Cze and Peku are well-known in the TTRPG community for their vibrant and highly detailed battle maps. They specialize in fantasy, sci-fi, and modern settings, offering maps for everything from dungeons to sprawling cities. Their Patreon provides a variety of map styles, along with grid and gridless options, making them perfect for both virtual tabletops and print. With frequent updates, they’re a go-to for immersive game experiences.

Cze and Peku

Tom Cartos is a renowned creator of highly detailed, multi-level battlemaps for tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) like Dungeons & Dragons. His work enhances gameplay by providing immersive environments that captivate players. Tom offers a diverse range of maps, including fantasy and modern settings, available through his website and Patreon. Patreon supporters gain access to weekly map sets, asset packs, and monthly adventures, with higher tiers offering additional benefits such as DungeonDraft integration and limited commercial licensing.

Tom Cartos

Venatus Maps specializes in creating clean, modular battle maps for virtual tabletops. Their work covers a wide range of environments, from haunted forests to ancient ruins, with meticulous attention to detail. Venatus Maps also offers map packs designed for specific adventures, making it easier to plug them into existing campaigns.

Venatus Maps

Heroic Maps delivers high-quality, printable battlemaps that cater to both fantasy and sci-fi settings. Known for their versatility, Heroic Maps provide a mix of atmospheric dungeons, vivid landscapes, and detailed interiors. Their offerings include modular designs that can be pieced together for expansive settings, perfect for GMs looking for flexibility in map design.

Heroic Maps

Tyler Jacobson is a renowned fantasy artist whose work has graced the covers of several D&D 5th Edition books, including the 2024 Player's Handbook. His dynamic and detailed illustrations capture the essence of D&D's expansive universe.

Tyler Jacobson

Wylie Beckert is known for her intricate and atmospheric artwork. She contributed the alternate cover art for the 2024 Player's Handbook, showcasing her unique style that adds depth and intrigue to the D&D world.

Wylie Beckert

Ekaterina Burmak is a Ukrainian artist celebrated for her vibrant and detailed illustrations. She provided the cover art for "Light of Xaryxis," a component of the "Spelljammer: Adventures in Space" boxed set, bringing the cosmic adventures of D&D to vivid life.

Ekaterina Burmak

Justin Gerard is a fantasy illustrator whose work has been featured in various D&D publications. He created the cover art for "Boo's Astral Menagerie," another part of the "Spelljammer: Adventures in Space" set, capturing the essence of D&D's diverse creatures.

Justin Gerard

TPK stands for “Total Party Kill,” a situation in which the entire party, or every player character, dies during a game session. While it’s frequently seen as the end of a campaign, it doesn’t have to be! Game Masters have been known to allow new adventurers to take up the cause of the fallen, or even give dead heroes a chance to cheat death.

Proficiency refers to a few related things in Dungeons & Dragons. First, it can refer to things your character is trained to use; your character might have “proficiency” with certain weapons, types of armor, tools, and languages, meaning they can skillfully apply those things for their respective uses. It also refers to the skills your character specializes in. A wizard might have proficiency in Arcana, for example, to represent years of study; a fighter in Intimidation if they’re big and scary; and a rogue in Stealth if they’re skilled at sneaking around. Finally, it refers to your “proficiency bonus,” which is a flat number you add to your d20 rolls when you’re making a check you’re proficient in. For example, that sneaky rogue adds their proficiency bonus when they roll to hide from guards because they’re proficient in Stealth; to roll to pick a lock because they’re proficient with thieves’ tools; and to stab their target in the back because they’re proficient with daggers. A character’s proficiency bonus increases as they level up.

“Homebrew” is a term from the hobby culture of D&D and tabletop RPGs that means “not officially published.” Anything that a Game Master and their players make up, or even anything official that they modify, is considered “homebrew.” It’s believed to be the most common way to play RPGs, as virtually every table creates custom content and house rules to suit their needs.

“Min-maxing” is a term that refers to mechanically optimizing a tabletop RPG character to specialize in doing one specific thing, to the detriment of their other skills and abilities. It comes from systems where you could maximize a value in one attribute by minimizing the rest. Hyper-specializing in this way is often frowned upon when one character outshines the rest, but players can absolutely min-max productively and cooperatively with others. In fact, some players play RPGs for the purpose of crafting powerful builds that accomplish some goal to great effect. After all, a team of specialists whose strengths and weaknesses all complement each other’s can be extremely fun to play!

A critical hit occurs when a player rolls a “natural 20,” or a 20 on the die, on an attack roll in Dungeons & Dragons. Representing an especially accurate or devastating blow, a character scoring a critical hit doubles the dice they roll for damage. If a rogue would roll 1d6 weapon damage plus 3d6 sneak attack damage, for example, they’ll roll 2d6 for the weapon and 6d6 sneak attack damage on a critical hit.

