Dungeons And Dragons: 10 Essential Tips For New Players

We live in a strange, yet glorious time for pop-culture. Everyone loves Star Wars and Marvel, girls who used to bully goths in school now want to dress like them, and most importantly, Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) is now cool.

Thanks to the popularity of the likes of Stranger Things and Critical Role, D&D has managed to make its way back into the mainstream. Not bad for a table-top, pen-and-paper game that was first published in 1974 and has widely been stereotyped as a game for the “mum’s basement” breed of ultra-nerds.

Despite any undeserved flack it may have caught in the past, D&D is now being appreciated as the fantastic game that it is. More and more people are putting together parties and playing. However, setting up your first session can be a daunting task. There’s a lot to know when it comes to D&D and not every group will be lucky enough to have an experienced player on board to help them along the way.

To help out, we’ve put together a list of tips to prepare you for a life of dragon slaying, tavern fights and adventuring.

Let’s roll.

(Pun intended.)

The first thing you need to know before getting into D&D is that it’s a big time commitment. Occasionally you will find Dungeon Masters (DMs) who are running “one-shot” games that can be finished in an evening, but the real D&D experience comes from playing through a lengthy campaign.

Think of it similarly to a video game RPG with side quests, levelling and an open world. This isn’t the sort of game you’ll be done with after a few hours. Campaigns can stretch from numerous months to even multiple years, dependent on how well your party works and how much extra material your DM brings to the table.

A standard session can last somewhere between 3 and 5 hours, with groups typically aiming to meet weekly or fortnightly. Any longer than that and it’s easy for everyone to forget what they’re doing. With this being the case, you’re going to want to get a committed party together and work out a regular time that suits everybody.

This can be easier said than done, but the pay-off is 100% worth it. D&D is a social experience like we rarely see nowadays. It’s played best amongst a tight group of friends, putting on dumb voices for characters, pulling off stupid tricks that annoy the DM, and trying not to take life too seriously for a few hours.