Introduction

Dungeons & Dragons should be a game that is accessible to everyone. However, many new players might be put off by the fact that even the Basic Rules are more than 170 pages long due to very specific descriptions, complicated mechanics and a strive for realism that many groups already ignore. This version of D&D aims to bring the mechanics to their most simple format, while retaining the fun and creativity of the game. This way, it is quick and easy to teach and play with children, older people or simply people that want to try roleplaying games without too much hassle about learning rules.

The Game

The Dungeons & Dragons roleplaying game is about storytelling in worlds of swords and sorcery. It shares elements with childhood games of make-believe. Like those games, D&D is driven by imagination. It’s about picturing the towering castle beneath the stormy night sky and imagining how a fantasy adventurer might react to the challenges that scene presents.

Dungeon Master (DM): As you enter the gloomy cave, you spot a single goblin snoring on a pile of treasure. You can smell its stench from across the cave. What would you like to do?
Phillip (playing Gareth): I might be able to take it on in a fight, but I want to try to sneak over and steal some of the treasure.

Unlike a game of make-believe, D&D gives structure to the stories, a way of determining the consequences of the adventurers’ action. Players roll dice to resolve whether their attacks hit or miss or whether their adventurers can scale a cliff, roll away from the strike of a magical lightning bolt, or pull off some other dangerous task. Anything is possible, but the dice make some outcomes more probable than others.

DM: You try to sneak close to the hoard. Make a Dexterity check.
Phillip (rolling a d20): Ugh. Seven.
DM: The goblin is roused by your noisy approach. It suddenly jumps up and screams: “Intruders!”

In the Dungeons & Dragons game, each player creates an adventurer (also called a character) and teams up with other adventurers, played by friends. Characters are distinct due to their class, race and personality, each having their own strengths and weaknesses. Working together, the group might explore a dark dungeon, a haunted castle or a lost temple deep in a jungle. The adventurers can solve puzzles, talk with other characters, battle fantastic monsters, and discover fabulous magic items and other treasure.

One player, however, takes on the role of the Dungeon Master (DM), the game’s lead storyteller and referee. The DM creates adventures for the characters, who navigate its hazards and decide which paths to explore. The DM might describe the goblin and its treasure, but the players decide what to do about it. Do they sneak over, attack it or try to charm it with a spell? Then the DM determines the results of the adventurers’ actions and narrates what they experience, including playing all the other characters they encounter along the way. Because the DM can improvise to react to anything the players attempt, D&D is infinitely flexible.

The game has no real end; when one story or quest wraps up, another one can begin, creating an ongoing story called a campaign. A campaign might be created by the DM or purchased off the shelf. In either case, an adventure usually features a fantastic setting. Many people who play the game keep their campaigns going for months or years, meeting with their friends every week or so to pick up the story where they left off. The adventurers grow in might as the campaign continues. There’s no winning and losing in the Dungeons & Dragons game. The group might fail to complete a task successfully, but if everyone had a good time and created a memorable story, they all win.

Often the action of an adventure takes place in the imagination of the players and DM, relying on the DM’s verbal descriptions to set the scene. Some DMs like to use music, art, or recorded sound effects to help set the mood, and many players and DMs alike adopt different voices for the various adventurers, monsters, and other characters they play in the game. Sometimes, a DM might lay out a map and use tokens or miniature figures to represent each creature involved in a scene to help the players keep track of where everyone is.

How to Play

The play of the Dungeons & Dragons game unfolds according to this basic pattern.

1. The DM describes the environment. The DM tells the players where their adventurers are and what’s around them (how many doors lead out of a room, what’s on a table, who’s in the tavern, and so on).

2. The players describe what they want to do. The players don’t need to take turns, but the DM listens to every player and decides how to resolve those actions. Sometimes, resolving a task is easy. If an adventurer wants to open a door, the DM might just say that the door opens and describe what lies beyond. But in cases where there is a challenge, such as the door being locked or the floor hiding a deadly trap, the DM relies on the roll of a die to determine the results of an action.

3. The DM narrates the results of the adventurers’ actions. Describing the results often leads to another decision point, which brings the flow of the game right back to step 1.

In certain situations, particularly combat, the action is more structured and the players (and DM) do take turns choosing and resolving actions.

Pillars of Adventure

Adventurers can try to do anything their players can imagine, but it can be helpful to talk about their activities in three broad categories: exploration, social interaction, and combat.

Exploration includes both the adventurers’ movement through the world and their interaction with objects and situations that require their attention. Players describe what they want their characters to do, and the DM tells the players what happens as a result. On a large scale, that might involve the characters spending a day crossing a rolling plain or an hour making their way through caverns underground. On the smallest scale, it could mean one character pulling a lever in a dungeon room to see what happens. See Chapter 6 for more information.

