Welcome, far traveler! D&D Beyond is an official digital toolset for fifth-edition Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), the bestselling tabletop roleplaying game. You can use D&D Beyond to access the 2024 D&D Free Rules of the game, create characters for free, and more. Our marketplace has digitized versions of the official sourcebooks and adventures for D&D. These add additional character creation options and material you can use to play the game.
To get started, create a free account by clicking below:
- What is D&D?
- D&D Beyond Makes Playing Easier
- For Players: How to Create a Character
- For Dungeon Masters: How to Create a Campaign
Play With D&D's New Rules Today!
The 2024 D&D Free Rules allow you to create and play characters using the new core ruleset with updated, streamlined, and revised rules. These rules are free to access on D&D Beyond, and can be used in D&D Beyond's Character Builder with a free account, so sign up today to start building your new character!
If you want access to the full character building potential offered by the new 2024 Core Rulebooks, the 2024 Player's Handbook contains 12 classes, 4 subclasses for each class, and all the feats, spells, species, and backgrounds you need to create your next adventurous hero!
What is D&D?
Dungeons & Dragons is a roleplaying game where you and your friends collaboratively tell a story of heroism and adventure. It can be played online or in person. In D&D, you'll play as either a player or as the Dungeon Master:
As a player, you will act as a character who fights monsters and overcomes challenges, such as sneaking through a cultist's lair undetected or keeping your ship afloat in a storm. You decide who your character is and how they respond to the world around them. Over time, your character will level up, unlocking new abilities.
As a Dungeon Master, you are the world and the non-player characters that surround and interact with the player characters. You guide the player characters through the story and pit them against monsters and other obstacles. You are the quest-giver, the torrential storm, and the dragon whose keep the player characters must destroy!
Playing the Game
Rolling dice is central to D&D. You might be familiar with your typical six-sided dice. But D&D also uses four-, eight-, 10-, 12-, and 20-sided dice!
As a player, you will roll these dice to determine your character's success in a variety of situations. You will roll dice when you attack monsters, dodge an explosion of fire, and even to see how well you perform in a dance competition! As a Dungeon Master, you will roll dice for similar reasons, except you play the part of the monsters and non-player characters. You will also be responsible for telling your players whether or not their characters succeed based on how well they roll.
D&D Beyond Makes Playing Easier
The D&D Beyond toolset makes it easy to play D&D. Players can use the free Character Builder that guides you through the character creation process. D&D Beyond stores your character sheet and calculates bonuses your character gets to attack monsters and make ability checks. You can track spells, organize equipment, and even roll dice all from your character sheet. Dungeon Masters will enjoy the encounter builder when planning combat and can see their players' character sheets all in one place.
Here are some of the features you'll enjoy with D&D Beyond:
- Character Builder
- Integrated dice rolling
- Access to the 2024 D&D Free Rules
- Free app for making mobile play easier
- Combat tracker to help you keep tabs on the action
- Monster encounter builder to Dungeon Masters plan challenging fights
Is D&D Beyond free?
Signing up is free and grants you access to the 2024 D&D Free Rules, which contains everything you need to start playing. You can store up to six characters with a free account. As you purchase sourcebooks and adventures from the marketplace, you will unlock material that can add new character building options, as well as monsters and content to run your game.
D&D Beyond has two paid subscription tiers: Hero and Master. Learn about the perks of these options by clicking here.
For Players: How to Create a Character
Creating characters in D&D Beyond is easy! The character builder walks you through the character creation process. Quick Build is a great option when making your first character — you will simply choose a species and class and enter a name for your character:
If you would like full control over the character creation process, choose the Standard option. This is best for players who have played D&D before. You can turn on Help Text to walk you through the process, however. Characters you create can be found on the My Characters page.
Finding a Group to Play D&D With
Once you have created a character, it's time to play! Because D&D is a multiplayer experience, you will need to find a group of players and a Dungeon Master to play with. You can ask friends or family members to join you on an adventure. You can create a campaign for your game to keep track of all of the players' character sheets. (More details on this below.)
The D&D Beyond Discord and the Looking for Players & Groups section of the D&D Beyond forums are also a great place to start. You will find friendly Dungeon Masters who are willing to help new players learn how to play. The Discord and forums also offer places for you to ask rules questions and just chat with other people who love D&D!
For Dungeon Masters: How to Create a Campaign
A campaign in D&D Beyond is a central hub for players in your game. You can create one with your free account and can include details on the adventure, store campaign notes, and review characters who will be part of your game. If you have a Master-tier subscription, you can enable content sharing, which unlocks for your players any content you have purchased in the marketplace.
To create a campaign, navigate to the My Campaigns page under Collections. Then, select Create a Campaign.
