About The Buffalo Dungeons & Dragons Meetup!

WHAT EXACTLY IS DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS?
Dungeons and Dragons (abbreviated as DnD on this site) is a tabletop fantasy role-playing game (RPG) originally designed by E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and first published in 1974 by the Gygax-owned company Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. (TSR). The game is currently published by Wizards of the Coast, a division of Hasbro. It was derived from miniature wargames, with a variation of the Chainmail game serving as the initial rule system. DnD's publication is widely regarded as the beginning of modern role-playing games and, by extension, the entire role-playing game industry.

Players of DnD create characters that embark upon imaginary adventures within a fantasy setting. A Dungeon Master (abbreviated as DM, also known as a Game Master or GM) serves as the game's referee and storyteller, while also maintaining the setting in which the adventures occur. During each game session, the players listen to descriptions of their character's surroundings, as well as additional information and potential choices from the DM, then describe their actions in response. The characters form a party that interacts with the setting's inhabitants (and each other). Together they solve dilemmas, engage in battles and gather treasure and knowledge. In the process the characters earn experience points to become increasingly powerful over a series of sessions. DnD departs from traditional wargaming and assigns each player a specific character to play instead of a military formation. Miniature figures or markers, placed on a grid, are sometimes used to represent these characters.

The early success of Dungeons and Dragons led to a proliferation of similar game systems, such as Tunnels and Trolls, Traveller and RuneQuest. Despite this competition, DnD dominates the role-playing game industry, enjoying a nearly unassailable market position.

In 1977, the game was split into two versions: the simpler Dungeons and Dragons and the more complex Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (abbreviated as ADnD). In 2000, the simpler version of the game was discontinued and the complex version was renamed simply Dungeons & Dragons with the release of its 3rd Edition. The current version of the game, released in June 2008, is Dungeons and Dragons v4.

As of 2006, Dungeons and Dragons remains the best-known and best-selling role-playing game, with an estimated 20 million people having played the game and more than US$1 billion in book and equipment sales. There are an estimated 5.5 million regular players of all editions of DnD.

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HOW EXACTLY DOES A TYPICAL PLAY SESSION GO?
DnD is a structured yet open-ended role-playing game. It is normally played indoors with the participants seated around a table-top. Typically, each player controls only a single character. As a group, these player characters (PCs) are often described as a party of adventurers, with each often having his or her own areas of specialized talents. During the course of play, each player directs the actions of his or her character and its interactions with the other characters in the game. A game often continues over a series of meetings to complete a single adventure, and longer into a series of related gaming adventures, called a campaign.

The results of the party's choices and the overall storyline for the game are determined by the Dungeon Master (DM) according to the rules of the game and the DM's interpretation of those rules. The DM selects and describes the various non-player characters (NPCs) the party encounters, the settings in which these interactions occur, and the outcomes of those encounters based on the players' choices and actions. Encounters often take the form of battles with 'monsters' a generic term used in D&D to describe potentially hostile beings such as animals or mythical creatures. The game's extensive rules?which cover diverse subjects such as social interactions, magic use, combat, and the effect of the environment on PCs?help the DM to make these decisions. The Dungeon Master may choose to deviate from the published rules or make up new ones as she or he feels necessary.

The most recent versions of the game's rules (version 3.5) are detailed in three core rulebooks: The Player's Handbook, the Dungeon Master's Guide and the Monster Manual. While there are roughly 2 dozen or more other books in the series, only these 3 books are required for play.

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WHAT EXACTLY IS REQUIRED TO PLAY THE GAME ON A REGULAR BASIS?
For players the only items required to play the game are the Player's Handbook, a character sheet, and a number of polyhedral dice.

In order to make the play experience as accessible to all, I will personally have on hand all required items, so that you may try-out the game for yourself at absolutely no cost.

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I REMEMBER SOMETHING ABOUT THE GAME BEING SATANIC, WHAT'S UP WITH THAT?
At various times in its history, Dungeons and Dragons has received negative publicity, in particular from some Christian groups, for alleged promotion of such practices as devil worship, witchcraft, suicide, and murder, and for naked breasts in drawings of female humanoids in the original ADnD manuals (mainly monsters such as Harpies, Succubi, etc.). These controversies led TSR (the original owners of the DnD property) to remove many potentially controversial references and artwork when releasing the 2nd Edition of ADnD. Many of these references, including the use of the names devils and demons, were reintroduced in the 3rd edition. The moral panic over the game also led to problems for fans of DnD who faced further social ostracism, unfair treatment and false association with the occult and Satanism, regardless of an individual fan?s actual religious affiliation and beliefs.

Dungeons and Dragons has also been the subject of unsubstantiated rumors regarding players having difficulty separating fantasy and reality, even leading to psychotic episodes. The most notable of these was the saga of James Dallas Egbert III, which was fictionalized in the novel Mazes and Monsters and later made into a TV movie.

For all it's worth, and what with everything that has been said about the game, it is NOT a tool for Satanic worship and practice. It is merely a game, nothing more.

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WHERE CAN I GET MORE INFORMATION?
Wikipedia.com has an excellent full-length article about Dungeons and Dragons, and can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.o... .

