D&D Companion

An adventure might be created by the Dungeon Master or purchased (the examples of play in this chapter are inspired by a published adventure, _Curse of Strahd_). In either case, an adventure features a fantastic setting, such as an underground dungeon, a wondrous wilderness, or a magic-filled city. It includes a cast of nonplayer characters controlled by the DM. Often one of the NPCs is a villain whose agenda drives much of an adventure’s action.
During an adventure, the adventurers explore environments, events, and creatures presented by the DM. Battles, traps, negotiations, mysteries, and more arise during these explorations.
Adventures vary in length and complexity. A short adventure might present only a few challenges and take only one session to complete. A long adventure might involve many combats, interactions, and other challenges and take dozens of sessions.

An adventure is a series of encounters. A story emerges through playing them. See also “Encounter.”

If you want to be one of the protagonists in your group's adventures, consider being a player. Here’s what players do:
• Make a Character. Your character is your alter ego in the fantasy world of the game. After you read this chapter, use the rules in chapter 2 to create your character.
• Team Up. Your character joins the other players’ characters to form an adventuring party. These adventurers are allies who face challenges and fantastical situations together. Each character brings distinctive capabilities, which ideally complement those of the other characters.
• Venture Forth. Your character’s group explores locations and events presented by the DM. You can respond to them in any way you can imagine, guided by the rules in this book. Although the DM controls all the monsters you encounter, the DM isn't your adversary. The DM guides your party’s journey as your characters become more powerful.

Start by talking with your Dungeon Master about the type of D&D game they plan to run. If the DM draws inspiration from Greek myth, for example, you might choose a different direction for your character than if the DM is planning for swashbuckling on the high seas. Think about the kind of adventurer you want to play in this game. If you don’t know where to begin, look at the character illustrations in this book for inspiration.

The three main pillars of D&D play are social interaction, exploration, and combat. Whichever one you're experiencing, the game unfolds according to this basic pattern:
1. The Dungeon Master Describes a Scene. 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, and so on).
1. The Players Describe What Their Characters Do. Typically, the characters stick together as they travel through a dungeon or another environment. Sometimes different adventurers do different things: one adventurer might search a treasure chest while a second examines a mysterious symbol engraved on a wall and a third keeps watch for monsters. Outside combat, the DM ensures that every character has a chance to act and decides how to resolve their activity. In combat, the characters take turns.
1. The DM Narrates the Results of the Adventurers’ Actions. Sometimes resolving a task is easy. If an adventurer walks across a room and tries to open a door, the DM might say the door opens and describe what lies beyond. But the door might be locked, the floor might hide a trap, or some other circumstance might make it challenging for an adventurer to complete a task. In those cases, the DM might ask the player to roll a die to help determine what happens. Describing the results often leads to another decision point, which brings the game back to step 1.
This pattern holds during every game session (each time you sit down to play D&D), whether the adventurers are talking to a noble, exploring a ruin, or fighting a dragon. In certain situations—particularly combat—the action is more structured, and everyone takes turns.

This chapter describes the two components of an adventurer's origin: background and species. Together, these elements suggest your character's early experience and family origin before taking up the adventuring life and learning the capabilities of a class (described in chapter 3).

Here are the steps to make a character; each step is explored in detail in this chapter:
1. Choose a Class. Every adventurer is a member of a class. A class broadly describes a character's vocation, special talents, and favored tactics.
1. Determine Origin. A character's origin includes two elements: background and species. How did the character spend the years leading up to a life of adventure? Who are the character’s ancestors? You can also choose your character's languages.
1. Determine Ability Scores. Much of what your character does in the game depends on the character’s six abilities.
1. Choose an Alignment. Alignment is a shorthand for your character's moral compass.
1. Fill in Details. Using the choices you've made, fill in the remaining details on your character sheet.
On the character sheet on the following pages, many spaces are labeled with a number that corresponds with one of those steps.

A campaign is a series of adventures with a consistent group of adventurers following the narrative.
Some campaigns are episodic, where each adventure is its own tale and not much besides the player characters links it to the next one. Other campaigns involve long-running plots, a cast of recurring NPCs, and themes that span multiple adventures, leading toward a climactic conclusion.
As with adventures, a DM might create a campaign from scratch, assemble a campaign from published adventures, or mix homemade material with published material. And the campaign might take place in a world of the DM's creation or in a published campaign setting, such as the Forgotten Realms or Greyhawk (the latter is described in the _Dungeon Master’s Guide_).

