D&D: General information about Dungeons & Dragons

Welcome to the first part of our brand new series of articles about Dungeons and Dragons. From now on you will find all kinds of articles about the well-known pen & paper game here on buffed.de at regular intervals. We give you tips and tricks, explain the rules, classes and game mechanics and generally help you to find an easier entry into the universe of Dungeons and Dragons. D&D can be quite intimidating, especially for beginners.

Since every beginning is difficult, we won’t go straight into the matter, but limit ourselves to a rough overview of the who’s who in D&D. Dungeons and Dragons is a mix of pen & paper and tabletop. Before you scream that you really aren’t any smarter than before, let’s explain briefly:

To play Dungeons and Dragons, you need character sheets, multi-sided dice, a rulebook, and a campaign.

Source: Wizards of the Coast LLC, a subsidiary of Hasbro

Pen & paper games are games for which you need a pen and a piece of paper. No smartphone, no console and no gaming PC. But a lot of imagination! The piece of paper is actually several pieces of paper in the form of your character sheet. In the case of Dungeons and Dragons, this is a four-page document by which your hero character stands and falls. Here you enter his name, his attitude, his spells and spell slots, weapons, riches, character traits, special abilities, armor class, life points and so on and so forth.

Just everything that makes your hero. And of course you need a pen for that. Ideally, you’ll use a pencil so you can erase life points rather than crossing them out with a pen and messing up your paper. Also, filling in with Pen brings a curse that will bring down your character – remember our words!

A tabletop is a board game in which you move characters on a board to represent fights and measure distances. In the case of D&D, this means that each player places a miniature on the battlemap to mark their position. The game master uses tokens for his monsters and NPCs, in addition, scenic features can be recorded or pieces of furniture, columns, walls and plants can be noted on the game board as cover.

Players move their characters around the battle plan so everyone can visually see if a spell has enough range, is flanking someone, or if cover is providing some protection against an attack from a certain direction.

Two different types of battle plans are typically used for D&D. Either you use a playing field with a square grid or one that has a honeycomb grid. Each square represents a distance of 1.5 meters, or five feet if you’re playing the English version. So you can easily count how far you can move or how far away something is from you.

It’s all in the mix

Although it is possible to play Dungeons and Dragons purely as a pen and paper game, many players mix in elements from tabletop games, which also have their own rules. Usually this aspect in D&D only comes into play when a fight starts, while the whole trappings are played as pure pen & paper. All the rest takes place in your mental head cinema. You and your GM describe your actions, speak in your heroes’ voices, and only occasionally consult your character sheet when a check roll is required.

Trust in your luck with the dice

The Dungeons and Dragons ruleset describes how to combine the two elements just introduced to experience epic adventures. But there is also a third, important pillar: D&D is also a dice game.

The multi-sided dice decide your fate in D&D. Choosing the right dice set should not be taken lightly.

Source: Wizards of the Coast LLC, a subsidiary of Hasbro






Players use a set of seven multi-sided dice, because many actions require a so-called dice check. For example, you roll whether an attack hits, whether you can convince an NPC of your intentions, or whether you are able to silently sneak through a corridor.

The D20 (= twenty-sided die) is your best friend or your meanest enemy. This die decides your fate in the truest sense of the word! If you want to read more about dice and the different types of throwing, you will find all important information in a separate article on this topic. So what do we have so far? Pen & paper and tabletop elements, dice and role-playing game. What do we still need? A game master!