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Welcome to the world of Dungeons & Dragons, where everything is possible.

This is a short post about my journey with DnD. My personal opinion about DnD is this: Maybe it’s the hardest ’tabletop’ game ever created. The learning curve is not the familiar one like the rest of the games, whether tabletop or family games.

DnD has its own learning curve:

Skill
 ^
 |                          ________
 |                     ____/
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 |           ____/
 |      ____/
 | ____/
 |/
 | \
 |  \____
 |       \________
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 +-------------------------------> Time

Well, not a real graph but you get the point: when you start your first DnD session, you’d wish you hadn’t started at all.

How to start playing DnD?

Ingredients:

  • Good company, ideally people who are close friends.
  • One ‘sucker’ willing to be the Dungeon Master (DM)

And that’s all! Ticking those boxes is all you need to play DnD and have fun.

The DM

Let’s talk about that ‘sucker’. The DM is the heart of the game and the outcome depends mostly on how well the DM is prepared. If you decide to go down that road, be prepared to read a lot. And by a lot, I mean A LOT! If it’s your first game (yours and your group’s), I highly recommend starting with the ‘certified’ campaign that Wizards of the Coast suggests: The Lost Mines of Phandalin. Just grab a copy of the book (or PDF) from their site and read it from page 1 to the end. Then read it again. Then grab a copy of the DM’s Guide and the core rulebook.

The actual play

After you’ve read those books (mainly the campaign book), decide how you’re going to play. You have 2 choices: either in person at a physical location (your house, garage, outdoors) or online — check out https://roll20.net.

Before session 1, you’ll want to have a session 0 where you meet for the first time as adventurers, get to know each other, ask and answer questions, and decide what characters you’re planning to create. The DM should explain some basic combat rules, what to expect from the game, and the specifics of the campaign you’re going to play.

Conclusion

DnD is a great game, but it’s not for everyone. In my opinion, the hardest part is consistency — getting together to play every week or on whatever schedule you set. Since most of us are working adults (many with families), I think a session once a week is the sweet spot. I hope this post helped a bit!