Chapter 2

The school week passed by, and it was Friday. Sam was sitting on the bus heading home, full of anticipation for the session later on.

Earlier in the week, Sam and his friends discussed what characters they should play. At first, they didn't know what to play, but with Sam's help they chose a class that they wanted to play. Matt wanted to go into fights to hit everything and everyone, looking cool at the same time. He asked if their character was religious, only to be told 'What, religion? Pfft, why would my guy pray to a god when he can fight one himself!'. So, Sam recommended for him to play a barbarian, fighter, monk or rogue. In the end, Matt chose to be a monk ('Barbarians are to dumb, fighters are too lame and rogues have no honor. My guy shall be praised all across the land, so honor is a must!')

Nate wanted to use magic, so Sam recommended him to play a wizard, sorcerer, warlock, druid or cleric. Nate chose to be a wizard in the end, because he said 'magic should be earned, not given' or something else equally lame.

And Jacob ended up playing a bard. He wanted to play someone musical, so playing a bard is natural. Plus, he's practically a bard in real life.

Sam told them that they would create the character sheets at his place, so all they had to do was decide on a race, background and backstory. Of course, Sam helped with the choice of race and backgrounds and gave them his recommendations, but the backstories had to be made by them.

The bus came to the bus stop, and Sam got off. When he got home, his mom was busy on a call, so he went downstairs to prepare for the D&D session. He took out his DM screen, mat, dice, pencil, paper, notebook and player's handbook for his friends.

After his setup was finished, he started to look through his notebook to prepare for the session. Before he could, his mom came downstairs.

"Are you ready for D&D tonight?"

"Yeah, I've got everything set out for me and my friends"

"Ok honey. Tell your friends I'm making pizza"

"Sure thing"

His mom went back upstairs to continue working and start making the pizza. Sam got to work as well and started to prepare for his campaign.

_______________

A couple hours went by, and there was a knock on the door. Sam walked upstairs to open the door, and saw Nate with a binder, presumably containing his character sheet.

"Hey, you're the first one here"

"Yep, I might've been a bit too early"

"Nah, it's fine. It's only 5:56, not that early" Sam said, checking the time.

Outside, another car was coming to a stop outside his house. "See, someone else is here" he adds, pointing outside.

"Yeah, fair point" Nate says, shrugging.

"You can head downstairs and set up. My mom's making pizza for us later"

"Sure" Nate replied, going downstairs

Nate went downstairs, and Sam saw Matt coming up to the door. He opened the door to greet Matt. He had a backpack on his back.

"What's up"

"Nothing much, how 'bout you?"

"Nothing much as well, just a D&D session that we're doing right now"

"Yep. Anyone else here?"

"Just you and Nate downstairs" Sam replied, gesturing towards the door.

"Okay, I'll head down now. Are we waiting on Jacob?"

"Yeah, he's always last. To be fair, his parents are always late so it isn't his fault"

"I know, it sucks" Matt said. "Anyways, I'm heading downstairs to hang with Nate. Are you gonna wait for Jacob up here?"

"Yep"

"K. Hopefully he comes soon" Matt says while heading downstairs.

A few minutes go by, and another car finally pulls up. Jacob gets out of the car, holding a binder in one hand and a… instrument case in the other?

"Why do you have your instrument?" Sam immediately asks.

"Well, since I'm a bard, it's only natural that I have an instrument to perform with!"

"...You don't have to actually have an instrument to pay as a bard, you know"

"Well, It'll help with the role-playing!"

"...Ok then…"

He was still confused by Jacob's logic, but didn't argue. It's hard to understand the mind of a musician.

Sam led Jacob downstairs, where Matt and Nate were talking. They greeted each other before sitting down.

"Okay, I'll help you guys one step at a time with your characters" Sam said. "Firstly, Matt. Your character is a monk, but what is his name, background, race, etc?"

"Ok, my character is Rolen Oakenheel, a wood elf. His background is that he's and urchin, and I have a backstory to go with it!"