Inviting Players to Your Campaign
Once your campaign is created, click on the name of your campaign on the My Campaigns page. Near the top-right of your campaign's page, you will find an automatically generated URL. Share that URL with your players so that they can join your campaign. If your players have already created characters, they can choose a character to add to your campaign. If they haven’t created characters yet, they’ll have the option to create one and have it automatically added to your campaign.
Adding Notes to Your Campaign
On your campaign’s page, you can create both public and private Dungeon Master notes. Public notes are great for sharing campaign details or images with your players. Private notes are good for planning ahead, taking notes of consequential player character actions, and keeping tabs on your game.
Next Steps on D&D Beyond
The 2024 D&D Free Rules are a great way to get started playing Dungeons & Dragons. But if you're ready to learn more about the game, there are a few great books you can pick up.
For new players, the 2024 Player's Handbook is the first sourcebook you'll want to purchase. It includes information on the core races and classes of the game, in addition to spells, equipment, and all the rules you need to level up your play.
New Dungeon Masters will similarly want to snag a copy of the Player's Handbook, in addition to the Dungeon Master's Guide and Monster Manual. The Dungeon Master's Guide contains rules and resources you can use to run your game. This includes information on magic items, building encounters, creating non-player characters, and more. The Monster Manual is a collection of creatures you can throw at your players. Your purchase of these sourcebooks on D&D Beyond unlocks the material for your account.
If you're a Dungeon Master who is looking for a good starter adventure, I recommend Intro to Stormwreck Isle, which you can access for free with your D&D Beyond account. This adventure leads into Dragons of Stormwreck Isle and is a great way to get your table familiar with the game. Dragon of Icespire Peak is available in the marketplace and is a similarly good adventure for new DMs.
D&D is a great way to spend time with friends and to meet new people. You'll traverse through endless worlds on your adventures as player characters or as the Dungeon Master. As you begin your journey into D&D, you will find a lively and kind community that is excited to share in the joy that the game offers. Welcome, and happy dice rolling!

Michael Galvis (@michaelgalvis) is a tabletop content producer for D&D Beyond. He is a longtime Dungeon Master who enjoys horror films and all things fantasy and sci-fi. When he isn’t in the DM’s seat or rolling dice as his anxious halfling sorcerer, he’s playing League of Legends and Magic: The Gathering with his husband. They live together in Los Angeles with their adorable dog, Quentin.
So...you want CBS Access to grant you a cheaper rate on streaming DS9 because it is actually already available(nice alliteration) on Netflix? That is CBS's product and the chances of CBS having a better quality option because they have the master copies and can provide a superior experience in that case are higher, thus valued. CBS deserves to be compensated for their experience.
So you want Amazon Prime to let you stream a film in their vast library because it also happens to be available on DVD at the library? There is no way to validate whether you have the DVD because there is no security code on the DVD, becuase that was used by the person who gave the disc to the library. And even if you did have the security code from your limited edition LOTR with all 9 hours of additional footage and 18 hours of content......Streaming it from any other source is no reason for Amazon/Netflix/Hulu to uphold a used security code from a deal they were not contractually part of. And all parties deserve to be paid for their efforts to provide a quality experience.
So you want Audible to give you an audio book read by a famous actor who does the voices and makes the sound FX because you have a PDF copy of the book with linked appendix and footnotes which may or may not have amazing illustrations if it has illustrations at all? Those are two separate products. One is an auditory experience and one is a visual panorama of links and references and pages...and both designing parties deserve to be paid for their efforts.
So you went to Disneyland and think you should be able to also go to WDW Orlando because they have many of the same rides? Many of the experiences are adjusted to change a touch here and there and provide additional surprises. Continuous upgrades or set changes are worked to provide freshness and intensity. Every person there deserves to be paid for their efforts.
I got the legendary bundle on dndbeyond. It would be great if I could link a roll20 account in settings, then on roll20's marketplace, they could have an import fee or platform activation fee and dynamic lighting up sell pitch. Or the other way around if someone bought content on fantasy grounds first then later wanted the dndbeyond experience instead. Like as though part of the ownership was an end user license that is essentially the wotc fee of the transaction covering you with official partners that participate in account linking. Ideally it would also mean that you could go to dmsguild and buy physical copies without paying the wotc fee of the transaction again to replace your stack of books your friend's cat pees on. There's a marketable point at which you then can do collector edition printings with curated cover art etc. Or how the content could be rented without being able to go to the other partner platforms (similar to Netflix because you don't own the content as a renter, and I think fantasy grounds has that rental subscription option already?) This helps the dnd brand get consumed vs call of cthulhu etc. or the also growing supply of free ttrpgs available as writers and critics notice a way to be recognized in a growing market.