The Alignment system, though it’s changed over the years, is as old as Dungeons & Dragons itself! It’s a system for categorizing a character or monster’s attitude toward both morality and law. On the morality axis, a creature can be good, neutral, or evil, depending on whether it views helping or hurting others as virtuous. On the law axis, a creature can be lawful, neutral, or chaotic, depending whether it believes civilization to be virtuous or not. The combination of these axes gives nine possible alignments, which you may be familiar with from the proliferation of “alignment charts” on the internet as a popular way to discuss characters from across or within pieces of media. Some players believe alignment is something a character should choose and adhere to, while others use it to describe a character’s position based on their actions. Many players don’t use it at all, as some find it a restrictive or inflexible way to define a character’s philosophy.

A one-shot is a self-contained, single-session game of Dungeons & Dragons (or any roleplaying game). While D&D is commonly considered a “campaign game,” that is, a longer running series of sessions that may last weeks, months, or years, it’s very popular to play just a single session focusing on a specific scenario or element of the world. Some players use one-shots to do wacky or experimental things with characters and settings, as they tend to be lower-commitment and lower-stakes, offering the opportunity to let your creativity run wild.

Classes in Dungeons & Dragons go up to 20th level.

What is the maximum level you can have in a class in D&D 5e?

The original Dungeons & Dragons was first released in 1974, and it’s come a long way since then! The most recent edition, 5E, came out in 2014 and was updated in 2024.

Dungeons & Dragons was first created by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, after Gygax attended one of Arneson’s sessions of a game called Blackmoor, a fantasy game he ran using Gygax’s rules for a wargame called Chainmail. It’s had several iterations and editions since then, but since 1997, the designer and publisher of D&D has been Wizards of the Coast.

Playing Dungeons & Dragons online has never been easier! All you need is a platform for voice and/or video chat and you can play just as if you were sitting around a table. Some players like to add a virtual tabletop like Roll20 or Foundry to the experience to have a visual aid for maps, tokens, and handouts. They may even have digital dice rollers, character sheets, and music! Of course, one player will need to take on the role of the Dungeon Master. If you don’t already have a group to play with, you can often find one in “Looking For Group” or LFG forums, fan communities for the game, or services like StartPlaying.Games dedicated to helping players find the right group for them.

Dungeons & Dragons can be played with as few as two players: one Dungeon Master, and one player character. Typically, a D&D party consists of one Dungeon Master and 3–5 players, though groups can and do get much bigger than that! The system starts to strain around 7 players, and a big group certainly isn’t recommended for beginners, but some tables swear by it anyway!

How many people do you need to play D&D? / How many people can play D&D?

The traditional Dungeons & Dragons dice set contains seven dice: a 20-sided die, or d20, as well as a d12, d10, d8, d6, d4, and a second d10 sometimes called a d100, which goes from 00 to 90 and is used for rolling “percentiles” from 1–100 when combined with a normal d10. A single set of dice is usually sufficient, but many D&D players quickly find themselves collecting as many as they can get their hands on!

There are three core Dungeons & Dragons books, namely the Player’s Handbook, the Dungeon Master’s Guide, and the Monster Manual. A typical player usually only needs the first, but a prospective Dungeon Master will usually want all three. In addition, Wizards of the Coast has released dozens of supplemental books containing additional optional rules, player options, and adventures, and third-party publishers have produced hundreds more.

To play Dungeons & Dragons, you’ll need a character sheet, dice, and a group of friends! All of these can be physically or virtually present, and at least one of you should understand the basic rules. Usually, that’s the Dungeon Master, the player who prepares the scenario, presents it to the players, and facilitates the game. This player can help the rest learn as they play, creating characters and letting the fantastical adventure unfold!

A single typical session of Dungeons & Dragons lasts around 3–4 hours, though different tables may play for shorter or longer amounts of time. That said, many games last far more than a single session, meeting regularly (or irregularly) for weeks, months, years, or even decades. A single-session game or “one-shot” isn’t uncommon by any means, however, and a dedicated group of players could absolutely complete a small D&D campaign in 6–12 sessions.

The core mechanic of Dungeons and Dragons is rolling a 20-sided die, adding bonuses and modifiers from your character’s abilities, and trying to beat a target number. Players build their characters by choosing a fantastical species, class, abilities, skills, equipment, and magic spells, then embark on adventures to advance their wealth and power. D&D also has a robust tactical combat system for fighting monsters and other adversaries, plus rules for delving dungeons and exploring the wilderness.  

How to play D&D 5e

Dungeons & Dragons 5e is the most popular tabletop role-playing game on the market. With its simplified rules, diverse settings, and player-driven customizability, it’s easy to see why! Perhaps you’ve dreamed of slinging arrows like Legolas, crushing enemies like Conan, or attacking angry chickens like Link—you can make that a reality in D&D 5e! There are three main aspects to a game of D&D: combat, exploration, and roleplay. Different games will feature different balances of these depending on how the people like to play but it’s up to you and your Dungeon Master (DM) to craft a world that you love! Whether it’s the Forgotten Realms, Critical Role’s Wildemount/Exandria, your own steampunk-themed world where wizards ride dinosaurs, or anything in between—your imagination truly is the limit!