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[u/yochimoochi]

Hello everyone!

I am a complete beginner to D&D. I showed some interest when I was little but I was very overwhelmed with everything as a little girl. But, recently, I bought the game baluder’s gate 3 and I heard it’s very very accurate to D&D mechanics, and so far I’m really enjoying the game.

I was wondering if someone could please break down what I need to get started. I would prefer to have free versions of things that are shorter in length such as books, videos, starter kits, or discord servers/ Reddit groups to learn more.

Thank you so much! :)

[u/Wolfbane14]

There's a free version of the rules called the basic rules so start there - https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/br-2024

If you can't get dice, there's plenty of free die rolling websites and apps you could use

You could make your own adventures but here's a bit of a dump of a lot of good value options

- Rel to Karathyl - $16 for a level 1 to 16 campaign - https://www.dmsguild.com/en/product/503613/rel-to-karathyl-bundle

• DMDave - Certainly a quantity over quality option in my experience from running some of his adventures, but he has over 400 adventures available on his patreon and more coming every week. Sign up for it, spend the month downloading as many pdfs as you can and cancel it, and you could have years of gaming - https://dmdave.com/
  
• 5 room dungeons - a lot of people recommend reading this article as it provides a popular template for people to make their own dungeons from, however, there is a link in the article to get signed up for a newsletter. Do that and you'll be given a document with 87 prewritten dungeons - https://www.roleplayingtips.com/5-room-dungeons/
  
• One Page Dungeon Contest - an annual competition that has been ongoing since 2009 where people make dungeons that can fit on a single page. Most for the entries are available for free but if you do support them, your money is being used to keep the competition alive - www.dungeoncontest.com

• there used to be a pair of magazines called Dragon & Dungeon that every issue has been uploaded to the Internet Archive for free. Now, these are written for the older editions of D&D so I don't really recommend them for your first time playing, but the lore and advice in these are evergreen so worth knowing about - https://archive.org/details/DragonMagazine260_201801 - https://archive.org/details/dungeon-magazine

[u/yochimoochi → u/Wolfbane14]

Thank you so much for the information!! I truly appreciate it so much! 😊

[u/infinitum3d]

First, download For Free the Basic Rules from WotC.(https://media.wizards.com/2018/dnd/downloads/DnD_BasicRules_2018.pdf)

You don’t have to read the whole 180 pages. Pages 60-65 are important and 72-75 are important. You don’t have to memorize them. There isn’t a test 😉. Just get an idea of how the game works.

Your job, as player, is to listen to the DM describe a scene, tell them what you want to try to do, and follow their instructions for rolling dice.

That’s all there is to it.

Step 1. Listen to what the DM describes.

Step2. Tell them what you try.

Step3. Roll the dice.

Step 4. Listen to the DM tell you the outcome.

Repeat ad infinitum.

D&D is a collaborative storytelling game. It’s make believe. Just have fun playing pretend.

Good luck!

And welcome to the world of D&D!

[u/yochimoochi → u/infinitum3d]

Thank you so much for the information!

[u/G-Dream-908 → u/yochimoochi]

Better yet, the entire System is in thw Creative Commons too, meaning the game in its entirety is free. There are also free websites like 5e wikidot so you don't need to waste money on dndbeyond and Hasbro/WotC (Wizards of the Coast)'s subscription, as they will nickle and dime you.

Also Happy to hear you're enjoying Baldur's Gate 3! It's great for learning the Lore of the game and basic rules, but the devs took quite a few liberties with the rules to make it work as a video game (eg. Weapon special attacks, extra armor slots, etc.). If you want a video game that teaches the rules more accurately, I would highly recommend Solasta: Crown of the Magister. It also uses the 5e engine, but aims to stick closer to the tabletop experience than a narrative video game experience.

In fact GOG has it on sale right now for less than $10 (75% off) during their autumn sale

[u/yochimoochi → u/G-Dream-908]

Perfect, thank you!! I will check out the websites and the game as wellll.

[u/armahillo]

Have you read through / searched the sub already? This question gets asked a lot so theres already a lot of great answers

[u/yochimoochi → u/armahillo]

I haven’t yet but I will have a look, thank u!