What is D&D?

Dungeons & Dragons is a role-playing game. Players create a fantasy character that becomes their hero. Your fellow players and their adventuring characters band together to form a party. A Dungeon Master lays out the particular scenario, or problem the characters face. The party is assigned tasks and challenges by other characters in the story through non-player characters (NPCs) with whom the characters must befriend, negotiate with, investigate, or gain insight from. D&D is an incredibly social game with many theatrical moments.

We use polyhedral dice, paper and pencil, miniatures, and funny voices to play through the storytelling elements, monster fighting, and social encounters. The dice serve to help tell the story when something is unknown. Can your character push through a rotting wooden door? Make a Strength check by rolling a 20-sided die! If you’ve rolled high, you push through. If the character fails the roll, the players must take another course of action. D&D is a game filled with complicated problem-solving challenges.

The path of the quest is not always lined with gold, and players must navigate perils that include the chance of character death. In the case of character death, the player is invited to make a new hero and rejoin the next session with a new character perspective and path. While group strategy is a big part of playing the game, group storytelling is a big part of enjoying it.

In a culture that emphasizes the video game, D&D has maintained a following that encourages hands-on, in person, real-time interaction and storytelling. D&D began nearly 50 years ago in Wisconsin, and now, anywhere you go in the world, you are likely to find people who play D&D. 

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