I am really glad you got the Legendary bundle, because it is so great having all the book.
There is a platform fee that upsells with dynamic lighting, the module itself. The import fee you are interested in is called Beyond20 and works not only for Fantasygrounds/Roll20 but recently got upgraded to work with Discord, so you have choices you may not understand yet. If there wee a wotc fee for covering (all ) of the services, it would have to spread across the board, covering each and every service provider at once, meaning you the consumer would get passed along all the costs for Roll20 linking, DungeonMastersGuild linking, Fantasy Grounds linking, DnDBeyond linking, Syrinscape linking, and Discord linking...
...whether you are involved in using those products or not. If Netflix sent you a bill with upcharges for all the itemized international alliances the Netflix has contracts with, including stuff you don't even watch, you would dispute each and every one of them. When you buy a pen-paper hardback D&D book, it is already 50ish dollars for the original IP, the use of classes and spells, the illustrations, the hopeful ease of rules, the fact that a portion of the book was given for free as the Basic Rules, and you paid for the papaer and manufacturing/delivery/FLGS process that got it to you. That does not include any linking to the other options. Why WOTC doesn't do security codes has been covered in othe posts ad nauseum.
The upsell might be that you CAN use the products together, but the consumer has to pay for all of those vastly different items that might be used together whether they use them or not. BUT What I think you are misunderstanding is that although the original IP might belong to Hasbro/WOTC/TSR, the usage of the product had evolved into different products. Yes, they are all electronic, but Fantasy Grounds and Roll20(even though they are both Virtual Tabletops) are visually and operationally different. Syrinscape is providing "official" soundboards of quality sounds. DMG is providing additional friendly neighborhood community content beyond the base WOTC books with their license. At this point the only thing that has remained the same is the appearance of the artwork(difference between owning a painting and seeing it on screen) and the text itself(as different fonts or hyperlinks may/not exist). Everything else is different. DDBeyond has hyperlinks and a character creator and other stuff for Masterlevel DMs. Those features, every one, are their appeal to the consumer WITHOUT appealing solely to the pocketbook. You sound to be financially focused and I understand that. We all are trying to pinch pennies now that the world is risky. If you had to make a decision between a book or a program, the cost is negligible if the program, like DDB is alyas updated for spelling mistakes or the picture is pside down or the cover has no text, but the book has NOW become a collector's item because it is a snapshot in time with the fancy cover...with no words...and the spelling mistakes that make the sentences read funny. Each has the value of the item rather than the collection. You have to decide how you want to use the products laid before you. They will either appeal to you enough to purchase content, or they won't. But it is not ANYBODY's job in this time of pinching pennies to lower the price when they are already working to increase value. Just as a spear that is slowly becoming golden would not be sold for cheaper than market rate, nor should any of the D&D products be be required to lower their price because you bought a different product with the same pictures or words. They can, but they don't have to. Nobody gets free books because they have a dictionary and an artbook and those have every word and most pictures.
If you already have a physical copy of the players handbook, do you or do you not have to buy another copy to get its content on D&D Beyond? If not, how would one get the content on D&D Beyond? Is there a code or key that we can redeem?
You have to buy the book again. It has been said a lot here.
Edit: Love your name. Prefer House Stark.
Cool. I've never played d & d before/
does dnd beyond have a resource like zoom or Skype to actually play with it? Or will I need a site like that separate to play?
Great post! Very much appreciated.
Sort of, they have a discord server now. https://discord.gg/dndbeyond
Question: Is there any way to meet your players, online, in D&D beyond? Like a zoom/face-time thing, except on the website?
Thanks!
Not on dndbeyond.com at this time, though a virtual tabletop is on the development roadmap. On the dndbeyond discord server however at least voice and probably video are available.
I gotta say that it makes me excited to hear of all the people joining the fun in D&D. I am enraptured by the idea of new players. i can't wait to hear all the great stories and such.
Our AL group, Quests R' Us, has grown a lot recently.
Thanks!😃
Not sure why I hadn't read this yet, but it's great. Very helpful, thank you.
Glad we could all help you, my fellow gamer!
I found dndbeyond today and this was really helpful! thank you!
As a supplement, I made a presentation/PDF a while back that covers the basics of how the game mechanics work, for beginners to know before they create a character. It doesn't cover races and classes, but rather the mechanics of rolling dice to beat DC/AC and the basics of attacks and spellcasting. I think this is important for beginners before creating a character so that they can decide whether they want the added complexity of being a spellcaster. Link to the post here (Reddit post).
I'm still fairly new to D&D but this really helps me learn a lot about the game. I've even got my younger sister interested in playing D&D.
STUPID IS THIS?IS this a game or what? i m 10 year old