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The Dungeons and Dragons game can be intimidating to those who’ve never played before or haven’t played in years. It’s three core books come in at almost one thousand pages of rules and options. How do you distil that into something easily digestible? Well, you can’t really, but by narrowing the options, providing lots of examples, and walking a new user through some of the most common options, you can make it a lot easier.
Enter the Dummies book.
Laid out in standard Dummies format, it uses a lot of art to fluff up the material, making it easy to read. The one column format would be a problem in a standard Dungeons and Dragons book but that’s because those books are larger. Here it fits right in. Chapters are indicated at the top of the right page while part is indicated at the top on the left page. Art is by a variety of Wizards of the Coast standards, mostly reused, but of high quality. For example, I don’t think anyone is going to be complaining about Wayne Reynolds art or Todd Lockwood’s art.
The book starts off with an introduction, and it includes D&D terminology. Many subfields have their own terms and meaning. For example, here, a PC is not a personal computer, but rather, a player character. It then provides a quick breakdown of what each part handles. This allows those who may only be thinking of playing to quickly flip to the part that’s interesting to them, as opposed to say, those who might want to run a game, or be a Dungeon Master, where they have their own section.
Part one is the crash course. It provides a quick run down of how D&D is different than say a board game. For one, it’s a cooperative game, not a competitive one. For another, the play keeps on going. For many, they’ll see similarities to the online roleplaying games like Everquest, but with more focus on group cohesiveness as opposed to player versus player activity.
One of the things the book notes, is that you’ll need some supplies. These include dice, character sheets (some available for download free), miniatures and battle grids, and pencils and paper. Now on the miniatures thing, they’ve included a dungeon map and several counters. This allows a newcomer to avoid having to get miniatures and battle grids if they just want to test the system, but they’ll still need the pencils, paper, and dice. Because role playing dice tend to vary beyond the standard found in most board games, they’ve included a photo of the different dice as well as descriptions.
Another important element, is understanding the game. In that vein, they break down the core mechanic, rolling a d20, adding modifiers, and comparing that result to the target number.
In terms of actually understanding how your character works, chapter two hits on that. I think that by cutting down the races and classes, keeping to the core so to speak, that the authors allow an interested player to see the basics before they move onto the Players Handbook. In that vein, we only have humans, dwarves, elves and halflings, for races. This is a good selection in that anyone with has any familiarity with fantasy, is generally going to know those as core races, especially if they’ve seen the Lord of the Rings movies.
For classes, we have fighters, rogues, sorcerers, and clerics for classes. Some may wonder why the sorcerer is here as opposed to the wizard. The wizard is a bit more complex in that it has to memorize it’s spells. The sorcerer is a spellcaster who can cast any spell he knows. Much easier for a new player to step into.
The next four chapters cover each of the classes introduced. It provides some background as to why you’d want to play that particular class, and what abilities that class has. For new players, the most important thing I see are the pregenerated characters. If you’re new to the game, making a character can be intimidating. Having pregenerated characters allows you to have some examples to follow up on or simply use to get into the game right away.
These characters take up two pages and have things clearly labeled. Special abilities, like feats, are fully described. This prevents a new player from having to go to the Players Handbook every time they want to use an ability, and common skills are listed with not only the total modifier, but also the d20 roll, so Spot for example, might be written d20+1.
After looking over characters, chapter seven moves into how to play the game. This includes rules on determining who goes first, information on what you can do, how to move, attack, or cast spells. Those are actions, but often they have results. For example, if you cast a spell, the enemy may need to make a saving throw or if you hit with a large warhammer, you may have to roll for damage. A sample of dialog as the adventurers explore a dungeon is provided giving a new comer an idea of what they might be doing in a similar situation.
Sometimes though, you need a little more. That’s where chapter eight comes in. This is just a quick run down of how to handle combat and provides examples of characters against character, as well as character against monster. By using the battle grid and counters, new players can get a feel for how combat is run.
Now that you know the basics of combat, you’re probably going to want to play. Chapter nine should help you in that as it talks about finding a D&D game to join. It’s a little thin and shows one of the biggest problems with typical role playing games against computer games. For a computer game, you log in and generally have a host on a server. Not so for a paper role playing game. It’s not that the solutions offered here are bad, but they’re almost exactly the same options that I had when I first started role playing in the 80’s, which is not good. How can the game grow if we’re still expecting new players to ask friends and family or trying to join gaming clubs? While we do have the internet and the RPGA, neither are sure solutions. It’s a problem I don’t see going away any time soon.
For those who want to build their own character, the new few chapters are essential. They cover things on the D&D sheet and explain what each part means. Other chapters detail what the core four classes do and what they’re useful for. This includes a breakdown of the classes in the Players Handbook too. It shows class base save progressions as well as base attack progressions and what the differences are between maximum ranks for class skills and cross-class skills.
For those who wonder how they should assign ability scores, either randomly rolled or using an elite array, they provide a table to showcase where the best rolls should go. For example, a fighter whose going to specialize in ranged weapons should have a higher dexterity than strength, while a cleric, even a melee based one, should still keep wisdom as his primary stat and then going to strength for other high ability scores.
