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# New to D&D

# What is D&D?

D&D is a tabletop roleplaying game (TTRPG) game published by Wizards of the Coast (WOTC). Each session is typically played with one DM and a party of 4-5 players. The game is a mixture of freeform roleplay (RP), combat, and exploration.

We currently play the 5th Edition (5e) of the game released in 2014; if you have any books from earlier (e.g. 3.5e, AD&D) or later editions (namely the 2024 rulebooks), please do not use them here as they are not compatible.

# How is D&D played online?

There are a variety of ways to play D&D online. Over here, we use text-based roleplay on Discord, and dice are rolled using the Avrae bot. This is paired with maps on Google Sheets or Owlbear Rodeo.

# What is West Marches/Living World D&D?

We get the question "How can I join a campaign?" quite often. On our server, we don't run campaigns; instead, we run pick-up games where characters carry over between sessions.

Broadly speaking, our server is a living world, which is a unique format of D&D similar to a MMORPG. All characters live in a shared world, and even when you are not in games, you can still interact with other player characters (aka PCs).

To accommodate our size, games are West Marches style with some changes. In West Marches, there are multiple DMs and many players. Rather than having to stick to weekly sessions and a consistent party, games are instead held whenever a DM has time.

If you are free at that time, and have a character within that level range, go ahead and sign-up. The DM will then pick a party. These sessions are typically self-contained one-shots, and there is no overarching plot. This reduces the commitment needed, especially if you just want to try the game.

# How Were You Introduced to D&D?

Over the years, we have encountered a wide variety of players from all sorts of backgrounds. However, sometimes this leads to mismanaged expectations on how we personally play D&D. As such, we have compiled this helpful list of common scenarios for you:

If you've already played D&D before, you may feel like you already have a grasp on D&D's mechanics. However, every table plays differently; some follow the game rules strictly, while others use lots of homebrew or Rule of Cool. Some DMs are totally okay with you rolling up a world-conquering necromancer with an army of robots at Level 1—

We are not one of them, haha. Due to home games taking these kinds of liberties, we encourage you to pay attention to our rules and open your mind to adjusting expectations.

Everyone loves a good meme, but it is important to understand that memes only represent one part of the D&D experience. In many cases, they are exaggerated for comedic effect; you probably won't be in a party with a witch on a tricycle. As our server lasts up till Level 20, we generally don't encourage you to create joke characters that would only be funny for a few sessions.

Streams and podcasts like CR or D20 are popular ways people get introduced to the game. However, it is vital to note that their actors are professionals, and Matt Mercer is a master worldbuilder. As such, you should not expect yourself, other players, or the DM to roleplay to their standard.

RPGs such as Baldur's Gate 3 has greatly helped expand the accessibility of D&D. While BG3 is quite faithful to the overall experience, Larian Studios has made their own changes to the game.

In addition, as a video game, BG3 has several details that don't translate to the tabletop format. The key difference is that you play collaboratively with your party. No one person is the main character, and you are expected to work with your team to overcome challenges. It is frowned upon to take control of their actions.

Generally, we ask that you don't rip ideas from video games characters for your D&D character. The line between taking inspiration and directly copying can blur quickly. Playing a rogue dual-wielding swords is fine; using Geralt's portrait and having a vaguely-similar backstory is not.

In Stranger Things, the characters play the Dungeons & Dragons Expert Set, which was released in 1981 as an expansion to the 1977 Basic Set (not to be confused with the 2014 Basic Rules).

Here, we play Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition, a more recent and the most popular version of D&D, and have our own homemade setting called Icris, which means you unfortunately won't see villain crossovers like Vecna.

# Planning Your Character

Before you begin, start by imagining what kind of character you want to create.

  • How is your character's personality like? Are they serious, witty, cold, or emotional?
  • Do they care about good and evil, or are they more of a grey character?
  • Are they someone who casts spells? A traditional sword and board warrior? Or both?
  • What role in the party should they fulfil? Do you want to play a heroic defender who protects others? A skirmisher assassin who lurks in the shadows? A versatile spellcaster who supports their team?
  • Which is more important to you, combat or roleplay? Both?
    • Does having an optimized character matter to you?
  • Do you want to focus on being good at one thing, or know many different things?
    • The former will be easier to play, while the latter will have higher complexity.

Your answers will influence how you make your choices in the next section. Race/species, class, subclass, and background are key components that come together to fulfil your dream character.

Each class has their own advantages and disadvantages. Below is a simplified list of classes and what each of them focus on:

Class Overview

A fun resource for character creation: Is your D&D Character Too Perfect? by Ginny Di

# How to Learn D&D

The most comprehensive way to learn D&D is to start with the Basic Rules (2014) . You do not have to read everything all at once, and it is not necessary to read everything:

Section Must Read?
1. Step by Step Characters Yes, please read this. This section goes hand-in-and with the below steps and will help you make your first DnD character.
2. Races Just read those you are interested in
3. Classes Just read those you are interested in
4. Personalities & Backgrounds 👉 Skip directly to Backgrounds section (you can come up with your own Character Details)
5. Equipment 👉 Skim this, unless you plan on manually calculating your stats
6. Customization Options ⏳ Ignore this for now; you can read it when you level up
7. Ability Scores Absolutely necessary to read
8. Adventuring 👉 Skip directly to The Environment; this section is more situational
9. Combat Absolute necessary to read
10. Spellcasting 👉 Only if you play a spellcaster. You can skip if you are starting as a Barbarian, Fighter, Monk or Rogue.
11. Spells 👉 Skip for now; for spellcasters, you can read the Level 1 spells on your sheet later.
Monsters Don't read this.
Building Combat Encounters Don't read this.
Magic Items ⏳ Ignore for now.
Appendix A 👉 Useful reference, give it a skim if anything remains unclear.
Appendix B-D Don't read this.

