Dungeons and Dragons
From Wikipedia, a free encyclopedia written in simple English for easy reading.
Dungeons & Dragons is a term for an old-fashioned paper-and-pencil roleplaying game.
Many people today think that role-playing games (RPG's) are only played on a computer, but that is not true. As recently as the early 1970's, role-playing games were played by people sitting together at the same table, using their imaginations and the written rules of the game (as well as dice to generate random numbers, when required), in order to resolve play.
Participants in this type of role-playing game take on the roles of imaginary characters that go on heroic adventures. One person in the group acts as a moderator, or referee (the "director"), of the game. This person is responsible for ensuring the fair application of the rules of the game, and is often responsible for designing fun, interesting adventures for the other players.
Today (2006 at the time of writing) there are many types of role-playing game, both traditional paper-and-pencil games and computer games. Many genres of game are played (fantasy, science fiction, horror, war, and so on), and there are hundreds of companies that produce their own written rules systems and software products.
(The Chinese perspective)
I’ll present you Dungeons & Dragons tabletop role-playing game. I think that not everybody knows what means role-playing game and I’ll tall you about that at the beginning.
A role-playing game is a type of game in which players play the roles of characters and together create story. Gameplay progresses according to a system of rules and guidelines, within which players may improvise freely. Role-playing games are typically more social than competitive. A typical role-playing game is created for playing into a group as a single team of adventurers. A role-playing game hasn’t winners or losers. This makes role-playing games completely different from board games, card games, sports and most other types of games. Like novels or films, role-playing games are interesting because they engage the imagination.
Now you know what’s role-playing game. Dungeons & Dragons is one of most typical of them. The abbreviate of name Dungeons & Dragons is D&D. I will describe you 3er edition of D&D. The Dungeons & Dragons is a structured, yet open-ended, "make-believe" game. Each player in the game typically takes on the role of a single character. The game is presented to the players by the Dungeon Master. Shorter and useful name of Dungeon Master is DM . The DM hasn’t a single character, like the other players, but acts as a narrator, choosing and describing the other characters, settings, and situations. During the course of play, each player will choose the actions of their characters and the results of those actions will be determined by the DM using the rules of the game, which govern everything from combat to social interaction. In some situations, the DM may choose to substitute or override a rule. The rules of the most recent version of the game are detailed in three core rulebooks: The Player‘s Handbook, the Dungeon Master‘s Guide, and the Monster Manual. Additional rulebooks, such as the Complete Warrior, contain optional rules which can also be used. Abbreviated versions of the rules are available to help beginners learn the game. The only items required to play are the rulebooks, a character sheet for each player, and a number of polyhedral dice, although there are many optional items which can be used to supplement or enhance the gaming experience, such as pre-designed adventures companying settings. Special gameboards or cloth mats are sometimes used to visually depict the situations in the game, and miniature figures can be used to provide a three-dimensional representation of the characters. Computer programs are also available for supporting the game. Before the game begins, each player creates their own character, recording the details on a character sheet. First, a player will typically roll dice to determine their character's ability scores: strength, dexterity, constitution, intelligence, wisdom, and charisma. The player then chooses a race such as a human, elf, or dwarf and a character class such as a fighter, wizard, or rogue. The player will then choose skills and feats for their character, describing specific abilities and talents that the character possesses. The player will also select an alignment to describe their character's moral and ethical outlook. These choices determine what the character can do and how well they can perform different actions. As the game is played, the character will grow and change as they gain experience and wealth. When a player chooses to have his character attempt an action, the outcome will be determined by a character's abilities, the difficulty of the task, a random dice roll, or by some combination of the three things. Different characters will be skilled at accomplishing different things, and the system encourages a well-balanced team of specialised characters. When characters defeat an enemy or accomplish a difficult task they are awarded an appropriate number of experience points by the DM. The more points the character gets, the higher level he reaches.
