Hiya everybody
I think I can shed some light on the entire D&D experience by directing your attention to this article on "Howstuffworks" It it located here :
http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/leisure/brain-games/beginners-guide-dungeons-and-dragons.htm(darn system won't link... you'll need to cut and paste)
It's an informative article on the orgins of the game, and a brief overview of how the system works. Read that first, then come back to this post. It will only take you a few minutes and will make everything that follows in this post more understandable.
I apologize to the non-English speakers, I don't know where or how to find a similar article in various languages.
What we did was utilize a few sites to expidite matters. One is a site that will help you generate a character. That one is located here:
http://www.dragonsfoot.org/fe/articles/1echargen.shtmlThis site utilizes the Advanced D&D rules for the character generation. Now the article at "Howstuffworks" says that the two game systems (AD&D and D&D) are incompatable, but that is nonsense for us, we can alter what we need to in order to make things work. The Advanced Dungeons & Dragons allows for more types of characters and classes. We just adapted the systems to include them, while keeping the D&D system (which is more basic) for the game play. i.e. Satoire's "Half Elf" character would not be allowed in the basid D&D version.
The goal of the game is quite simple. Keep your character alive! You will embark on an adventure or quest (think "The Lord of the Rings). Where you will need to battle various monsters, solve puzzles, and do all of this as a team.
We used another site for the dice rolls (which we also kept simple), and that site is here:
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/dice/dice.htmI asked the players to post all the numbers for all the dice. I was able to allocate their movements, battle, hit point strikes, and almost anything else I needed to complete their turn from those sets of numbers. I have a reference I used to generate the monsters, then adapted them for the scenario. That reference also shows the results for the dice numbers.
We were discussing amongst ourselves that some members may not want to use their User Name as a character name. I think that would work, also. Terri found a site that will help you to generate a name for almost anything. I used it for the scenario at Crystal Lake to get names for various things. That site is here:
http://www.rinkworks.com/namegen/So there you have it, a brief overview of what we did, and how the system works.
Oh!! ...and for you Gnome lovers... your character can be a Gnome!! Weeeeeeeeeeee!!Hope this helps ya!!