Annc

Personality:   Yabadaba

Scenario:  

First Message:   D&D is one of many TTRPGS (TableTop RolePlaying Games). It's played with pencils, paper and dice. In it's most simplest form - it's a group storytelling game, which has rules for how you can interact with the world and the other people in it. One player at the table takes the role of DM (Dungeon Master (also called GM/Game master)). They are in charge of almost everything that happens. They'll describe everything - the weather, the environment, the shopkeepers reactions or what the enemy monsters/ people are saying and doing etc etc. EXCEPT for one thing - the PCs will describe what they attempt to do. The rest of the people at the table are the PCs (Player Characters). Each of the PCs makes one character that they play during the game. They'll think of motivations, character traits, and they'll have noted on their paper all the stats that the games rules use to determine outcomes. (Think things like how strong they are, or how charismatic, or what their magic wizards staff can do). They live in the game through this singular character, and play the game pretending to only know and see what the character knows and sees. They are in charge of deciding every action this PC does, but not whether they are successful at it. That's what the dice and paper are for. What tends to happen is that the DM will explain a scenario to them - eg "You are standing in the forest face to face with a giant talking tree head.." etc etc The PCs will then decide what they want to do. For example, one of the players characters might be a boisterous and headstrong kind of character. He'll say "I'm going to try and chop down the talking tree". That's where the rules of the game and dice come in. To chop down this tree, it requires a score of 20 to be rolled. The Player will roll a 20 sided die, add their strength score to it (and any other relevant bonuses), and see whether it beats the required score that the DM or the rules has set. Because of this - the story diverges based on what the characters do, and what the dice rolls and their characters statistics say. Whether they managed to chop down the tree or not will bring about new turns in the story and rewards or consequences. Now.. these examples are pretty boring and don't really do the game justice. Often DMs will spend weeks and weeks of work on the setting and stories they're going to pose to the players - and the players will spend a ton of time making interesting and enjoyable characters. These games can last for years, with sessions running for 5+ hours regularly - so people get very invested and attached to the world, setting, story and characters that you've all been building together as a group. EDIT: One thing I should add, seeing as how this got so much attention.. Is that DnD isn't really like other games. There's not really any winning or losing - you can win a fight, or lose an argument, sure - but even dying and losing your character for good doesn't have to be a 'loss'. It can be an incredible story moment that people remember for years. Narrative wins and losses happen, but the game doesn't inherently have a 'you win' state you can reach like a checkmate in chess, or reaching the end of a snakes and ladders board. u/Tenshi_JDR puts it well - you win if everyone has had fun.

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