Social interaction features the adventurers talking to someone else. It might mean demanding that a captured scout reveal the secret entrance to the goblin lair, getting information from a rescued prisoner, pleading for mercy from an orc chieftain, or persuading a talkative magic mirror to show a distant location to the adventurers. See Chapter 6 for more information.

Combat involves characters and other creatures swinging weapons, casting spells, maneuvering for position, and so on — all in an effort to defeat their opponents, whether that means killing every enemy, taking captives, or forcing a rout. Combat is the most structured element of a D&D session, with creatures taking turns to make sure that everyone gets a chance to act. Even in the context of a pitched battle, there’s still plenty of opportunity for adventurers to attempt wacky stunts like surfing down a flight of stairs on a shield and to interact with other creatures. See Chapter 7 for more information.

Game Dice

The game uses polyhedral dice with different numbers of sides. You can find dice like these in game stores and in many bookstores. In these rules, the different dice are referred to by the letter d followed by the number of sides: d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, and d20. For instance, a d6 is a six-sided die (the typical cube that many games use).

When you need to roll dice, the rules tell you how many dice to roll of a certain type, as well as what modifiers to add. For example, “3d8 + 5” means you roll three eight-sided dice, add them together, and add 5 to the total.

Chapter 1: Playing the game

Is a character muscle-bound and insightful? Brilliant and charming? Nimble and hardy? Ability scores define these qualities—a creature’s assets as well as weaknesses. These are the six abilities:

Strength: athletics, bodily power, using heavy weapons
Dexterity: agility, reflexes, sneaking, using light weapons
Constitution: health, stamina, vitality
Intelligence: memory, analytical skill
Wisdom: awareness, insight
Charisma: social skills, leadership, lying, performance

A score of 0 or 1 is the normal human average, however most adventurers are a cut above the rest in most abilities.

Ability Checks

An ability check tests a character’s or monster’s innate talent and training in an effort to overcome a challenge. The DM calls for an ability check when a character or monster attempts an action (other than an attack) that has a chance of failure. When the outcome is uncertain, the dice determine the results.

For every ability check, the DM decides which of the six abilities is relevant to the task at hand and the difficulty of the task, represented by a Difficulty Class (DC). The more difficult a task, the higher its DC. The table below shows the most common DCs.

Difficulty	DC
Easy	8
Medium	13
Hard	18

To make an ability check, roll a d20 and add the relevant ability score. If the total equals or exceeds the DC, the ability check is a success—the character overcomes the challenge at hand. Otherwise, it’s a failure, which means the character makes no progress toward the objective or makes progress combined with a setback determined by the DM.

Sometimes, two creatures are in opposition to complete a task, such as snatching a ring from the floor. In this case, both make an ability check and the highest total succeeds. If they are the same, there is no change in the situation – in this case, neither gets the ring.

Here are some examples of ability checks for each ability. Often they are referred to without the word ‘ability’ , for example as a ‘Dexterity check’.

Strength
• climbing a difficult surface
• jumping a long distance
• forcing open a door
• breaking free of bonds
• lifting heavy objects

Dexterity
• balancing on a rope or on ice
• attempting an acrobatic stunt
• pickpocketing someone
• trying to move stealthily
• crafting a small object
• tying up a prisoner

Constitution
• holding your breath
• marching for hours without rest
• going without sleep, food or water
• drink an entire mug of ale in one go

Intelligence
• remembering something
• looking around for clues
• searching for a hidden object
• winning a game of chess
• communicate without words or in a foreign language

Wisdom
• calming down or handling an animal
• determining whether someone is lying
• stabilising an unconscious companion
• spotting something that is obscured
• listening to a conversation through a door
• following tracks
• surviving in the wilderness

Charisma
• lying convincingly
• intimidating someone
• performing music, dance, acting, etc.
• persuading or convincing someone
• finding out the rumours in an area

Rolls in Combat

In combat (see Chapter 7), when a character attacks with a weapon or casts a spell, they must make an accuracy roll to see if they hit their target. They roll a d20 and add the relevant score, which is either Strength or Dexterity for weapons (see Chapter 8) or a mental ability stated in your class description for spells (see Chapter 9).

Armor Class (AC) represents how well a character avoids being wounded in battle. Things that contribute to AC include the armor you wear, the shield you carry, and your Dexterity score. If an accuracy roll is higher than or equal to the target’s AC, the attack is a hit. If you roll a 20, you automatically hit and you deal double damage.