One of the things D&D suffers from, is options. Having a simple game means getting into the game faster. One of the things characters do as they gain levels, is gain more feats. How do you arrange feats though? The book provides several feat ladders that use the core book, with several feats detailed as samples here. This is good for those players who want an effective character, but aren’t sure what they should do to get that effective character.
The good thing is that there are multiple ladders for each class. For example, for sorcerer, we have attack, team buff, and survival sorcerer. This provides three sorcerers who are different from one another mechanically, to say nothing of the role playing options.
The D&D game also has a lot of skills and sometimes selecting skills can be confusing. Chapter fifteen provides a quick breakdown on which skills are useful for every class and which classes should focus on which skills. It’s another good chapter for those who’ve never played the game before and provides skill packages so that you can just pick your skills and get into the game.
A character is more than his abilities though. Characters are armed and armored and chapter sixteen provides a breakdown of picking optimal weapons and armor, discussing things like maximum dexterity bonus versus armor class bonus provided by the armor, as well as how to pick out adventuring gear and which gear is most useful for which classes.
Part of the complexity of the game, for spellcaster, is selecting spells. Many people don’t realize it, but about a third of the Players Handbook details spells. That’s a large amount of data to sort through. Chapter seventeen helps players of sorcerers and clerics pick their spells and look at the special abilities that domains grant clerics. Like other chapters, it includes paths or ladders of spells that characters should select, depending on what type of character their playing. For blast sorcerer for example, should at 5th level take invisibility and at 6th level, good old fireball. The buff sorcerer on the other hand, should take protection from evil and bull’s strength at 5th level and lighting bolt at 6th level. It’s another example of the book providing a helping hand to new players to get them into the game right away, even when they’re building their own characters.
A little out of place in some ways, chapter eighteen covers advancing your character. I say it’s out of place because so many of the other chapters have covered some of the features of advancing a level, such as spell selection and feat selection. Other things though, like gaining experience points to rise levels and explanation of what a challenge rating are, are included here. Some important distinctions are also included, such as character level versus class level. The former is your total level, the latter your class level in any class your have levels in.
Now that you’ve got more details and the basics of how to use your character, where do you go? Well, chapter nineteen gives you ideas on how to fight. It may sound silly, but it’s fairly easy for a Dungeon Master to unintentionally wipe out the party if they’re not using semi-sound tactics. It’s not that everyone has to be Musashi or an ancient war master, but that everyone should know how to handle combat.
In that vein, the authors provide ideas on how to use different options, like negotiation using bluff or intimidate checks, or the good old save-or-die spells like disintegrate. It’s a good chapter that even an experienced player might want to read over as it talks about situations that older players can sometimes forget happen like knowing when to retreat or using flanking or the odd game mechanic of aiding another.
In a similar vein, chapter twenty covers magic and when you should use certain spells. Trying to perform some reconnaissance? Use scrying or clairaudience. Trying to help another player? Use invisibility or stoneskin.
But that’s not all. There are tables that cover the typical fighter magic items by level up to 10th level by class. The tables are broken down by weapons, armor, and other gear. For example, a 3rd level rogue should have a mitrhal chain shirt, and potions of cat’s grace, along with some other goods, while a 10th level cleric might have a +2 heavy mace and +2 full plate armor with a +2 light steel shield, along with other items. It’s a fairly comprehensive table and would work great for assigning gear to NPCs and save the Dungeon Master some time as well.
I know some reading this review are dismayed at the lack of attention to role playing. They’ll point to the ladders and paths merely as ways to minmax the character and lead to munchkinism. Well, chapter twenty one, roleplaying and working together, is for you. It gives a quick breakdown of the five alignment components and how they are combined, as well as ideas on how to create a persona for your character. One of the nice things is the statement, “Alignemnt is a pretty broad brush to paint with.” It’s not the end all be all of your character. In that vein, they give you a few character traits that you can use to model your characters behavior, as well as some ideas on how to create unique mannerisms, like using gestures or favored savings. Nothing quite so colorful as the dreaded “Sigmar’s Sausage” from Warhammer 2nd ed roleplaying, but good ideas nonetheless.
Thankfully, they note that sometimes, you can actually have too much roleplaying. Perhaps it’s my age, but I’ve been in too many campaigns where some of the participants thought that we were actors on a grand stage as opposed to playing a game. It notes that when roleplaying is causing a delay of game, interrupting other players or annoying them, or international grounding, doing stupid or counter productive actions because that’s what the character would do even though it’s stupid, is when you should realize that it’s a group event and that too much roleplaying is a bad thing.
It also includes some rules for table manners, the things that aren’t really covered in any book and shouldn’t be. However, we live in a society that’s far changed from the original era of role playing games and common manners so having a list of five dos and five don’ts makes sense these days. Some of these are things you might not think of off the bat like staying focused on the game or doing all of the math on your character ahead of time. Others, well, no matter how often they’re repeated, bear repeating again like don’t disrespect the other characters or the supporting cast just because you can. My favorite? Don’t be a poor loser. If things don’t go your way, you should not take them personally.
