Game sessions can last anywhere from half an hour to the entire day, and a campaign can last anywhere from 2 to hundreds of sessions. DMs may also choose to run an adventure from a published source book. When a DM runs an adventure in a world they've created, it's considered a ' homebrew' campaign. When a DM wants to run a single game session as a discrete one-off adventure, these are called one-shots. The game is usually played episodically, with multiple sessions of gameplay so that a complex story can unfold.

As the players declare their intended actions, the DM determines the consequences of those actions in the context of their world. The set of abilities, as well as a set of numbers for tracking Health and other attributes are recorded on a Character Sheet. A PC might be a magic-slinging Wizard, a brawny Fighter, a sneaky and crafty Rogue, a wise and supportive Cleric, or maybe a charming Bard, among many other choices. The players and their characters have free will, plus a set of abilities their characters can do based on their chosen Class. The characters in the world the DM/GM creates are known as Non-Player Characters, or NPCs. The Dungeon Master (DM), sometimes called the Game Master (GM), is the person who conveys information about a world - environment, characters and dialogue, creature actions, and sensory details - to the rest of the players, who all control a character ( Player Character, or PC) who exists in the world the Dungeon Master is describing. It's known as a Pencil & Paper Tabletop Role-Playing Game (TTRPG).

D&D, in two words, is Collaborative Storytelling.

D&d dragon character