Welcome to the Players Section! This will be the section you’ll need if you’re looking to be a part of your first campaign, but you don’t quite know where to begin! In this section, we’ll cover some things you may need to get started, how to create a character, and some roleplaying or gameplay tips!
Things You Need (Or May Want)
As was stated on the starting page, D&D is very easy to get into, all you need are the following:
- A Pen
- Some Paper (Usually a Character Sheet)
- A set of Polyhedral Dice
However, as you get more into the hobby, there may be a few things you’ll want to pick up that will make your experience more fun and immersive. Some things you may want to look into are:
- A dice bag (to hold all your fun shiny click clack rocks!)
- A dice rolling tray or a dice tower (ensures pure random chance and prevents damaging dice on hard surfaces/falling off tables!)
- A journal (especially if you’re the note taking type)
- A miniature to represent your character!
All of these are helpful to have if you start getting into the hobby, and are often fun projects that you can even make yourself and really have something that you have a personal connection to! I have my own miniature of the character I am playing in my current campaign, who my friend very kindly painted for me!
Character Creation
The next major step once you have your supplies, is to create your character! This can be tricky for a few reasons. First of which, Dungeons and Dragons has a massive list of character races and classes (and subclasses) all of which that have their own benefits and drawbacks. For first time players, it is recommended that you stick with the list of races and classes that are available in the base Players Handbook. This book can be purchased, but often times you can find free guides online that have the same information, or you can even use a website like D&D Beyond to make an account and actually generate a printable character sheet for free using all the information from the Players Handbook (or PHB). We will cover the method two different methods of generating stat values, and how to calculate them. The two different methods are “dice rolls” or “point buy”. These methods will generate the values of the 6 stat categories that every player has: Strength, Dexterity, Wisdom, Intelligence, Constitution and Charisma. A brief explanation of each is below:
- Strength: How hard you can hit something, or how easily can you lift something. Good for those who like to fight, fighters and barbarians benefit here.
- Dexterity: How easily one can dodge some one trying to hit them, or how agile they can be while trying to sneak. This is the sneaky players bread and butter, good for rogues, monks and rangers.
- Wisdom: How well you can read someone’s tells, or determine if something isn’t right. Often used by those with holy magic, such as clerics and paladins.
- Intelligence: How well one can solve puzzles or decipher codes. Used by characters that like to learn and then use that knowledge for spells or what have you.
- Constitution: How hearty a character is, or how many times they can get hit and keep coming back. Often used by characters who find themselves taking a lot of damage.
- Charisma: How charming one can be, or how threatening, often used by characters who like to talk their way out of bad situations, like Bards.
Dice Rolls:
The classic method of generating character stats is using dice rolls. This was the way it started out, and many old school players still like this method as it introduces the possibility of a character being terrible at something, and makes the characters feel more “real” at times.
To do this method, you’ll need a 4 6 sided dies (or you can roll your D6 four separate times for each stat value). You’ll roll all 4 dice, rerolling any 1’s you roll, minus the lowest of the 4 dice, and then add up your three remaining die to get a value. You’ll repeat this process 5 more times, getting a total of 6 stat values, that will have a minimum stat value of 6 and a maximum of 18. This will give you your values to play with that will be needed in a future section.
Point-Buy:
The point-buy method is a more modern way of building characters, often times a bit more straight forward. It is a little more balanced, allowing players to sort of adjust stats as they see fit, while it takes away from the “randomness” of the world and can often times make for a more balanced character while removing some of the hurdles that can often make for fun role play. This method involves starting all of your values at “8” which is slightly below average. Each player is given 27 points with which they can spend on increasing their stats. As you add more to each stat, the cost goes up, with going to “9” costing one point, and going to the max of “15” costing 9 points. A value cannot go below 8. Players should put more points into the stats that help support their chosen class, and also should take into consideration any racial bonuses that they may get from their chosen character race. An example of this is Half-Orcs get +2 to Strength for their racial bonus, so a player may not want to pump all of their points right away into getting their Half-Orc Barbarian to 15, and maybe spend the points to get them to 15, and use the 4 points elsewhere to shore up any shortcomings.
Once a player has gotten and assigned their stat values, picked their race and class, then it’s time to flesh out backstory. This can be tough for newer players, so for the first time, it’s alright if your backstory is fairly straight forward, or even influenced by other stories that you like. A DM who has experience will work with you, and make it rewarding by working in your characters back story and really help you make it come to life. During this step, you’ll also select your starting equipment such as weapon and armor, and come up with a name. I often use name generators online to help with this step, as there are some amazing fantasy name generators available on google!
Completing all of these steps will result in you having your first character. Once you have your pen and character sheet in hand, a set of dice with you, you’ll be off on your first big adventure!
Roleplaying: Tips and Tricks
As your adventure progresses, you may have to interact with characters and other players, and it can be awkward at first to “get into character”. This is natural, it takes time to feel a connection to something you’ve made out of thin air, so conversations may feel stiff at first. Let yourself feel the awkwardness, and move beyond it. Things that are often recommended is to consider how your characters backstory would form their decisions and their morals. A rogue character with a background of crime probably wouldn’t have as much issue with killing a bandit and looting their body than say a Paladin would. From there, you can build your characters personality! In the end of all of it, make sure you have fun!