A typical Dungeons & Dragons game consists of an "adventure", which is roughly equivalent to a single story. After completing one adventure, players will usually start a new adventure to play the same characters. Dungeon Master usually designed adventures but if he wants he can buy one of "ready adventures" in shop. Sure DMs don’t do it so often because that cost much more than it should. Before the game normal DM gets piece of paper, draws maps, reads handbooks and writes scenario. A series of adventures played is common called „campaign”. That’s why fantasy settings in which D&D games take place are often know as „campaign settings”. The same like adventures many Dungeon Masters create themselves fantasy settings, but there’re also many official campaign settings which can be used. These worlds range from magic-rich to magic-poor, from traditional middle ages European settings to exotic oriental fantasies, from sword and sorcery to swashbuckling adventure. A campaign may be site-based, event-based, or a combination of the two. For example, in a site-based campaign, the players might defend a town throughout a long war without ever leaving it. In an event-based campaign, the players might find and defeat a hobgoblin’s shaman which has been a chief of aggressive tribe.
The fantasy game Dungeons & Dragons, designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, evolved in 1974 from the Chainmail system of wargaming rules by Gary Gygax and Jeff Perren. The game was influenced by mythology, pulp fiction, and books of popular fantasy authors of the 1960s, 1970s and very little by work of J.R.R.Tolkien.
Dungeons & Dragons has gone through several revisions. Many versions and inconsistent names of them could make it difficult to distinguish between the different editions. The original Dungeons and Dragons was supplemented over the next two years with setting Greyhawk and five other supplements. In 1977 was published first next edition. By next years game has had many new editions, versions and supplements about witch I won't talk because they were so many to inform you about them. Official and popular unofficial rules were also published in the magazines The Strategic Review and its successor, Dragon Magazine. Next important edition about which you could hear was Advanced Dungeons & Dragons which has more useful abbreviation AD&D and it was published in 1977. Since this edition teenagers have began playing D&D. That edition was more interesting for female players too. When in 1997 TSR had big problem with money it was bought by Wizard of the Coast which in 2000 published Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition. The 3rd Edition of Dungeons & Dragons was the largest revision of the D&D rules. 3rd edition base at role-playing system designed around 20-sided dice, called the d20 System. The 3rd Edition rules were designed with the intention of making them more consist and much less restrictive than older editions of the game, allowing players much more flexibility in creating the characters as witch they will play. 3rd Edition rebuild the concepts of special classes for high-level players what helps in being interested in playing one character for long time. In 2003, the 3rd Edition rules were changed and core books to version 3.5 were published. It hasn't brought any big changes in game. In USA or United Kingdom we can buy this new versions of core books but more often people use version 3.0 because supplements to this game are still creating and today available is more than 70 of them. For every edition of D&D many supplements have been published. They often had new rules, items, spells, and creatures, ready adventures or settings.
Dungeons & Dragons was the first role-playing game and created many of the conventions of the genre. The most important are: using of dice to determine results of action, characters' sheets, development of character's skills, and playing with DM as narrator. Game world simulations had been well-developed in wargaming. Dungeons & Dragons consist of many elements which create the most popular role playing game. Over the years, many gamers have criticized mechanic of the Dungeons & Dragons rules. However possible that they right because in old editions mechanic was often seen as unbalanced and unrealistic. Few months after Dungeons & Dragons published, writers and publishers began releasing their own role-playing games. The first of this games was RuneQuest, released by Chaosium in 1976. With the launch of Dungeons & Dragons' 3rd Edition, Wizards of the Coast made the d20 System available under the Open Gaming License. Under this license, authors are free to use the d20 System when writing this own games and game supplements. D&D is very popular role-playing game. Many novels and computer role-playing games based at it. The most popular games are Baldurs Gate, Icewind Dale and Neverwinter Nights. The most important novels are Andre Norton's Quag Keep which was first of them, very popular S.A.Salvatore’s saga about Drizzt Do’Urden and series of novels written by one of game creator Gary Gygax.