Dungeons and Dragons
Although dice games are more of those board games where you roll the dice to determine how many steps you’d be taking to reach the goal, Dungeons and Dragons have been categorised as a dice game. Nonetheless the mechanics of the game is far from simply moving your characters.
This is a table top role playing game or most commonly referred to as RPG. This means that players would be acting as the characters in the game. But before getting into that, let’s first know a little bit about this famous game.
History
Dungeons and Dragons (“D&D” or “DnD” for most players and fans) was originally published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rule, Inc. This board game was designed by Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax. This game is derived from mini wargames; the initial rules specifically from the mini wargame “Chainmail” where Gary Gygax was also one of the designers.
Ever since its debut, role-playing games and RPG society has extended. Dungeons and Dragons has influenced the media especially the gaming world with various games, movies and comic books that was inspired by it.
Now, the most vital thing about any other game is the mechanics. The rule on playing the game is its lifeblood. Dungeons and Dragons is played by people around a tabletop, simply like a board game. But the mechanics is far more interesting and intricate.
GamePlay
There are two types of players: the dungeon masters and the players. The dungeon master serves as the “storyteller”. He or she would create the storyline and present the obstacles that the players will have to face to reach the goal of the story. The theme of the game is a fantasy, pseudo-medieval world. There are warriors, clerics, thieves and wizards with elves and dwarves and Halflings. The dungeon master runs the various obstacles that the heroes would face such as monsters, traps and puzzles.
Before playing the game, the players will create their character and will record the details on the character sheet. They will have to choose a race; the most common are human, elves, dwarves and Halflings.
After determining which race your character is, it is time to determine the character class or the occupation of the character. There are clerics, rogues and wizards. Each character class will provide bonuses for the characters. Record every detail on the character sheet.
Each of the players will then have to determine the ability scores of their characters. This would consist of Dexterity, Strength, Constitution, Wisdom, Charisma and Intelligence. The methods of determining these statistics have change over the years but currently, the ability scores are determined by rolling for 6-side dice and record the total of the three highest dice. You will have to do this for each of the ability of the character.
After each character has been created and the storyline presented, each player will describe what they are going to do. The dungeon master will rule out whether there’s a chance of failure or there is success. If it’s the previous one, players will have to roll the dice and this will tell whether they will hit the opponent or not. If they do, they can roll the dice again to determine their attack points.
Every time that the player overcomes obstacles, they would be given experience points by the dungeon master. If they reach a certain experience point total, they would level up. The higher the level, the higher chance of success and gaining other benefits like spells.
Dungeons and Dragons uses a 7-dice set. It’s a gaming standard especially for D&D and can be bought for it. The dice set will include a 4-sided dice, 6-sided dice, 8-sided dice, 10-sided dice, 12-sided dice and 20-sided dice. There is another 10-sided dice in a D&D dice set that will be used for percentile rolls. The use of these various polyhedral dice is one of the things that make Dungeons and Dragons unique. It’s actually been quite the trademark of the game.
The game will go on like that until the heroes are able to complete the task the dungeon master gave them. There are no winners and losers in the game. There is no need to defeat your fellow players and gaining level ahead of them. The main goal of this board game is to exercise the imagination of each player.