When you hit with an attack, you must roll the damage dice for the attack (stated in the weapon or spell description). If it is a weapon attack, you can add a damage bonus, which uses the same ability score as your accuracy roll. Damage rolls are deducted from hit points. A character’s hit points define how tough your character is in combat and other dangerous situations. As they decrease, your character becomes increasingly wounded.

Certain features can modify accuracy and damage bonuses, so record these separately next to the relevant weapon.

Advantage and Disadvantage

Sometimes a special ability or spell tells you that you have advantage or disadvantage on an ability check or an accuracy roll. When that happens, you roll a second d20 when you make the roll. Use the higher of the two rolls if you have advantage and use the lower roll if you have disadvantage. For example, if you have disadvantage and roll a 17 and a 5, you use the 5. If you instead have advantage and roll those numbers, you use the 17.

If you have more than one instance of advantage or disadvantage, your still only roll two d20s. If you have both advantage and disadvantage, you make a normal roll.

Proficiency

Some tasks, such as recalling the history of a crumbling ruin, forging a helmet from a piece of metal, speaking a language or wielding a battleaxe in battle, require special training in order to be able to attempt. This is called proficiency. A character can gain proficiency from their background, race or class. Most proficiencies relate to a particular job, knowledge, language or piece of equipment.

How proficiency applies is up to the DM and depends on the situation. A character without proficiency may or may not be able to complete a task that requires it. A character without proficiency in disguising themselves might be able to make an Intelligence check to put together a simple disguise, but it would be impossible for a character without proficiency in arcane lore to figure out what a mysterious ritual is for. Likewise, a character with proficiency might still need to make an ability check. Knowing the symbols of the local pantheon is simple for someone with proficiency in religious knowledge, however knowing how to play a card game does not guarantee winning.

Conditions

Some features and abilities inflict conditions. These are indicated by italics and are defined in Chapter 12.

Chapter 2: Building a Character

Your character serves as your representative in the game, your avatar in the Dungeons & Dragons world.

If this is your first time playing the game, it might be easier if you use one of the premade characters included at the end of this book. This way, you won't have to worry about making good choices or missing something. If this is the case, feel free to skip this chapter.

Otherwise, before you dive into step 1 below, think about the kind of adventurer you want to play. You might be a courageous fighter, a skulking rogue, a fervent cleric, or a flamboyant wizard. If you don’t know where to begin, take inspiration from characters in a book or movie you enjoy.

Once you have a character in mind, follow these steps in order, making decisions that reflect the character you want. Your conception of your character might evolve with each choice you make. What’s important is that you come to the table with a character you’re excited to play.

To help you keep track of your character, you can record information on a character sheet. A simple template is included at the end of this book. However, feel free to use an empty piece of paper to record information in a way suited to you or even design your own character sheet.

Building Bruenor

Each step of character creation includes an example of that step, with a player named Bob building his dwarf character, Bruenor.

1. Choose a Class

Every adventurer has a set of skills and talents that can be broadly placed under one of the five main classes. Your character receives a number of benefits from your choice of class. Many of these benefits are class features - capabilities (including spellcasting) that set your character apart from members of other classes. There are options for classes in Chapter 3.

Adventurers start from level 1. These characters are inexperienced but might have been in a few dangerous situations before. As you achieve milestones, your DM can allow you to level up. This unlocks additional features that can be seen in your class description. This usually happens once every few sessions.

Note down the features you receive from your class at 1st level on your character sheet.

Building Bruenor, step 1

Bob imagines Bruenor as a fearsome warrior, charging into battle with a huge battleaxe. Therefore, he makes Bruenor a fighter and notes down its features.

2. Choose a Race

Every character belongs to a race, one of the many species in the D&D world. The most common player character races are dwarves, elves, halflings, and humans. The race you choose contributes to your character’s identity in an important way, by establishing a general appearance and the natural talents gained from culture and ancestry. There are options for races in Chapter 4. In addition, all characters are proficient in the Common language.

Note down the features you receive from your race on your character sheet.

Building Bruenor, step 2

Bob wants Bruenor to be a dwarf with a horned helmet. He notes down the features of the dwarf race on his character sheet.

3. Determine Ability Scores

Much of what your character does in the game depends on his or her six abilities: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma. Each ability has a score, which is a number you record on your character sheet. You have 9 points to spend on your scores, up to a maximum of 3 per score. Allocate all of your points and note the results on your character sheet.