"No need, you can save the backstory for later" Sam said as Matt was looking at his character's background sheet. "Let me help you…"

Sam then went on to help Matt finish his character, then helped Nate and Jacob. Nate was a variant human wizard ('What's the difference?' 'Less stats but better skills') called Stau Duskforest, with the background of a cloistered scholar. Jacob was a lightfoot halfling bard called Alton, with the background of an entertainer.

In D&D, there are many things you can do to customize your character. But, the three things that are the most important are the class, race and background.

A character's class is obviously important, because it decides what the character does for a living. A cleric would be religious, and maybe be a priest in a church and a druid would be close to nature, and maybe shut themselves away from the world.

Also, your class decides your abilities. For example, a rogue. If you're a rogue, you would be sneaking behind enemies, backstabbing them to deal more damage. But, a rogue can't cast magic, unless you customize your rogue to do so.

Another example is a sorcerer. A sorcerer would be able to cast magic, dealing damage from afar. But, a sorcerer wouldn't be able to fight in close combat that well compared to other classes.

This is why a character's class is important. Your class decides what your character can or can't do. And even though some classes are similar (*cough* *cough* ranger), each class has something unique or special that they can do.

The next most important thing is a character's race. A character's race gives them special bonuses to better help what a character can do. Usually, your race and class should complement each other, but you could always do something entirely different if you want to be unique.

Each race offers something unique about them. They can offer ability score boosts (explanation later on), special features and different looks. There are so many different races to choose from, that it's hard to decide. The most common ones are humans, elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, half orcs, tieflings and dragonborns, but there are so many more.

The third most important thing is a character's background. Even though it only offers a few small bonuses and extra things for your character, it's importance to a character's backstory and personality are huge. For example, if you're playing as a rogue, you might choose the criminal background, so your rogue was a criminal, robbing/killing people. Or, if you're playing a druid, you might choose the hermit background, so your druid lived alone to study an old and ancient ruin site or something.

Like races, there are many different backgrounds to choose from, but unlike races, there aren't really any common backgrounds, because a character's background is chosen by preference.

Anyways, after knowing the important information of each character, Sam guided each of them through choosing their ability scores and skills

Ability scores and skills are important, probably the next most important things for a character after their class, race and background. A character's ability score decides what their stats are.

A character's strength indicates how strong a character is, how hard they hit and how well they do strength based things.

A character's dexterity indicates how fast a character is, how easy they dodge, and how well they do dexterity based things.

A character's constitution indicates how tough a character is, how hard they can get hit and how well they do constitution based things.

A character's intelligence indicates how smart a character is, how much they know and how well they do intelligence based things.

A character's wisdom indicates how wise a character is, how good their intuition is and how well they do wisdom based things.

A character's charisma indicates how social a character is, how they influence others and how well they do charisma based things.

Based on a character's class, they will need more of one stat then another. For example, a wizard will need to focus on having a high intelligence to make their spells stronger, while strength and charisma isn't that important.

Depending on how high a stat is, it'll give a modifier. For example, if your character's strength is 14, the modifier will be +2, so strength based rolls will get an added +2 to the dice roll.

The modifier is the most important part of an ability score. The better modifier, the better the character will perform when doing the related thing.

But, sometimes an action will require a certain skill. That's where skills come into play. The skills you get and can choose are decided by your class, race and background (which is why they are the three most important things). Each skill is related to a certain stat, like the history skill is related to the intelligence stat. To decide how good a character is at a certain action, you take the related modifier of each skill plus the proficiency bonus (if your character is proficient at that skill). That ends up as your skill modifier.

For example, if you want your character to jump across a 5 foot gap, you would look at the athletics skill and see it's modifier. Let's say the character is level one and has a strength modifier of +3 and proficiency with athletics. So, you take your strength modifier (+3) and your proficiency bonus (+2), and them together (+5) and add it to whatever you rolled to see if you make it.

On a side note, your proficiency bonus is decided by a character's level.

Anyways, Sam explained all of this to his friends and helped them choose their stats and skills. Halfway through, Lucia came down and brought pizza, which all of them happily ate while thanking her.

"Okay, we finally made it through that hurdle of choosing your stats and skills" Sam said. "Now, we're basically done. All we have to do is to add the final touches and describe your character's backstory"

He then quickly helped them choose their equipment, health, armor class(it decides how high someone has to roll to hit you), spells, etc. Finally, it got to their backstories.

