There are a lot of misconceptions about D&D and a lot of stereotypes that don't apply to our group. For instance, we don't really believe that we're Elf Knights Crusading for the One True King and Slaying Demons In The Name Of The Righteous Path. We are not a LARP (Live Action Role Playing) group and we don't dress up or run around waving swords at one another. Also, we are not devil worshipers or members of a satanic cult. Well, our characters might be but I, Katie, am not a satanist in real life. And while any mundane who sat in on one of our D&D sessions would immediately be overwhelmed by the sound of clattering dice & the amount of jargon we use, my group really is not that geeky.
And for those mundies who don't know what D&D is or how it's played basically we pick a class, i.e. wizard, fighter, thief, or cleric; we pick a race, i.e. elf, dwarf, gnome, or human; and we roll up our stats, i.e. strength, dexterity, wisdom, or charisma. Some groups roll up their stats differently - we either roll 4d6 and discard the lowest die, adding the 3 highest together or we roll 2d6 and add 6 to the final result. By the way, a d6 is a 6-sided die, a d20 is a die with 20 sides. Depending on what race you are, there is a table in the player's handbook that will tell you what to add to your stats - these are called modifiers. There are also tables that tell you what bonuses to add to your saves, attack & damage rolls, & how many skill points per level you get based on what class you are.
There are several versions of D&D, such as the Pathfinder 3.75 rule set & 4.0. My group uses the Pathfinder rules, while 4.0 is considered the "official" D&D rule set. And even though two different groups might be using the same rule set, the game will be completely different between the 2 groups because of something called house rules. Sometimes there will be a rule in the book that isn't clarified or it's just plain stupid so the DM (the Dungeon Master) will modify the rule to work for his group the way he thinks it should. And sometimes groups will make up their own rules and not even use the current versions or use a mish mash of previous editions.
The DM is responsible for telling the story and for running the NPC's (non-player characters) and sometimes the PC's (player characters) mess everything up by not going in the direction that the DM had envisioned. Some DM's are able to work with what the PC's give them and they will change the direction of their story and other DM's will get pissed off and kill everyone, also known as a TPK (total party kill). Of course, most of the time the PC's are responsible for the TPK by acting stupidly or just not rolling well.
The game is really a lot more in depth & my quick description really does it no justice but it's fun and I love it. I have been playing with the same D&D group for about 10 years now and the great thing about being in the same group for that long is that you grow comfortable with the other people. When I first started playing D&D with these guys, I was so nervous and embarrassed that I would hardly say anything! I still get kind of nervous whenever my character is put in any sort of "leadership" position because I don't want to be responsible for other PC deaths but for the most part, I'm a lot more confident in my role playing abilities.
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