Caught in traffic. Trapped in a cubicle. Stuck in a rut. Tangled up in red tape. In the real world, sometimes you feel powerless—but not in Dungeons & Dragons (D & D). In this fantasy-adventure, you have all kinds of special powers. You can slay the evil dragon, overcome the orc or the ogre, haunt the werewolf, and triumph over sinister trolls. You venture into strange realms, encounter strange creatures, and use magical powers. Your character grows and develops with every adventure. With this guide, you can learn the ins and outs of D & D and start playing right away. Dungeons & Dragons For Dummies gives beginners the basics of the complex game and helps experienced players fine-tune their roleplaying. It guides you through: Creating your character (a powerful fighter, a sneaky rogue, a crafty sorcerer, or a charismatic cleric), and character advancement The races: humans, dwarves, elves, and halflings The types of character actions: attack rolls, skill check, and ability checks The 6 abilities: strength, dexterity, constitution, intelligence, wisdom, charisma Feat requirements and types Playing the game, including moving in combat, attacking with a weapon (melee attacks or ranged attacks), and damage and dying Picking skills, armor, weapons, and gear Choosing spells if your character is a sorcerer or domains for a cleric Building encounter or combat strategies and using advanced tactics Maximizing your character’s power with the acquisition of the right magic items: armor, weapons, potion, scroll, ring, wand, staff, rod, plus wondrous items D & D game etiquette Becoming a Dungeon Master There’s even a sample play session that walks you through typical play, gets you comfortable using the battle grid and character markers, lets you test player characters against each other and against monsters, and shows you how to add story elements to create an adventure. Produced in partnership with Wizards of the Coast, written by D & D game designers, and complete with a battle grid, a sample dungeon map, and a glossary, this guide arms you with the knowledge to create and equip a character and empowers you to enter the captivating, fascinating world of D & D.

Whether you’ve been a Dungeon Master (DM) before and want to fine-tune your skills or want to get ready and take the plunge, this is the book for you. It gives you the basics on running a great game, info for more advanced dungeon mastering, guidelines for creating adventures, and tips for building a campaign. It shows you how to: Handle all the expressions of DMing: moderator, narrator, a cast of thousands (the nonplayer characters or NPCs), player, social director, and creator Use published adventures and existing campaign worlds or create adventures and campaign worlds of your own Conjure up exciting combat encounters Handle the three types of encounters: challenge, roleplaying, and combat Create your own adventure: The Dungeon Adventure, The Wilderness Adventure. The Event-Based adventure (including how to use flowcharts and timelines), The Randomly Generated Adventure, and the High-Level adventure Create memorable master villains, with nine archetypes ranging from agent provocateur to zealot To get you off to a fast start, Dungeon Master For Dummies includes: A sample dungeon for practice Ten ready-to-use encounters and ten challenging traps A list of simple adventure premises Mapping tips, including common scales, symbols, and conventions, complete with tables Authors Bill Slavicsek and Richard Baker wrote the hugely popular Dungeons and Dragons For Dummies. Bill has been a game designer since 1986 and leads the D&D creative team at Wizards of the Coast. Richard is a game developer and the author of the fantasy bestseller Condemnation. They give you the scoop on: Using a DM binder to keep records such as an adventure log, PCs’ character sheets, NPC logs/character sheets, treasure logs, and more Knowing player styles (role players and power games) and common subgroups: hack’n’slasher, wargamer, thinker, impulsive adventurer, explorer, character actor, and watcher Recognizing your style: action movie director, storyteller, worldbuilder, puzzlemaker, or connector Using miniatures, maps, and other game aids Using 21st century technology, such as a Web site or blog, to enhance your game The book includes a sample adventure, The Necromancer’s Apprentice, that’s the perfect way to foray into DMing. It includes everything you need for a great adventure—except your players. What are you waiting for? There are chambers to be explored, dragons to be slain, maidens to be rescued, gangs of gnoll warriors to be annihilated, worgs to be wiped out, treasures to be discovered, worlds to be conquered….