To play D&D, you need one person to be the Dungeon Master and other players (three to six are best) to play adventurers. Which role is right for you?

years, those of you who've contributed to the game through your feedback, and those of you who are about to experience the joy of playing it for the first time. As a teenager, I met both Gary and Dave. I even spent an entire day with Gary, and we did what all D&D fans do: share stories about our adventures in the D&D multiverse. I invite you to embark on such adventures anew. Share as much laughter as you can with your friends. Use only the rules that serve your fun, and always follow your group's bliss. So many people have been enjoying the magic of D&D for half a century. Let's keep it blazing for another 50 years! —Jeremy Crawford Are you ready to embark on fantasy adventures with your friends? Dungeons & Dragons invites you to play imaginary adventurers who delve into dungeons and other perilous locations together, face fearsome foes such as dragons, and build friendships forged amid fantastical dangers. Fueled by imagination and rules, D&D invites you to adopt a fantasy persona—a mighty Fighter, a cunning Rogue, a faithful Cleric, a magical Wizard, or something else—and then solve problems, fight monsters, and visit wondrous places. There's no winning and losing in D&D, at least not the way those terms are usually understood. Together you and friends create an exciting story of adventurers who confront perils. Sometimes an adventurer might come to a tragic end. Even so, the other adventurers can search for powerful magic to revive their fallen comrade, or the character's player might create a new character to carry on. No matter what happens, if everyone has a good time and creates a memorable story, they all win.

If you want to be the mastermind of the game, consider being the DM. Here’s what DMs do:
• Build Adventures. You prepare the adventures that the players experience. In the _Dungeon Master’s Guide_, you'll find advice for how to create adventures and even whole worlds.
• Guide the Story. You narrate much of the action during play, describing locations and creatures that the adventurers face. The players decide what their characters do as they navigate hazards and choose what to explore. Then you use a combination of imagination and the game’s rules to determine the results of the adventurers’ decisions.
• Adjudicate the Rules. You oversee how the group uses the game's rules, making sure the rules serve the group's fun. You'll want to read the rest of this chapter to understand those rules, and you'll find the rules glossary essential.

Here's what you need to play D&D with one or more friends (a typical group has five people):
Dungeon Master. One person takes on the role of the Dungeon Master (DM), the game's lead storyteller and referee. The DM creates adventures for the players’ characters, who navigate its hazards and decide which paths to explore. The DM also narrates what they experience and plays the friends and foes they meet along the way. Even though the DM challenges the adventurers, the DM always strives to delight the whole group. Players. Each player creates an adventurer who teams up with the other players’ adventurers. Working together, the group might explore a dark dungeon, a ruined city, a haunted castle, a lost temple, a lava-filled mountain, or another location described by the DM. The adventurers also solve puzzles, talk with other characters, battle fantastic monsters, and discover magic items and other treasure—all while supporting each other's fun.
You also need these resources, either in physical form or on DnDBeyond.com:
Player’s Handbook. This book is your essential reference for the game's rules, and it guides you through making an adventurer of your own. Dungeon Master's Guide and Monster Manual. The first of these books guides the DM through creating and running adventures, and the second holds hundreds of monsters to fill those adventures.
LEARN BY WATCHING A great way to learn the basics of D&D is to watch people play it. The Internet offers videos of D&D play that show off the tremendous range of possibilities the game offers. As you watch, pay attention to the ways that some players help make the game fun for everyone in their group. The only audience you need to entertain when you're playing D&D is yourself and your group.
Dice. You need a set of polyhedral dice (shown in chapter 1). You can find dice like these in game stores and from online retailers. Dice-rolling apps are also available. Character Sheet. To keep track of important information about your character, you need a character sheet, which can be as simple as a piece of paper you write notes on or as feature-rich as a digital record.
The DM might also find these accessories useful:
DM Screen. Many DMs like to use a screen to shield their notes and dice rolls from players. It's bad manners to peek over the screen! Miniatures and Battle Grid. Some DMs use a battle grid and miniatures to run combat encounters, since they help everyone visualize the action. A battle grid can be anything marked out in 1-inch squares, from disposable sheets of paper to poster maps. And miniatures range from simple tokens to detailed figurines. Online maps and miniatures are also available, including on DnDBeyond.com.

Each part of your character's origin reflects facets of your character, their life, and the circumstances that started them on the path to adventure.
If you choose a background or a species from an older book, see the sidebar “Backgrounds and Species from Older Books” in chapter 2 for how to use them with the options here.

Sometimes a session of D&D is a complete game in itself (often called a “one-shot”), where you play a short adventure that lasts for just one session. More often, though, D&D sessions are connected in a longer adventure that takes several sessions to complete, and adventures can be strung together into a larger narrative called a campaign.
A campaign is like a TV series, while an adventure is like a season of the series. And a game session is like a single episode—it might be self-contained, but it usually links to the larger plot if there is one.

Your character's background is a collection of characteristics that represent the place and occupation that were most formative before your character embarked on a life of adventure.
Each background includes a brief narrative of what your character's past might have been like. Alter the details of this narrative however you like.