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!