Explore the fantasy world of D&D and delve into dungeons, slay monsters, and gain treasure! If you've been thinking of playing D&D or you've played before and you want to get up to speed on the all-new 4th Edition, this is the book for you. Here's what you need to know to join the fantasy fun. D&D terminology — understand what ability check, modifier, saving throw, AC, gp, hp, and XP mean Roll the dice — add modifiers and see if you rolled the d20 high enough to beat the challenge Minding your manners — know D&D etiquette so you'll be welcome in any adventure Character building — select your character's race and class, and choose the best powers, skills, feats, and gear Roleplaying — give your character a background and personality quirks Combat — use combat rules, a battle grid, and miniatures to play out furious battles Open the book and find: Everything a new player needs to get started playing D&D Details on four fantasy races and four iconic classes Explanations of every number and statistic on the character sheet The best magic items and equipment for characters of all classes Advice on roleplaying and teamwork A ready-to-use adventure to get you started as a Dungeon Master A ready-to-use battle grid with character and monster markers

An immersive illustrated primer to the enchanted beings, magic users, and spells of Dungeons & Dragons, the leading fantasy role-playing game. This illustrated guide transports new players to the magical world of Dungeons & Dragons and presents a one-of-a-kind course on the wizards, sorcerers, and other magic-makers for which the game is known. Featuring easy-to-follow and entertaining explanations of how spells are created and used in the game, along with original illustrations of the game's essential magical characters, this book shines a spotlight on the mystical side of D&D. The perfect jumping-on point for young fans of fantasy looking to give D&D a try, Wizards and Spells also features prompts to encourage creative problem-solving skills in the dangerous situations that may be encountered in a Dungeons & Dragons adventure.

A deluxe version of the essential core rulebook every D&D Dungeon Master needs, this special release features an embossed, leather-bound cover and premium, gilt-edged paper.

A definitive look at Dungeons & Dragons traces its origins on the battlefields of ancient Europe through the hysteria that linked it to satanic rituals and teen suicides and to its apotheosis as father of the modern video game industry.

Everything you need to start playing the world’s greatest roleplaying game. “I recommend [the D&D Starter Set] for anyone who’s curious and wants to learn D&D.”—Ed Grabionowski, io9.Gizmodo.com The Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set is your gateway to action-packed stories of the imagination. This box contains the essential rules of the game plus everything you need to play heroic characters on perilous adventures in worlds of fantasy. Explore subterranean labyrinths! Plunder hoards of treasure! Battle legendary monsters! • FIVE READY-TO-PLAY CHARACTERS • SIX DICE • ONE ADVENTURE BOOK: LOST MINE OF PHANDELVER • ONE RULEBOOK • ONE CHARACTER SHEET “D&D acolytes are everywhere. . .Tech workers from Silicon Valley to Brooklyn have long-running campaigns, and the showrunners and the novelist behind ‘Game of Thrones’ have all been Dungeon Masters.”—Neima Jahromi, The New Yorker Dungeons & Dragons is the world’s greatest roleplaying game. Created in 1974, D&D transformed gaming culture by blending traditional fantasy with miniatures and wargaming. The main Dungeons & Dragons books are the Player’s Handbook, Monster Manual, and Dungeon Master’s Guide.