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WHO IS THE ORGANIZER OF THIS GROUP, AND HOW DO I CONTACT THEM PERSONALLY?

• Despite it saying that Donna is the Organizer, she actually has nothing to do with this group, so please direct all emails to: wesleydyoung@msn.com
  
• The reason for this is that when we paid Meetup.com's fees, they gave us meet-ups to do with as we wish - they are all listed as having the same Organizer though. =)
  

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DO I HAVE TO SPEAK OLD-FASHIONED ENGLISH, OR DRESS-UP LIKE A MEDIEVAL KNIGHT?

• If you want to do such a thing, go right ahead and do it!
  
• Don't confuse this group with what is abbreviated as LARPing (Live Action Role Playing), in which people do actually dress-up and physically act-out their parts.
  
• My own group is going to be a fairly casual group of gamers - nobody is going to force anybody to do anything, much less anything "weird" that might make a person feel embarrassed. You can just be yourself.
  

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WHAT RULES SYSTEM IS BEING USED, AND WHY?

• Currently in the "official" campaign, and for the entire foreseeable future, we are using a shared-world of Ptolus using v3.5 of the d20 System.
  
• If you start-up your own group, you can use whatever version of the rules that you please! Whether it be the original boxed sets, AD&D, or the new version 4.0!
  

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WHAT IS THE SHARED-WORLD CAMPAIGN BEING USED?

• Monte Cook's PTOLUS! (Pronounced TAW-luss, although TOL-us is also popular, and is how I pronounce it).
  
• See www.ptolus.com for the official details! Monte Cook is one of the co-designers for D&D v3.5, and Ptolus was used for extensive playtesting during the development of the system. Cook has also said that many things that were developed during his Ptolus campaign actually were made into Core rules. If there ever was an 'unofficial' official campaign world for D&D, this is it (The actual official campaign world is Greyhawk.)
  
• I wanted a campaign that was huge, flexible, easy-to-grasp, infinitely expandable, and FUN. I had originally considered Forgotten Realms, but for a number of reasons I've decided to not do it (you have to buy too many extra books just to get the campaign off the ground). Ptolus comes as either a super-deluxe hardback book weighing-in at a massive 700+ pages (plus a CD full of even more stuff), or a cheaper alternative of a PDF version. I took the PDF route, and have printed-out the entire monstrosity on my own in B&W. What I absolutely loved about this setting is that it comes with everything you need to run the campaign - huge background materials, adventures to take the characters from 1st to 20th level, maps (and map tiles) ?- plus it still uses everything from the original 3 Core Rulebooks (it doesn't throw the Core rules out the window, and then rebuild them upwards like most of the other campaigns that I looked at did).
  
• Ptolus also makes certain concessions to normal D&D play that I want for this group, and makes them very believable. For instance, for those player's who only want to play D&D occasionally, that is easily done because the city is so vast and cosmopolitan, and the dungeon below it is somewhat "commercialized" - there are regular streams of adventures going in and out of the dungeon all the time - that it is perfectly believable that a group of adventurers might have certain people staying and leaving all the time.
  

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I DON'T REALLY WANT TO RUN A PTOLUS CAMPAIGN, CAN I USE MY OWN SETTING?

• The (2) current DMs are using Ptolus, and are sharing the world between them, but if you start-up your own group, you are unquestionably free to do with it as you please.
  
• If you wish to start-up a group that participates in the shared-world of Ptolus, then I will provide ALL information on the campaign setting at no charge.
  
• If you are wanting to create your own seperate group, and are stumped for a campaign setting to use, the first one I'd recommend - and not just because it is free - is the Greyhawk setting by WotC (Wizards of the Coast, makers of D&D). You can visit www.wizards.com and browse-around for information on it, or contact me directly for a good sourcebook and details on the campaign.
  

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DO I NEED A COPY OF THE PLAYER'S HANDBOOK? A MINIATURE TO REPRESENT MYSELF? DICE?

• I want this group to be as accessible as is possible. To that end, you really just need to bring your imagination and yourself - I will have a supply of dice (lots of d20s at the very least), will have fresh character sheets on hand, an assortment of plastic D&D figurines (no promises on finding one that exactly matches your character!), sharpened pencils, and one copy of the Player's Handbook on hand. These items will be freely shared with anybody who comes to the group.
  
• Now, that being said, your own copy of the Player's Handbook is very helpful! You can take it home, thumb-through it anytime, etc. Same with your own set of dice (there is something to be said about a carefully-chosen set of dice, don't ask me what it is?). I recommend Amazon.com as a source to purchase the Player's Handbook at a very reasonable cost (It was just $15 for me, compared to Barnes & Noble wanting $30).
  
• If you just want to be a player - not do any DMing - then do not get the Monster Manual, nor the Dungeon Master's Guide. You'll never be able to ethically/reasonably use them during gameplay, and they will just sap a lot of the mystery and suspense from gameplay most likely.
  

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WHAT KIND OF CHARACTER CAN I PLAY?

• Any type of character out of the Core v3.5 rules will be perfectly fine, as well as most of the base classes from the "Complete" series of guidebooks.
  
• I will consider, as well, character types laid-out in the Ptolus Player's Guide.