Wow, what a way to start a post, amiright? Next week I'll have some really exciting things to write about, because I'm going to Dublin on Monday (wootwoot!!) but for now, for a lack of anything better to talk about, I would like to walk y'all through the basics of tabletop role-playing games.
So, what you do in D&D is really pretty simple. You say what you wanna do, roll a d20 (ie a 20 sided die), add something to that number and if it's high enough you get to do the thing. Well, okay, there's a bit more to it than that :D
Seeing as D&D is an RPG, you start by creating a character for yourself. Depending on your setting, what kind of character you make might vary a bit, but most D&D games are set in a (high) fantasy world, so that gives you certain, well, not boundaries, really, bc you can do frigging anything in D&D, but like... guidelines in helping you make your character. Depending a little on what the players and the DM (that is, the Dungeon Master, sometimes called the GM or Game Master) want to play, the world can be very different, have different levels of technology, different social structures, etc. Basically the world is completely up to the players to mold to their liking, D&D doesn't set the setting, it just sets rules on how and what you can do.
Now, I get that me saying that it sets the rules on what you can do can sound a little stifling, but honestly you can do pretty much anything in a game of D&D I swear, the rules are just there to help the DM interpret your choice of action. What you do has to be in the limits of your character, otherwise it would just be a bunch of people saying they can do cool shit and that's a bit sad really.
But yes, making a character.
Every character has a race, a class, and a bunch of stats like ability scores (ie, how good they are at certain things).
In your typical D&D (high fantasy) the races are fantasy races; elves, dwarves, halflings, orcs, gnomes, etc. All of these have specific racial features (like dark vision, or better strength, or fluency in a bunch of languages, etc) so which race you pick makes a difference to your stats what your character can do.
Then there's the class, which is basically your job. You can be a wizard or a cleric or a rogue or a fighter or a druid or a bunch of other stuff. This plays the biggest part on what you can do. Wizards can do magic, fighters can attack good, rogues are sneaky... As you level up during the game you get different abilities based on your class, so you can do more and cooler stuff.
The abilities are as follows: strength (STR), dexterity (DEX), constitution (CON), intelligence (INT), wisdom (WIS) and charisma (CHA). They all have a score, which is rolled randomly, or rather, you roll a d20 6 times and assign each result to one of the stats. I'm not sure if this is a house rule or an official one, but you can also roll 7 d20s and discard the lowest one before assigning the stats. Depending on the number, you get a modifier for that stat; if it's below 10 it's negative and if it's 12 or above, it's positive (11 and 10 are 0). For example, if your charisma is 14, your modifier is +2 (the modifier goes up 1 every time the stat goes up 2). The max a stat can be is 20 and so the max modifier is +5, but it can also be -5 if your stat is 1. The modifier is The Number to remember, because that is the thing you add to your roll when you want to do stuff.
Which gets us to our next point, skills. There's a number of skills (that number being 18) that you have and are implemented to determine whether or not you succeed in that thing you wanted to do. These skills include (but are not limited to) acrobatics, strength, nature, medicine, history, performance, perception, stealth, arcana and animal handling. All of these have an ability attached to them, which means they have one of those six aforementioned modifiers. For example perception (which is one of the most useful skills, bc it basically means you see stuff) is a wisdom skill (for some reason??) so if your wisdom modifier is +1 then you add 1 to the result when you roll a perception check. There's also a thing called a proficiency bonus, which is +2 at lv1 and grows as you level up, that you add to skills that you are proficient in, ie. really frigging good at. What skills you are proficient in depends on your class (and a bit on your race) and on what you you want.
Okay, what else... ah, yes, the alignment. The D&D alignment chart has become something of a meme, really, so you might've seen it somewhere. It's basically your character's moral compass. It doesn't really have much of a game mechanical point, but it's a big part of the role-playing aspect. It's basically a 3x3 grid, which... wait, lemme find you one real quick... Ah, here we go!
That's a bit off topic at this point though.
There's all kinds of other stuff you can do when you create a character, like a backstory and character traits and goals and flaws and stuff, but that's a lot more freeform, basically whatever goes (depending on your DM). So onwards we go!
Congratulations, you now have your character! More or less. There's also a bunch of other stuff, of course, like what equipment you have, what weapons, what kind of armor, your HP... but that's pretty boring to talk about honestly, those are just things you have. So, how do you play the actual game?
Generally it goes like this: the DM sets the scene (where you are, why, how did you get there). If this isn't the first session, there's a little "previously on..." as everyone tries to remember wtf they even did last time. Then when the scene is set, you can do... whatever. There might be some obvious things to do, like talking to someone there or going to a place the DM implied might contain some kind of quest, but basically you can do whatever. A lot of our sessions are spent going around and talking to people and doing weird shit. The DM has probably planned a really cool quest for you guys tho, so probably you want to do that at some point, lest your DM grow impatient.
Most quests involve some combat or other kind of encounters. That goes usually something like this: at the beginning everyone rolls for initiative (a d20) which sets the order in which people go. Then when it's your turn you can take one action and potentially some bonus actions and a bunch of free actions. The action can be attacking someone but it doesn't have to be. It can also be climbing a thing or getting ready to do something else or trying to talk the other people from attacking you! Basically anything. Free actions are stuff like talking and drawing your weapon or opening a door or other simple task. And then when everyone is dead or you've otherwise managed to resolve the situation you're out of combat and can continue as you did before. Hooray!
Now, this is a very, very brief summary of what you should know as you're getting started and there's a bunch of stuff I didn't talk about. But that is the basic gist of it. D&D is a platform you can use to tell a crazy, exciting story with your friends and I think you'd like it. Or you might hate it, I don't know. But I do think you should try it. It's fun.
Before I go, I want to leave you all a link to a fun D&D character test! It's kinda long, but it's pretty accurate! Tell me what you got in the comments! I got a human wizard (I think, it's been a while since I did it haha)
Anyway, let's play some D&D! Bye!
Pie out.
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