You’re probably here because you’re looking to get into DnD. Wonderful! DnD can be somewhat confusing in the beginning, and you’re almost overloaded with information about the books you’re supposed to buy, should not buy, and so forth.
One important question, however, is do you have to buy anything? What’s the cost of those essential things? I’m here to help you out with that problem – how much does it cost to start with DnD?
It doesn’t necessarily cost anything to start playing DnD – you can always borrow material from friends or join games shop playing sessions. However, a lot of players recommend getting the Players’ Handbook or the Starter Set, which will set you back $23 and $13 respectively on Amazon.
There are multiple ways you can save money when playing DnD you don’t have to spend any money. Read more to find out how to play DnD for free, what you should buy when you’re first starting, and more.
How Much Does It Cost To Start Playing DnD?
The majority of DnD players have spent money on the game. Whether or not you do, and how much money you spend on the game, depends quite a bit partly on your role (DM/PC), and it also depends on how much you want to spend.
If you have decided that you want to spend a bit of money to get started, then I would recommend getting the Players’ Handbook (PHB). It’s all you need to get started. It contains everything from character creation to combat.
The PHB is around $23 on Amazon right now, which is a fair price for such a good book. Other good things to have, which you probably have laying around somewhere, are pens, paper, and erasers.
Like I said earlier, the cost of playing DnD can vary from everything from completely free to a lot of money. A good idea for completely new groups of players is to pool money together and buy stuff together. After all, DnD is a collective experience.
Read more: The Cheapest DnD Books
How To Play DnD For Free
As I briefly touched on before, DnD doesn’t have a pay gate or anything like that to simply play the game. The basic rules of DnD are available for free, provided by Wizards of the Coast. This is a good way for new players to find out if they like the game or not.
So, how do you play DnD for free? Well, there are a couple of things other than the basic rules that you can do. One common thing is simply to walk into a games shop that runs weekly DnD or something like that and ask to join.
If you have contacts and friends who play DnD, you can simply borrow material from them in the beginning. Most DnD players are very engaging and friendly, and they want you to get into it as much as they do.
Other free documents include the System Reference Document (SRD), which is available free on DnD Beyond. This document is helpful when you want to make an adventure under the 5e edition ruleset for example.
Character sheets are also available for free. You can either print them out using Wizards of the Coast’s website or have them digitally at DnD Beyond. Character sheets are the stats and notes for your character, and the resource is pretty much a must-have.
If you want some free adventures, you should check out the DMs Guild. It’s an amazing website that publishes community-made content. Some of it gets picked to be published by WotC themselves.
Content on the DMs Guild is usually “pay what you want”, which means that you’re free to contribute authors if you want to.
Lastly, I can recommend downloading the introductory content available from WotC. They sometimes publish long chapters from adventures as teasers. Often these are well-written, and you can modify these to play as “one-shots”. These introductory chapters are most often very well written.
What To Buy To Start Playing DnD?
If you have decided to keep playing the game and put some money into it, you might be wondering what you should buy first. I have recommendations on what to buy first, but remember that these aren’t strictly necessary to run a game of DnD.
In terms of books, I recommend getting the Players Handbook first, as a player (as opposed to a DM). The next thing on your shopping list should be a set of dice. Even if your group already has a complete set of dice, it’s nice to not have to share them across your group.
Check what edition of the game your group is going to play, this is important – you don’t want to have books of different editions when playing.
If you’re going to DM, I can recommend buying the Dungeon Master’s Guide and the Monster Manual. They’re good tools for DMs who want to get into DMing, and for DMs who want to create their own adventures and worlds.
Lastly, one good option is to buy the Starter Set. With the Starter Set, you get 5 pre-generated characters, an adventure, a rule book, and dice.
Read more: How Much Does It Cost To Buy All DnD Books?
Is The DnD Starter Set Worth It?
The Starter Set is a popular first option for many people, and for good reason. It’s a lot of useful stuff in one bundle, and relatively cheap for what you’re getting. It costs around $13 on Amazon excluding shipping, which is a really good deal.
You can complement the Starter Set by buying additional dice, as it is nice not having to share dice. This depends on the size of your playing group, however. If you’re 2-3 people you can make do with one set of dice.
One very positive aspect of the Starter Set is that it sets you up for a simple but good experience. A common mistake for new players is that they buy for example the PHB, DMG, and MM – then get stuck in the rules for every decision in the game.
With the Starter Set, you don’t get that at all. The content is quality as well. The adventure is solid, the rulebook is nice, and the dice alone make it almost worth it economically.
One thing that the Starter Set does not offer you, however, is the adversity of options. The races available for the Starter Set are humans, elves, halflings, and dwarves. As I said, the focus of the Starter Set is to keep things fairly simple, which in itself isn’t a bad thing in my opinion.
Can You Play DnD With The Starter Set?
Absolutely. As I mentioned previously, the Starter Set is a fantastic first buy to play with. More specifically, you can play the Lost Mines of Phandelver, the adventure that comes with the set.
You can then decide if DnD is something that you want to continue with. You will at some point need other resources to build your own characters and adventures.
Can You Play DnD Without The Books?
You can borrow books, you can purchase the basic books such as the ones above. Can you play DnD without using any books?
As a beginner, it might be hard to run a game of DnD without any books. An experienced DM could do it.
The best way would be to run an adventure that you’ve made yourself and use resources online to find statistics and so forth for monsters. You could also use the basic rules. While this doesn’t provide that many options in terms of races and classes, it’s a good deal for not having any books.
There are a few free documents to download to expand the pool of classes and races, however. I recommend downloading the free and legal pdf Elemental Evil’s Player Companion for this purpose.