How to Play
Dungeons & Dragons is a storytelling role-playing game in worlds of fantasy, akin to imaginative childhood games. It's driven by picturing fantastical scenes and how adventurers react to challenges. Unlike make-believe, D&D provides structured rules and dice rolls to determine the outcomes of actions, adding probability to possibilities like successful attacks, climbing cliffs, or evading magical threats.
Each player creates a character and joins friends to explore diverse settings such as dungeons, ruins, castles, or caverns. Adventurers solve puzzles, interact with others, fight monsters, and find magical items and treasure. One player, the Dungeon Master (DM), narrates and referees, creating adventures. The DM describes scenarios, and players decide their characters' actions. The DM then determines the results, allowing for flexible and unexpected outcomes.
The game is open-ended; one quest leads to another in an ongoing campaign, often lasting months or years. Characters grow in power as they overcome challenges and find treasure, reflected in their level. D&D has no definitive win or loss. Instead, the DM and players collaboratively craft exciting stories. Even if a character dies, they might be revived magically, or players can create new characters to continue the shared adventure. Ultimately, enjoyment and memorable stories define success for everyone.
Chapters
Introduction
What Dungeons & Dragons is, what an adventure looks like, and what everyone at the table does.
Introduction
Basic Rules
The d20, ability checks, attack rolls, saving throws, and advantage and disadvantage.
Basic Rules
Creating a Character
Step by step from race and class through ability scores, alignment, equipment and levelling up.
Step-By-Step Characters
Spellcasting
Spell slots, casting times, ranges, components, durations, concentration and circle magic.
Spellcasting
Looking for the full rules reference — combat, conditions, feats? Game Rules has it.