How To Get Into DND: 25 Articles To Learn To Play Dungeons and Dragons As A Beginner

We’ve been teaching new players for years, so we have tons of resources on how to learn to play DND for beginners!

Dungeons & Dragons can be hard to get into for the first time. There are piles and piles of rules, all this jargon and slang to learn, and finding an in-person or online D&D group can mean getting matched with people who seem to know way more than you – and aren’t willing to teach you how to start playing D&D. That leaves lots of D&D hopefuls wondering how to get into D&D for the first time, searching for online Dungeons & Dragons groups for beginners, or trying to learn to play D&D alone. We’ve been teaching kids and teens how to play Dungeons & Dragons since 2020, so we have answers for every question you can think of, and then some! To help beginners learn to play D&D, we’ve compiled all of our articles on how to start getting into Dungeons & Dragons: what the game is, how people play, the rules of the game, nuances for new players, how to make a character, all the jargon you need to know, and how to get started playing D&D online or in person. 

How To Play D&D for Beginners

Beginners learn to play DND all the time, but it can still be intimidating! Here’s a good foundation to get started.

We’ve got things to share for everyone, including people totally new to Dungeons & Dragons. If you’ve somehow managed to find this article without knowing what the game is, our D&D 101 guide is the place to start. We explain what D&D is, the basics of how it works, what a Dungeon Master is, what kinds of games people play, and the types of adventures they go on as they play. Once you have an idea of what the deal is with D&D and are wondering how to get into D&D for beginners, our guide to how people play Dungeons & Dragons is the place to go next. We go into the plethora of game options available: from in-person at actual physical tables to online on Zoom Rooms and Discord servers, to the lesser-known play-by-post in discussion boards and direct messages. Here’s where we recommend some of our favorite tools for online play: video conferencing platforms, virtual tabletops, virtual minis, scenario generators, and maps and other assets. Having learned about the options for play, you can follow us to learn how to start playing D&D for the first time. This will teach you the very basics you need to know to hop into a new group: the basic rules of the game, the types and functions of dice, critical success and failure, the gear you need to gather, advice for setting up a game, and ideas to make your very first Dungeons & Dragons character!

Is Dungeons & Dragons An Easy Game To Learn?

We’ve collected the very best of our guides on how to play DND for beginners

As Jonathan Gilmour-Long wisely told us, the D&D books aren’t really designed to teach new players to play D&D; they’re made for experienced players to refer to the rules. So if all you have to go off of are the official books, D&D can be hard to get into! Luckily, folks have been playing D&D for decades, and there are plenty of guides to how to play D&D. We’ve collected a few for you! One of the most complex parts of D&D is combat: the battles against monsters and villains. We have an article about the rules of combat in Dungeons & Dragons going through turns, actions, spells, hit points, and more, plus an article breaking down each of the important parts of a monster in D&D so you know what you’re up against. If you’d like to play a magic user, check out our overview of spellcasting in D&D along with the breakdown of each of the types of magic in the game. And if you find yourself puzzled by terms like “5E” “3.5” or “2024 Edition,” we explain how to play with the different versions in our guide to Dungeons & Dragons editions. 

Is D&D Hard to Get Into For Beginners?

The best experience you’ll have getting into DND is with a solid idea of how to best have a good time at the table

If you’re wondering how to start getting into D&D, the best way to do it is to find a group of friendly people. Even with all the rules and the numbers, the ultimate goal of the game is to tell a fun story and make sure everyone’s having a good time. Oftentimes, the hardest part of getting into D&D isn’t the rules but feeling uncomfortable, confused, unsafe, or put down at the table. It can be easy to feel all the things your character is feeling - we looked into why that is, how to determine whether it’s helpful, and what to do about it. Our guide to romance in D&D takes a look at a very particular set of feelings in games: characters who fall in love. We talk about different types of in-game romances, how to think about what you do or don’t want in a game, and romance ideas for a D&D world, like dates on the back of a dragon or exchanges pendants of protection. We also put together a guide to playing LGBTQ+ characters in D&D, for LGBTQ+ players and allies alike to be sensitive, accurate, and kind.  Our final tip for enjoying yourself at the D&D table is our discussion of our favorite rule in the entire game: the Rule of Cool. Essentially, this rule says that if someone has a really cool idea, even if it’s not technically in the rules as they’re written, it’s way more fun to say yes than to say no. That’s how you get the most interesting games!

Start Playing D&D By Making A Character

Creating your very own character is a great way to start getting into DND!

Before you start getting into D&D or sit down to play, you’ll need to create a character. This can be an intimidating prospect (especially with those aforementioned giant rulebooks), but don’t be alarmed. We have some basic articles to get you started as well as some fun ideas to inspire you along the way! Our guide to how to make a character works for both the 2014 and the 2024 editions of the game (see our guide to Dungeons & Dragons editions) and either on paper or on D&D Beyond, with a nifty video tutorial to boot. To further explain different elements of your character sheet, we wrote a guide to ability scores, the numbers that determine your character’s skills, and to D&D alignment, a description for the way your character approaches chaos, order, good, and evil. Just to add a little bit of fun in there, we looked through the rules to find ways to incorporate animals into your D&D character, either playing as one, like a cat-person or an elephant-person, or getting an animal (or magical) companion for your character. 

How To Get Into Dungeons & Dragons

DND can be hard to get into for beginners, but with the right tools in your belt, you’ll be ready to go.

You understand the basics of Dungeons & Dragons. You have read enough rules to get started. You know how to have a good time playing, and you have a character ready to go. From here, you’re pretty much set to get started playing Dungeons & Dragons, but we have a few extras for the overachievers in the crowd! Our list of essential roleplaying-game terms goes through general D&D terms (Dungeon Crawl, Buff, TPK…), terms about dice and rolls (Initiative, Modifier, Crit…), character terms (Meat Shield, NPC, Alignment…), and even terms for players themselves (Rules Lawyer, Murder Hobo, Dice Goblin…). We’ve also compiled some great free D&D resources like character-building resources, worldbuilding help, online tools, video platforms, virtual table tops, and more. Finally (and this one’s for extra credit), we go into homebrewing, the D&D term for creating your own rules, items, abilities and more! This is great if you’re a Rules Lawyer (which you’d know if you’d read our guide) who loves to come up with cool ideas for your character and party. 

How To Start Playing D&D Online, With Friends, or By Yourself 

The easiest way to learn DND is by actually playing it!

Now, to actually play Dungeons & Dragons! If you’ve got a crew of friends who want to play, that’s awesome. We recommend a few of our favorite beginner adventures to make it easy to get into. If you don’t know anybody interested in playing, we also go over the options available to play D&D alone, from one-player D&D choose-your-own adventures to single-player tabletop roleplaying games to video games that use D&D as a base. If you’re looking to play online specifically, we can tell you where to find groups, how to use Discord for D&D, and how to play D&D online. But if you’re already thinking about playing Dungeons & Dragons online, why not play with us? Here at Young Dragonslayers, we know the game inside and out (as we hope we’ve proven) and we’ve taught tons of beginners how to learn to play D&D the easiest way we know how – by actually playing! We take you through each step, from creating your first character to rolling your first dice to going on your first epic adventure. Most of our players stick around year after year, becoming D&D pros who get to share the game with others!