"I'll go first!" Matt said with excitement.

"Okay, my character was born in the forest, in a wood elf tribe. But then, the forest mysteriously caught on fire and burnt down! Lots of wood elves died, including Rolen's parents. So, he left the forest, looking for somewhere to live. He ended up in the city, barely alive after travelling around with no food. In the city, he asked for help, but no one helped him.

In the end, he collapsed from exhaustion, and woke up in a dojo. A monk saved him and took him as his disciple, letting him live and train under him as long as he helped out around the dojo. Rolen learnt a bunch of things from his master, and learned martial arts. He was so grateful, but never knew how to repay the monk. In the end, he decided to help him out in any way he could.

A few years passed, and one Rolen's master said he had to go, leaving Rolen alone to study martial arts and take care of the dojo. Rolen wanted to go with him, but was told off and left behind. So, Rolen continued to train his martial arts and take care of his masters dojo. But, he always craved to go out and leave, exploring the world and look for his master so he can help"

Matt finished up his character's backstory, and the group was silent for a moment.

"Damn, that's actually well prepared. I'm surprised you could come up with something like that" Jacob stated, before getting jabbed by Matt.

"What do you mean, you're 'surprised'? Do you think I couldn't have an intricate backstory?"

Jacob got jabbed a couple more times while saying stuff like "Stop" "Chill" "It's just a joke" before Matt finally calmed down. Sam and Nate rolled their eyes, having seen similar scenes multiple times before.

"Well, I bet your guy's backstory isn't as interesting" Matt said.

"I didn't know that we were creating such a huge background for our characters, so mine is fairly simple. My guy, Alton, grew up with his parents who owned a tavern. He would often go to the tavern with his parents to mingle around. He often saw travelling bards come and go, performing many different songs and acts, so he wanted to become a bard himself. He was talented with music, so he learned how to play a few different instruments. He constantly practiced and learnt new songs. His parents also helped him achieve his dream, so when he was 19 he left and became a travelling bard, with the sole goal to go everywhere to spread joy and happiness through music"

"LAME ALERT" Matt said immediately.

"Actually, I kinda liked it" Sam said.

"Same" Nate added.

"Ding dong your opinion is wrong!" Matt told them. "My character's backstory was well thought out and planned, containing detail, emotions and mystery. But yours was just a guy achieving his dream easily. Where's the character development? The plot? The mystery? Huh?"

"That's what the campaign is for" Jacob says to defend himself.

"All right, whatever, it's just a backstory" Sam interjected, fully knowing that another dumb and pointless argument was about to break out. "Let's just hear the backstory of Nate's character"

Matt grumbled and Jacob shrugged it off. They were always arguing over the most pointless things, like the number of holes a straw has or if water was or wasn't wet.

"My character's backstory isn't all that interesting compared to Matt's. My character, Stau, grew up in the city, with his parents being librarians. One day, they found out that he was a genius, understanding every book he read. So they let him read all of the books in their library. He continued to grow smarter and smarter every day, learning about a variety of things.

Eventually, he got a hold of books about magic and learnt them too, inevitably learning magic becoming a wizard. So then he joined a magic academy, getting practically full marks on everything and topping the class.

But, throughout his life and magical journey, he encountered a question that he couldn't answer, even after reading all of the books in his parents libraries, the public libraries and the academies libraries. So, he got permission from his academy to go on a journey, visiting every library and reading every speck of knowledge to finally answer the question"

"Hey, that's pretty good" Sam says. He thought that even though it wasn't that complicated, it was a good backstory that makes you wonder what journeys Stau will go on.

"Yeah, I think it's pretty good" Matt said as well. He was going to continue, but everyone gave him a look, knowing fully well what he was going to say next and telling him with their eyes not to say it. Matt gulped, swallowing the 'It's better than Jacob's backstory' comment he was going to say.

"Anyways, I think we're ready to start our campaign" Sam said. "Are you all ready?"

"Yep" "Yes" "Yeah" the collective agreement rang out.

"Okay then" Sam started. "Our journey begins, in the town of Rosethern…"