with, or obtain information from a nonplayer character (NPC) controlled by the DM. Whenever you decide that your character wants to talk to a person or monster, it’s a noncombat encounter.

In part 2 I will cover Exploration. In it you will learn about how your characters interact with the environment. Stay tuned!

A New Dawn.

Welcome, adventurers!

If you're here reading this, than you are one of the few who have expressed interest in playing Dungeons & Dragons. Heroes, magic, dragons! The realm of D&D is huge, and everything in it is limited only by your imagination.

This blog will serve as a guide to the world of D&D - in here, you will learn all you need to know to make your D&D game what it needs to be: a journey of epic proportions. From basics like creating your characters, to more advanced tutorials (Paragon & Legendary classes, combat, etc), you would do well to bookmark this page.

This blog will also chronicle all your adventures. At the end of a gaming session, all that has happened will be posted here. Your adventure will be an ongoing story, likely to last weeks (maybe even months), and having somewhere to go to remind you of all that's happened will help.

Look out for character spotlights as well. Character spotlights are about you - here we will share the history and background of your characters, his/her traits, and everything else you'd like to include.

Well, what are we waiting for? Here come the dragons.