Dungeons and Dragons is a Roleplaying game. In Eldridth, you create your own character, with a basic back story. Each character also has there own Ability Scores, which define your capability in certain area's. In creating a character you make several choices, you select your character's Race, a class and a background.
Pre-Game Prep
There is some preparation to do before beginning the game, mainly defining your Character.
Some Reading
Read the Rules
Besides this document, I do suggest reading through the pages on
Understanding the Rules. This will give you a good idea about how the mechanics of how the game will work, and what kind of things can happen, and how they play out. For the most part though, much of your understanding of these will take place during the game itself, but having a rough idea to recall what is happening in relation to those rules can help the game itself progress smoothly.
Reading The Encyclopedia and Atlas
There is allot of information within these pages, I do suggest taking a glance through it, opening what interests you, and reading more on some subjects that draw your interests, and find inspiration for your character and their backstory.
Your Character
Race
Each race will help define your characters physical state, it provides you with your walking speed and guide lines for defining your size. Races also provide you bonuses to your Ability Scores, as well as the languages you can understand. In many ways race helps define how people see your character based on stereotypes of that that race, you do not need to play into these stereotypes, though often it makes it much easier to get to know your character. Races also provide features which help define your senses, skills, and proficiencies. Some races also have subspecies, which provide an additional choice to be made with different effects on your character.
Class
Classes provide additional features, as well as provide a frame work for how your character develops new skills and features. Some classes provide access into Spellcasting, others are more focused on the use of weapons or other abilities. Classes also provide you with particular actions you can take.
Background
Choosing a Background will provide you additional Skill Proficiencies, Languages, and your base level equipment. Picking your Background helps define who your character has been. The background defines a good bulk of your characters backstory.
Backstory
Coming up with a backstory is something for you particularly. Using the knowledge gained about them from the above three options to help define this, remember that your starting at level 1, meaning you have not been on epic adventures, and are just beginning on your abilities related to your class. You will want a backstory you are interested in, as this helps define how to bring a story to your character during the game itself, allowing you to develop and change. I suggest starting with the questions below to help you build memorable, and fun characters. While answering this consider including names, places and particular events in your characters life. You do not need to come up with a in depth background, describing every event of your characters life, in fact that is not suggested, as we can always add new things into your backstory later. When writing out your back story, a great suggestion is to stick only to what your character would no from it, in other words do not include others perspectives or motivations into it.
Backstory Questions
- Where was the character born?
- Who were the parents of the character?
- How did you feel about your upbringing?
- Where were you raised?
- How were you educated, and what was the influence on who you became?
- How you learned to survive and live in the world?
- How did you earn money after becoming a young adult?
- How did you feel about your first job?
- What caused you to become the adventurer/class?
- Who and what is important to you, and why?
Session 0
The first session of our game will be a session 0. This allows us to finalize the characters of the party, introduce the world and the story, and make decisions about limits on roleplaying and what we can expect out of each other.
Limits on Roleplaying
Not everything is open for roleplay. D&D is meant to be a fun experience, and while part of that is playing in a believable world with internal logic, not everything has to be open to being explored within the world. For instance, I will not be speaking to specific X-rated actions, and if we as a group decide that sex is something we can include into the roleplaying, it will be done in fade to black style, where the table knows what occurred in general, but it is not apart of the game itself. We as a group will discuss topics which should be avoided entirely, and what may need a bit more caution to exploring.
Meet the Characters
Everyone will be given space to talk about their character and there backstory. The DM and other players will get an opportunity to ask questions about your character, while you do not need to answer all of these questions, the idea is help you build a deeper understanding of who your character is, and how they react.
Introduce the World
The DM will provide some descriptions of the world, environment and current events. They will also provide an understanding of what to expect for the campaign. While some of this will be gone over in the Atlas or Encyclopedia, it is not expected that everyone will of read through this. This explanation is unlike to go as deep into the information in those locations, rather be more focused on what is commonly known to the characters present.
Campaign Sessions
Campaigns are long term stories, that begin at the beginning of Session 1, and end when the primary conflict of the campaign is resolved. You may not know what that primary conflict is at the beginning of the game, but it will likely become clearer within a few sessions. Each Session is what happens when the players come together to play.