Let the adventure begin with this straightforward guide to GURPS! This is it—the key that unlocks the riches of GURPS (Generic Universal Role Playing System) and gives you a wealth of information on how to create your character and fine-tune your play. Produced in partnership with Steve Jackson Games, the game's creator, GURPS For Dummies is the ideal companion to GURPS Basic Set, 4th Edition that explains the rules. It gives you insight into the choices you’ll make in everything from creating a fun, dynamic character using the allotted number of points, to playing in an adventure, to becoming a GM. Whether you want to be an Amazon princess or a stalwart warrior, an old-fashioned swashbuckler or a modern investigator, a tough cop or a cat burglar, a sorcerer casting spells or a cosmic ranger, fighting lawlessness in the asteroids, this guide will help you: Determine your character’s basic attributes: IQ, DX (dexterity), ST (strength) and HT (health) Figure out your character’s secondary characteristics Choose advantages (including powers and perks) and disadvantages (including quirks and disadvantages with a self-control roll modifier) Optimize your points by using talents Select your skills based on functional area or the campaign setting Enhance your character with spells, magic items, magic staves, and powerstones Strategically purchase equipment for different characters, tech levels, and campaign types Create and manage a character sheet, write a character background, keep a character log, and more—all with samples Choose good combat techniques and play with your character If you want to become a GM, this guide gets you going with advice on creating the adventure, managing the character creation process, managing combat, and interpreting the rules. There’s even a handy Cheat Sheet tear-out GM screen in the front of the book. There are tips throughout, plus advice on how to: Create your very own GURPS universe for your campaign, whether it’s dungeon-crawl, high-adventure, combat-focused, puzzle-focused, or masquerade-type Provide a basic write-up of the world for your players, including technology level, supernatural and supernormal abilities and powers, races, setting, character templates, cultural and social information, and limitations Create an electronic combat grid, a battle log, a tactical map, and more—with samples Do mapping, planning, and plotting Create memorable NPC (nonplayer characters), both good guys and bad guys GURPS For Dummies helps you create more detailed, exciting, and interesting characters and take your game to the next level. That’s important whether you’re saving a princess or saving the planet...searching for hidden treasure or for secrets to eliminate disease... fighting crime or combating armies of evil robots...casting spells in medieval castles or destroying terrorist cells in modern day milieus. With GURPS, the only limitation is your imagination.

The life story of Gary Gygax, godfather of all fantasy adventure games, has been told only in bits and pieces. Michael Witwer has written a dynamic, dramatized biography of Gygax from his childhood in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin to his untimely death in 2008. Gygax's magnum opus, Dungeons & Dragons, would explode in popularity throughout the 1970s and '80s and irreversibly alter the world of gaming. D&D is the best-known, best-selling role-playing game of all time, and it boasts an elite class of alumni--Stephen Colbert, Robin Williams, and Junot Diaz all have spoken openly about their experience with the game as teenagers, and some credit it as the workshop where their nascent imaginations were fostered. Gygax's involvement in the industry lasted long after his dramatic and involuntary departure from D&D's parent company, TSR, and his footprint can be seen in the genre he is largely responsible for creating. But as Witwer shows, perhaps the most compelling facet of his life and work was his unwavering commitment to the power of creativity in the face of myriad sources of adversity, whether cultural, economic, or personal. Through his creation of the role-playing genre, Gygax gave two generations of gamers the tools to invent characters and entire worlds in their minds. Told in narrative-driven and dramatic fashion, Witwer has written an engaging chronicle of the life and legacy of this emperor of the imagination.

From New York Times bestselling author Madeleine Roux and acclaimed artist Tim Probert comes an all-new original Dungeons & Dragons middle grade series! Welcome to Dungeon Academy, where monsters and creatures train for the dark world that awaits just beyond the dungeon walls! But Zellidora “Zelli” Stormclash is a bit—different. She’s the one thing monsters and creatures of the Forgotten Realms fear the most: Zelli is a human! Knowing she’ll never be accepted, Zelli’s parents disguise her as a minotaur in hopes she’ll blend with the academy’s monstrous surroundings. Zelli does her work, keeps to herself, and becomes “invisible” to everyone. While in History of Horrible Humans class, Zelli learns of the great human adventurer, Allidora Steelstrike, who oddly resembles her. Could Zelli also be a Steelstrike? Seeking answers to her true lineage, Zelli embarks on a dangerous adventure. But she won’t be alone. A vegan owlbear, a cowardly kobold, and a shapeshifting mimic will join Zelli on her quest for truth in a world that holds no place for them. And who knows? Perhaps these monstrous misfits may discover some truths of their own . . . Get ready for humor, heart, magic, and adventure as middle graders and beyond learn to embrace who they are, accept others' differences, and discover that making mistakes is OK—as long as you learn from them.