You Play WHAT?! - Part 3: What exactly goes on in Dungeons and Dragons?

Originally writtten in 2016

So what exactly goes on at ye olde Dungeons and Dragons gaming session? Well I have plenty of experience participating in and hosting these so here's how it plays out.

The game works best with five players. Four players have characters and the fifth player is the 'Dungeon Master' who controls the world the characters play in, tells the story, and acts as the referee between the other players.

Traditionally Dungeons and Dragons is played as a paper and pencil table top game where each players' character is represented by a token on a game board and character sheets containing all their skills and attributes. Everyone typically sits around a table with game board and character tokens in the middle and character sheets in hand with varying types of dice at the ready.

The Dungeon Master relates to the other players what their characters experience and the players respond to the Dungeon Master and each other with how their characters react. It's basically playing make belief with rules. Every time a character attempts to do something that has the possibility of failure the player will roll dice (usually 1 twenty sided die) and reference their character sheet to do some quick math to see if their character was successful. That is Dungeons and Dragons and every other game like it in a nutshell. A group of friends sitting around a table playing make-belief and doing math.

There are core source books for Dungeons and Dragons that explain how to calculate the statistics on a character sheet, how to properly level a character, and descriptions of how the various attributes, skills, and items work. There are also 'monster manual' books which are filled with statistics for the pre-made monsters that the Dungeon Master can add to the game as necessary.

The core books set the rules for the game but the content is completely decided by the players. The game can be as serious or silly or as realistic or unrealistic as you like in any setting that you like. Your group could play as a secret detachment of men, elves, and dwarves sent by Elrond to keep the forces of Sauron off the trail of Frodo's fellowship as they take the one ring to Mordor (Lord of the Rings inspired). Your group could be a group of hapless college students who find themselves stranded at an abandoned castle when their vehicle mysteriously breaks down. Your group could be straight up adventurers wandering the world doing good throughout the realm, slaying monsters, and searching for treasure. Your group could be the local law enforcement for a town overrun by a gang of gnolls, secret agents for the king deep in enemy territory, bounty hunters, a traveling circus, airshipateers, or just a group of random misfits in a strange fantastic world who do as they will.

When you encounter an obstacle there is rarely a right or wrong way to deal with it. If you run into a locked door you can try to find the key, try to pick the lock, try to break the door, use magic to turn yourself into mist and then go under the door, or just ignore the door completely and carry on. Alternatively, if you're group gets creative, you can take the door of its hinges and use it as a shield or for sledding, it can be chopped up for firewood, turn it sentient so that you can attempt to convince it to open for you, or become part of an elaborate trap to drop a cage onto the next person who attempts to open the door. The possibilities are only limited by what you can think of and what the DM allows... he may not want to spend three hours finding every conceivable use for a single locked door.

Monsters can be attacked, killed, knocked out, distracted, bartered with, misdirected, charmed, or simply avoided. When attacking monsters you can go straight in hacking and slashing, You can scope out the terrain and set an ambush. You can use tactics to distract enemies while other characters in the party are able to flank the enemy for extra damage. You can sneak in the shadows to get a surprise attack, swing off the chandelier, bluff your way past them, turn them into kittens or smoldering ashes. This is what the characters can 'do' but the players are just sitting around a table with little markers and dice talking and laughing about it all.

Depending on how comfortable the players feel with each other they may engage in 'role playing' their characters. This means that players will sometimes speak and act as their character would. Here's an example. Instead of player bob saying "My Paladin shakes his fist and challenges the orc Chieftain to a duel," he would speak as his Paladin saying something like "You're tyranny over this land is ended Orc Chieftain! Fight me!" while physically shaking his fist at an imaginary Orc Chieftain to the delight of everyone around the table. Roleplaying your character is optional and can be a lot of fun. BADD and CHIC inspired Anti-DnD proponents take the 'role playing' in role playing games to unrealistic extremes claiming that it will blend reality with unreality to the point where you commit acts of occultism, violence, and sexual immorality while thinking that you just playing a game. This is absurd. The division between player and character does not get blurred beyond speaking 'in character' and talking with your hands.

What does this all look like? It looks like a group of people sitting around a table laughing and talking and having a good time. There may be a map in the middle to help the players visualize what's going on around their characters and there will probably be lots and lots of dice of varying shapes and sizes used in the mathematical calculations for attempting dangerous actions and resolving combat situations.

There are often lots of snacks involved in Dungeons and Dragons. Doritos, cola, popcorn and cookies are part of having a good time, especially for teen and young adult players. They can also be used to bribe the DM to perhaps tell the story or bend the rules in your favour.

An average gaming session is somewhere between 2 and 5 hours. Playing make belief and doing math between 5 or more people takes a lot longer than you would think. Players usually love talking, telling stories, making jokes, catching up, and a variety of other healthy social activities while the DM is either setting things up for the next part of the adventure or trying to get the players' attention. There is also a lot of time taken up referencing the core books and going over the rules for how to determine what a character can and cannot do (especially with new players). I am often surprised at how long it takes to get through an adventure... what I think the players will breeze through in an evening has taken weeks to resolve in the past.

Depending on how elaborate the DM is there may ambient effects at the table including but not limited to music, sound effects, lighting effects, and computer monitors to display maps or concept art. This is really only something that a dedicated DM would do, most sessions are played without the fancy extras.

Dungeons and Dragons session DO NOT look like what Chic's Anti-DnD pamphlets / tracts say they look like. There are no black robes, no pentagrams, no satanic altars, no occult chalices, no sacrifices, no enforcers, and no practicing sorcery. There might be candles, but those would fall under "lighting effects" (see above). I personally do not use candles as they are a fire hazard and I currently have small children.


So that's what you can expect at a Dungeons and Dragons (or any other table top role playing game) session. A bunch of people sitting around a table talking, laughing, telling stories, rolling dice, eating snacks, referencing thick books full of statistics and pictures, and just having a good time. Its interactive story telling with optional light acting.