Hmm, D&D ? can some splain in non-geeky jargon what the hell is it ?

[UndertheOcean]

Diagrams as welcome

[Aristus]

1. It's a role-playing game. Just rule books, dice, and imagination.

You create a character to play a diverse series of adventures for treasure and experience. You can be a magician, fighter, thief, a priest of some kind, or other professions. You can be human, or any one of a number of species, (think J.R.R. Tolkien's races), and align with any universal ideology, good, evil, neutral and so on.

The adventures are led by a person called the Dungeon Master, who leads the player characters through the game and hits them with planned or random challenges that they must overcome using only their characters' abilities. At times, outcome of a challenge is determined by a roll of dice. In recognition of the fact that any pre-determined challenge can have many possible outcomes, D&D is played with a variety of many-sided dice. 8, 12, and 20-sided dice are often used.

Play is often, but not always, confined around a dining room table or coffee table among a group of players from, say, three, to as many as ten (or however many the Dungeon Master can manage without the game becoming unwieldy. The dice and rule books, along with pre-prepared "adventures" are available at most hobby shops.

If you want to know more, just ask me some more questions.

And, yes, it's a hobby with a high geek factor, providing a great deal of fantasy vicarious living for socially-challenged thirteen-year-olds. But it has been known to be popular among adult groups, especially in social circles with a high average intelligence level.

[UndertheOcean]

2. ok,

that doesn't sound like much fun , to each his own I guess.

[Aristus]

3. I had some great fun during some game series (known as "campaigns).

Others were insufferably dull. It all depends on your Dungeon Master, your fellow gamers, and yourself. Some games were way too easy, and you get loaded down with all kinds of treasure that's meaningless because it required very little effort to acquire. Other times, the DM fries your character before you've even had a chance to do anything. Some gropups like to play an extremely simple game, others like tortuously complicated games.

[Withywindle]

4. It's big fun if you stress the imagination aspect.

I'm not crazy about playing with "rules lawyer" types so much. When it's really good, it's like you're collaborating with a bunch of friends on a sword-and-sorcery novel or movie, on the fly, semi-improvised.

In the 30 years or so since D&D started, of course there are countless RPGs out now, in all sorts of settings, from Wild West to superheroes to Star Wars to the Cthulhu Mythos, you name it.

[The Straight Story]

6. It is like being in a novel and being able to control what goes on

Someone creates a world, and you get to roam around it, meet people, kill monsters, and find treasures.

A good DM can make it a blast.

[DarkTirade]

7. It combines the escapeism of sci-fi/fantasy/whatever genre the game is

with doing a group activity/game.

No different than playing poker, except when you have a group of friends playing poker at your house you don't usually end up killing hobgoblins.

Key word being 'usually'. I've been to some interesting poker games. :P

[Xipe Totec]

8. Didn't you do that as a kid?

Just fantasize with friends, inventing stories as you went along, each adding details in turn?

This is the same, but with a rule book and funky dice.

[NewJeffCT]

5. Think of it this way

D&D, or Dungeons & Dragons, is sort of like when you played make-believe as a kid.

Only, in this case, it is usually based on medieval/middle ages type fantasy - think JRR Tolkien of Lord of the Rings fame, Robert E Howard of the Conan books, the King Arthur & Robin Hood legends, Beowulf, etc.

Players create characters like a wizard like Gandalf, a knight like Lancelot, a ranger like Aragorn, a mighty warrior like Conan, etc and attempt to play that character in this fantasy setting. Then, there is one person called the Dungeon Master (DM) or Game Master that acts like a movie director and knows the story & the plot and will attempt to challenge the players, be it with monsters like orcs, dragons and trolls, or trap-filled tombs like at the beginning of Raiders of the Lost Ark. The DM is the one that knows how many orcs are around the corner, or how deep that spike-filled pit is, etc.

Along the way, the characters gain in strength & power and face continually more challenging obstacles - if they defeat half a dozen orcs in the beginning, they may face half a dozen ogres down the road, which then leads to fighting an evil hill giant or three, and culminating with a fight against a powerful dragon or demon type.

Usually, there is a long term goal of saving the world from Sauron's One Ring, or overthrowing the evil Emperor from Star Wars, finding the Holy Grail, or whatnot.

[distantearlywarning]

9. A good campaign with the right people is like this:

Like the best, most exciting novel you ever read - the kind you stay up till 4 in the morning reading because you just can't put it down.

Except you and your friends are the main characters, and you have a measure of control over where the plot goes and how the book ends.

D&D done right can be a life-altering experience (seriously!).

[Richard Steele]

10. Back before we had home computers, we had to play "Everquest" by candlelight.

That's what D&D was like.

[Aristus]

12. We used to play by candlelight and with a blacklight screwed into

the overhead bulb socket. Kewl! B-)

[Richardo]

11. Impossible. You can't be non-geeky and explain D&D

:D