D&D resembles the imaginative pretend play we did as children: Cowboys & Indians, Cops & Robbers, etc. Yet while that kind of play often became undirected and arbitrary, the D&D rules provide consistency that centers the play within a semi-realistic fantasy world. The rules are not guardrails that keep you on a road that directs your travel. The D&D rules don’t direct play, but merely define a consistent world, within which is a wide range of imagination and adventure.

D&D play consists of campaigns. A campaign is a series of adventures that unfolds as the game is played. Yet adventures where? About what? Key to the game is a participant called the Dungeon Master (DM for short) who prepares the campaign, the world in which it happens, and brings to life the characters in that world.

The interactive story is the heart of the game. A D&D module is a chapter in the campaign, the outline of a open-ended story that could unfold in many different ways, depending on what the players do. Each module is prepared by the DM in advance, including locations, plots, characters, monsters, magic, treasure, etc. The DM has a good idea of all the various things that could happen and how it might end, yet the players determine this through their actions.

D&D does have complex rules, including several books and a variety of dice. Each player’s character may have pages of detailed information. Many things that happen are determined by dice rolls in cross-referenced lookup tables. How does all this not suffocate imagination, adventure and fun? The game avoids that by placing this burden almost entirely on the DM. The players take on the persona of their characters and role play according to their imagination and common sense. Dice rolls are based on probabilities that are not completely random, but reflect the characters and situations in the game. The DM applies the rules to translate player actions into the game and determine the effects.

In explaining what D&D is, it’s also useful to describe what it’s not. D&D is not a reality or combat simulation. Given its topic of magical fantasy adventure, a realistic simulation would be absurd. D&D is a game to stretch the imagination while creating an interactive story of adventure. The DM’s role is to incorporate a degree of realism, just sufficient to ground the game with enough plausibility to allow the suspension of disbelief.