Building Bruenor, step 3

Bob wants Bruenor to be a strong and tough fighter, so he spends 3 points each for strength and constitution. However, Bob also wants Bruenor to be a wise, old dwarf. Therefore, he puts 2 points in Wisdom. Finally, Bob puts his last point in Dexterity, as Bruenor is still somewhat agile despite his age. He puts no points in Charisma or Intelligence: Bruenor is occasionally rude and did not have the best education.

4. Describe your Character

All characters have a distinct personality. To help you with roleplaying, choose:

a name
a value (positive characteristic)
a flaw (negative characteristic)
a background, which includes a proficiency that is not a weapon or armor proficiency
a quirk, which is an interesting or funny detail about your character

You can get inspiration from the tables in Chapter 5 or roll dice to get some at random. If you wish to elaborate on your character’s backstory or appearance, feel free to write it down.

Building Bruenor, step 4

Bob chooses two positive characteristics for Bruenor: ‘courageous’ and ‘kind’. He also chooses a negative characteristic. Since Bruenor has a low Charisma, he chooses ‘impolite’. Bruenor’s background is clear to Bob. He was once a rich dwarven noble that was exiled, which gave him proficiency with jeweller’s tools. His quirk is that he always drinks too much beer when he has the opportunity.

5. Fill in Detail

Hit points. At 1st level, you have a number of hit points equal to the base number in your class description plus your Constitution score. When you level up, you gain extra hit points equal to half that base number plus your Constitution score.

Armor Class. If you are not wearing armor, your AC equals 10 + your Dexterity score. If you are proficient with armor, see Chapter 8.

Speed. All characters’ base walking speed is 6 metres per turn.

Gold. Your character starts with 50 gold pieces.

Equipment. All characters receive some starting equipment, which is included in your class details. Note down the accuracy and damage bonus for each weapon (see Chapter 8).

Building Bruenor, step 5

Bob notes down Bruenor’s hit points: he gains 10 from the fighter class, 3 from his Constitution score and an extra 1 because he is a dwarf. His AC does not use the basic calculation as he is proficient with light and heavy armor. He also chooses some equipment: heavy armor, a hammer, a shield, handaxes and an adventurer’s pack. Bob notes down Bruenor’s accuracy and damage roll bonus for his hammer and handaxes, which are all +3.

Chapter 3: Classes

Four basic classes are found in almost every D&D world and define most typical adventurers. They are listed below.

Cleric

Arms and eyes upraised toward the sun and a prayer on his lips, a dwarf begins to glow with an inner light that spills out to heal his battle-worn companions.

Clerics are priestly champions who wield divine magic in service of a higher power.

Base Hit Points: 8 + Constitution score
Extra Hit Points on Level Up: 4 + Constitution score

Proficiencies:

light armor
heavy armor
shields
weak weapons
religious lore

Equipment:

any melee weapon
any armor
a shield
an adventurer’s pack
a holy symbol

Level 1

Spellcasting

You know 3 cantrips of your choice from the cleric spell list (see Chapter 9). These simple spells can be cast at will.

You have a mana total of 2. To cast a proper spell, you must expend a number of mana equal to the spell’s level. When you cast a basic damage spell, your accuracy bonus is your Wisdom score. You regain all expended mana when you finish a long rest. When you cast a spell, you must choose from your known spells. You know 3 spells, which must be 1st level spells that you must choose from the cleric spell list. You can change your known spells at the end of a long rest.

When you level up, your mana total increases by 2 and you can learn 1 extra spell.

Level 2

Disciple of Life

You are adept at restoring life to others. When you cast a healing spell, you can add your Wisdom score to the healing.

Undead Bane

Your deity’s power smites the unholy. You deal double damage to undead targets.

Level 3

Level 2 Spells

You can learn and cast level 2 spells.

Blessed Healer

You are blessed when you help others. When you cast a healing spell, you are also healed for 2d4 hit points.

Level 4

Ability Score Increase

Increase any of your ability scores by 1, up to a maximum of 5.

Level 5

Level 3 Spells

You can learn and cast level 3 spells.

Radiant Strike

Your attacks are infused with divine radiance. The damage rolls of your cantrips and weapon attacks increase by 1d8.

Fighter

A human in clanging plate armor holds her shield before her as she runs toward the massed goblins. An elf behind her, clad in studded leather armor, peppers the goblins with arrows loosed from his exquisite bow.

Fighters are masters of martial combat, skilled with a variety of weapons and armor.

Base Hit Points: 10 + Constitution score
Extra Hit Points on Level Up: 5 + Constitution score

Proficiencies:

all weapons
light armor
heavy armor
shields

Equipment:

any 2 melee weapons
any ranged weapon
any armor
a shield
an adventurer’s pack