Hello there,
Yesterday I bought d&d. But I don't understand this: if you want to do something, what do you have to get on the die.
Edit:
When I mean something, I mean crossing a river, killing an enemy, climbing a wall, etc..
As others have said, you don't have to roll to do everything. D&D is kinda-sorta collaborative storytelling. I've also heard it compared with Cops and Robbers, but with dice to settle arguments.
At a certain level, so long as everyone at the table is having fun and on board with the way things are going, you're playing the game right. There are even a couple of RPGs (role-playing games) out there that are "diceless" in the sense that they have no random resolution mechanic. I reserve those for "advanced" groups, though, because it requires a lot of trust. D&D really is a pretty good entry-level game.
Going back to the idea of collaborative storytelling, there's a concept of "makes narratives sense". Basically, if it doesn't make sense that there's a chance of failure, then there shouldn't be a die roll. The dice are there for three reasons, really: 1) provide dramatic tension and risk of failure, 2) allow for reasonably impartial resolution of uncertain outcomes, and 3) add variability to play. Breaking those down:
1) Dramatic tension: Some games and DMs are a bit more explicit about this, but sometimes the risk of failure isn't actually that interesting. Is there a chance you might fall off a short ladder and die? Yes; it happens in real life. Is it something that would be even remotely interesting in a book or movie? Not unless you're watching
Final Destination. So, don't roll for it. Swimming across a raging river in a thunderstorm, while in chain armor and dodging arrows from orcs on the far bank? Yes, but stupid. Rarely say "no" (some GMs will say never, but I have my limits), so roll against a high DC -- look at the table in the PHB; it sounds Hard or Very Hard, so a DM call of either 20 or 25 sounds right. Crossing the same raging river with clear skies, no combat, and friends who could potentially jump in and help? Depends on the specific context, but I probably wouldn't worry about it because it's not interesting. If the PCs are on a timeline and need to head into a goblin lair or some such, right away, then I might call for an athletics roll or two with each failure giving a level of exhaustion. Why? Because it's interesting.
2) Impartial results: As DM, I'm not the author of the story (maybe the director, who gets to bring his twist to someone else's script, but don't push that too far). If the success of every single action depended on my whim, though, it would cease to be a game. When there's dramatic tension, the dice decide. I did say "reasonably impartial resolution", however, because the DM is the one who sets the DCs for most checks. Different DMs have different eyes for different things. I prefer a somewhat grittier tone, so Wuxia-style acrobatics aren't going to go over as well in my game as in some others. That's life and just part of the human factor of the game.
3) Variability: Sometimes, uncertainty is fun. I don't like the static damage numbers and always roll dice. Some DMs grant "exceptional success" if you can beat a skill check DC by 5 or 10 points -- knowledge/lore type checks have traditionally worked this way. This doesn't apply directly to "when do I roll for success?" but I included it for completeness of "why do we use dice?"
You may note that those aren't particularly concrete answers. That's part of the learning curve of the game and one of the things that comes with experience. Functional groups end up with some sort of social contract around most of that. Sometimes it's explicit, but more often, it's implicit and just grows organically as the group matures. Don't sweat it. It'll all work out soon enough, so long as the group takes it in stride.
I learned to play when I was 12. A 14-year-old ran a couple sessions, at a summer day camp, that included me as a player. Then I went back to normal life, picked up the red Basic set, and started DMing for some of my friends. I home brewed pretty much from the beginning and some of those early adventures were a bit surreal because we were all ignorant pre-teens.
My advice is to pick up the Starter Set, if you haven't already, and use the adventure therein,
Lost Mines of Phandelver. It should provide a couple months of play (depending on how often you game) and get the characters to about level 5. This is your "practice game". You can either use the pregen characters or create your own. Either way, just plan on scrapping them after the adventure is done. That gives you permission to royally screw stuff up without being "stuck" with continuity errors for too long. It also gives you a time box in which the DM can get his legs and safely change his style in significant ways without fear of having fruit thrown at him. When you get done with that adventure, you always have the option of keeping the characters, just plan on going with a clean slate.
If you still want some cushion and freedom to adjust things in gross ways, pick up
Tales From the Yawning Portal, which is an assortment of stand-alone adventures of various levels. My reason for this over one of the other published adventure books is that the others are all longer stories that can take six months to two years (or more) to play through. For new players, I think variety and shorter goals are going to be more beneficial. Each shorter adventure is also a good checkpoint to re-evaluate any lessons learned (either in your own head or as a group). Others may disagree.
If you feel like everyone has gotten comfortable with the game, great! Pick whatever you want, including home brew adventures. You can even create your own setting (the comfort to do so is a key maturity point, IMO, whether you actually do it or not), if you want. If you don't want to do that, be aware that Forgotten Realms (as presented in
Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide) is just one of many published settings for D&D. If you go to the
DM's Guild, you can find stuff published in earlier editions. All the story-type info is still valid and most of the rules stuff is either not critical or has already been sucked into the core, in some fashion. Personally, I think Greyhawk does "pure D&D" better than the Realms can ever hope to. Eberron explicitly answers the question: What would the logical outcome be of reliable magic as presented in the D&D rules? Planescape is great, if you want lots of weird races, philosophy, and exploring things "not of this earth". Ravenloft is gothic horror (and has a hardbound adventure published for it, in 5E). Dark Sun is post-apocalyptic.