If this felt overwhelming, you can also read the somewhat simplified SRD Document . This is helpful if you struggle to read long blocks of text and only want to read the most important parts. If you require more detailed explanation, the Basic Rules above are better.

Don't worry, this will come with time. It is only important that you eventually familiarize yourself with your Character Sheet, so that you can play games smoothly.

# Creating Your Character

As you read the above document, you can create your character at the same time. Here is a step by step guide of making your character sheet on D&D Beyond (DDB), our recommended creator for new players.

# Step-by-Step: Making your first character on D&D Beyond

# Getting Started

  • Make a D&D Beyond account if you don’t already have one.
  • Go to "Create a Character"
  • Choose "Standard" Character Creation Method
  • Check "Show Help Text". This gives you overview of various D&D concepts that are useful for creating a character.
    • You could use "Quick Build" as well, which will automatically generate a character sheet for you. Feel free to change the name and portrait to suit your character.

Create a Character

Choose Standard for character creation method

# Character Preferences (settings)

  • Dice Rolling: Off

    • We use Avrae Discord bot for this, not D&D Beyond

  • Optional Features: On

  • Advancement Type: Milestone

  • Hit Point Type

  • Leave the rest of the options as they are. Make sure Character Privacy is set to "Public"

# Getting access to paid material (Optional)

The players on this server can get access to paid material, sponsored by D&D Beyond and patrons of the server. For more info please refer here.

# D&D Beyond Character Builder

# 1. Race

Races refer to human, elves, dwarves, etc. Each race can provide some mechanical benefit to your character in game, such as stats, traits, or even spells! For approved/disapproved materials, see Character Creation Rules.

However, as we are not using the WOTC world, take their descriptions and lore with a grain of salt, e.g. Tieflings are pretty common in the server so they do not suffer as much discrimination as described.

# 2. Class

Reminder: Your character on this server starts at Level 1.

Your class helps determine your character’s specialty. Each class has unique features that can affect how they interact with the world.

# Proficiencies

Your race, background, and class will allow you to choose proficiencies among certain skills and tools. This means you are especially good at this skill/tool and can add your proficiency bonus to it when making checks for that task. Proficiency bonus is a number that increases as you level, and at Level 1 it is +2.

# Skills

Each skill uses one of your abilities (more on this below).

# 3. Abilities

# Ability Scores Generation Methods

  • Standard Array: If you want to save time or don’t like the idea of randomly determining ability scores, you can choose from a fixed list [15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8].
  • Point Buy: Customize your ability scores by spending points. If you are playing an Adventurers League character, choose this option.
  • Manual: Roll the stats in #official-character-rolls , NOT in D&D Beyond
    • Follow the pinned note in the channel for instruction.
    • Choose “Manual/Rolled” for the Generation Method

# 4. Description

# Background

Backgrounds are different but closely linked to backstories. Your background gives your char certain abilities and special features depending on how they spent their lives before becoming an adventurer.

# Others

The rest are optional and are for adding personality and different aspects to your character. Bring them to life! The personality traits, characteristics, etc. lists are providing you with examples. You do not need to choose from the tables.

  • Faith: Check out ⁠pantheon for the gods of Icris.
  • Lifestyle: This is handled in the DW server, not in D&D Beyond. Continue following the Getting Started guides to learn more.
  • Additional fun resource for character creation: Is your D&D Character Too Perfect? by Ginny Di

# 5. Equipment

You can choose from either a recommended list of starting equipment or roll for gold and do the shopping yourself.

  • If you are new to D&D, we recommend you choose the starting equipment option.
  • If you choose to take starting equipment, the items must be available in the Snowhaven Market

# Rolling for Gold

If you choose to roll for gold, you MUST make the rolls in #official-character-rolls , NOT in D&D Beyond. You can then do the equipment shopping after you upload your character. Follow the prices in the Snowhaven Market document above, and log the transactions in #transaction-log .

# Bring Your Character to the Server!

Once you have created the character in D&D Beyond, go back to the Dnd World Discord server to do the following:

# 1. Change your Server Nickname

Change your Server Nickname to Name of Character (Race Class). E.g. Panadol (Drow Warlock)

# 2. Import Your Character to Discord

  • Click "Share" button in the header of your character sheet to get the shareable link. Make sure your character sheet is set to PUBLIC first
    • If you're on the mobile D&D Beyond app, check out this resource
  • Post in #character-sheets by running the following, where <link> is replaced by your character sheet link.
!import <link>

# 3. Set Up Your Character for the Server

  • There are additional setups that are necessary for your character to be living in DnD World. Please follow the steps in ⁠What's Next?

# 4. Learn How to Earn RPXP and XP

RPXP is the experience point you get from roleplaying. After you participate in a DM event you can transfer RPXP and turn it into XP.

  • More details and additional information here

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