Playing within a Session
The DM will describe the scene, events, and actions of NPC's. You make decisions on how your character chooses to act, and what they do. You can describe anything you wish to attempt, and the DM may call for a roll of the dice, which will uses your ability scores and skills to decide on the result based on your roll. After that roll, the DM will interpret the results into what actually occurs within the world. Outside of combat, anyone can take an action or movement as they please, imagine playing a multiplayer video game, and how anyone can act as they please, but without the limitations of forethought of the developers into what those actions would be.
Communication
You will likely want to communicate with your fellow party members, NPC's. Try your best to stick within how your character would choose to speak, and this helps create a consistent character, and will build on your own personal story. This does not mean you need to pick a voice to use for your character, though this can be fun if its something you are interested in, and can really help both yourself and the other players to see your character as different from yourself. When speaking, unless specified you are speaking in the language "Common".
Actions
As noted above, outside of combat has no specific structure who can act and when, though the DM may be choose to ask particular people how they choose to act, especially if the party is not all in one location in the world. Since there are no turns, being sure to allow everyone to take part in game at these points is a bit of everyone's responsibilities. If you decide on a series of actions, the DM may choose to break up those actions with the actions of others, including NPC's. For example, if you choose to draw your sword, walk over to a guard, and attack them with said sword, the guard may choose to act before you reach them. Or if you do this without attempting to stealthy approach, someone else may notice and and try and prevent this action. The other thing to keep in mind, this is a living world, and your actions will have consequences.
Combat
Combat gets a bit more specific, with turn based mechanics to provide structure. Combat takes places quickly in the game world, but will take more time outside of it. This is because each turn within combat takes place across 6 seconds, and all actions are technically completed at the same time, with slight priority advantage to those who have rolled a higher initiative for that combat. To get a full idea of what combat looks like, I suggest reading
Understanding Combat. This extends into the other rule sets, like
Understanding Attacks,
Understanding Spellcasting,
Understanding Movement,
Understanding Actions,
Understanding Conditions, and
Understanding Death. Combat awards XP, allowing your character to develop further in their classes.
Resting
Characters require regular rest or risk becoming more and more exhausted which can cause serious repercussions, including death. Rests are split into two types, Long and Short Rests.
Long Rests
Long rests lasts at least 8 hours, and for most races require 6 hours of actual sleep. Sleeping in the wilderness can be dangerous, so it is suggested to set a watch schedule, to have someone awake. Larger parties may need longer than 8 hours to ensure everyone gets the rest they need. Long rests provide healing to your HP, recovery from Exhaustion, regeneration of some abilities and more. Long rests also allow your character to process XP gained into levels.
Short Rests
Short rests last 1 hour, and allow characters limited healing, with the use of of Hit Dice. It can also allow regeneration of certain abilities, as well as provide space for eating, attuning to magical weapons, and any other none strenuous activities.
Downtime
In some cases, there may be downtime between adventures and quests, in which your character will need to find something to do. Time costs money, so you must decide the quality of life you wish to live, and will need to either find a way to earn some money, or use your current funds to do so. There can be consequences to your choices in how you spend your downtime, sometimes that may take the form a problem that needs to be solved, in other cases it may be a benefit towards your character or the party.
Questing
The world is full of quests, and NPC's in need of assistance, as well as major events taking place. Using the above options you can find many of these within the world, and seek to complete them, this will advance the story, and provide much needed experience. The world is designed to be open world, so it is your and the parties choices that decide which you end up with, and which you end up completing. Not all quests are related to the primary story.
Dungeons
While the title may bring to mind a particular kind of location, In D&D dungeons are locations of high danger and high reward. Entering a Dungeon is risky, and should be considered carefully.
Between Sessions
Between sessions, there is little to do, but perhaps reflect on the previous game plays. You can continue character development by making a character Journal, you can review future levels, and determine what directions your character will move in. In some very rare cases, a 1:1 session may be called for. An example of this is a single character separating from the party to attempt to scout a unknown location.
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