After that, we go back to character builds. These are a little more advanced including some talk about “cherry picking” when multi-classing. In D&D, you can switch your classes in order to round out your character or provide abilities that might be useful. Each class from the player’s handbook is covered with a key level, what you get, and comments. For example, the bard generally isn’t a good cherrypicking class, but the fighter is good for almost anybody and if you make it to forth level, you can take the Weapon Specilaization feat.
On the other hand, there is some discussion of the prestige classes found in the Dungeon Master’s Guide. This includes the name of the class, the quickest entry, and what you get. This is a great aid for new players who might be interested in taking a prestige class, but aren’t sure how to best get into that class. There’s nothing worse than taking the wrong combination of classes and feats in terms of skill points for entry requirements that make you wait another level or three.
Now that’s all good for the player, but what about the Dungeon Master? Starting from chapter twenty three, the DM gets his own share of tips. This includes some ideas on how to prepare the adventure, build the world, and playing NPCs. Now this isn’t in depth or complete coverage by any means. There are whole books covering each of those topics like Robin’s Laws. Instead, it’s a quick look at some of the ways to handle a game and the important features of a game.
For new Dungeon Masters, the most useful section is the discussion on different tasks. For example, exploration tasks, conversation tasks, combat tasks, and free time tasks. These examples help the DM know what to expect in each situation.
In terms of combat though, one of the things a DM must know, is how to read a monster’s stats. Monster stats come in a Monster Manual entry, which is an easy to read collection of data covering the abilities of a monster. In many cases, these abilities fall into line just like a character’s abilities. There is another version, a more condensed version, which is meant for adventurers. It saves space and is a little harder to read but has the same information. Unfortunately that format has recently changed and while the stat block example here is still valid for older products, all newer books will be using a different stat block. Hopefully we’ll see an update on the Dummies site as a bonus chapter or something.
For building a dungeon, chapter twenty four provides a lot of the groundwork. Things like combat encounters and roleplaying encounters, added to the premise of the adventure or the types of adventurers you can have, site based versus event-based. For those unsure as to how to progress, they include the “Hall of the Spider God”, a quick adventure with five rooms and a starting point to throw the players into right away. Game stats here are extremely abbreviated and provide another format for DMs who want to have a quick set of monster stats but it’s only valid with monsters that don’t have a lot of special abilities.
Chapter twenty five moves into the realm of understanding your players. It breaks player types down into four types; actor, puzzle solver, hack-and-slasher, and competitor. It then gives you a list of adventure characteristics and how those types of players react to those eleme3nts typically.
One of the interesting things dummies books do, is provide you with a top ten list. That’s what the new few chapters do with things like the ten best sorcerer spells, or the ten best low-level monsters. It’s a good check list that even more experienced players and DMs might want to run down if for nothing else then to see how their own experience and opinions match with the authors.
About the only part the book gets really insulting and greedy, is when looking at things you should buy. For example, instead of just providing a top ten list of books, it provides a top ten list of series. Instead of picking the “best” book in the Race series, they suggest you buy all of them. Instead of picking one of the Complete books as a good starter, they suggest you buy them all. Amusing is that Weapons of Legacy wasn’t even printed when this Dummies book hit the shelf, but yet, there it is.
The same pattern follows the novels. Instead of just providing the top ten, they go through series. Since some of these are five books, it’s a great thing for Wizards of the Coast, but perhaps just a touch too much. On the other hand, I was pleasantly surprised to see a list of non-Wizards novels in a sidebar, “Novels to Inspire”. It includes some of the “classics” of fantasy like Conan the Barbairan by Robert E. Howard or the Elric Saga by Michael Moorcock or the Adventures of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser by Fritz Leiber or the Song of Fire and Ice by George R.R. Martin. For me, that’s at least a thumbs up to the different styles and genres of fantasy. It’s a shame that they didn’t include the original listing in the old Dungeon Master’s Guide as that includes most of these recommendations as well as a ton of other, older material that could show newer readers where the genre has some of its roots.
The book includes a glossary of terms. Useful for keeping the unique terminology of the game straight. In addition, there’s actually a generous index that’s fairly easy to use. That’s a change from many of the game books published by Wizards of the Coast which tend to have no index in them, relying instead on a detailed table of contents.
With dice and paper, you could run the pregenerated encounter here. You’ve got multiple pregenerated characters, as well as ideas on how to make characters. The advice on how to roleplay, and when to stop, is great for new players. The book lacks a little in talking about how to actually say incorporate the vast tons of material it suggests you buy, and it’s timing can be confusing to some as it recommends some books that are the 3.0 version of the game as opposed to the 3.5 version of the game.
By including counters and a small battle matt, the book is almost completely self-sufficient. The references to the other core books, are clearly called out and should be easy to follow. The focus on the ‘easy’ classes and races limit initial character creation, but by providing advice on how to use those combinations, it’s a good limit that allows a player not to be overwhelmed.
I wouldn’t recommend this book to an experienced player unless he’s just looking to complete his collection. However, for a player who hasn’t played D&D, the minmaxing section, paths, and ladders, will make character generation quicker and easier, even if you already know how to roleplay. For brand new players, the book presents a lot of ideas but still suffers from the lack of getting into a gaming group right away.
