Modified from Dungeons & Dragons for Dummies (2005)
Five do's
1. Think about what you want to do on your turn while other people are taking their turns.
Time is the single most precious commodity at the gaming table. Most D&D sessions run for about three or four hours. If you take ten minutes to figure out what your perfect move is during each round of combat you get into, you're taking more than your share.
Instead of everybody getting getting the chance to bash through five or six exciting encounters in the course of that session, you might limit them to half that many. Plan ahead so that your turns don't take forever and everyone gets to play more D&D.
While your friends hack the monsters, and the monsters hack back, figure out which of your powers you're likely to use when your turn comes up again. Think about which foe you're going to attack and whether you need to manoeuvre or use any magic item powers to make it all work. Sometimes your plans will get spoiled by things that happen when it's not your turn - but sometimes they won't, and you'll give everybody at the table a little more D&D for their time.
2. Do the math ahead of time.
By the third or fourth time you've attacked with your longsword, you ought to know what your attack bonus is. The same for the damage dice on that fireball spell you cast a couple of times a night. Don't figure these things out from scratch each time you pick up the dice - be proactive and organised. Look at the actions you undertake all the time, and add up your bonuses and modifiers before you come to the table. No one minds too much if you don't know your character's carrying capacity off the top of your head, but you shouldn't have to figure out your Armour Class each and every time some monster takes a swing at you.
Part of this tip involves figuring out some numbers before you come to the game, but the other part of this tip is hard for some folks: Write things down in places where you can find them easily. We suggest using a standard character sheet for this sort of thing.
3. Exercise some common courtesy.
If you told your buddies you were going to meet them at 19:00 to go to the movies, you wouldn't expect them to be happy with you if you wandered in at 20:15. The same thing applies for a D&D game. Show up on time so your buddies don't have to wait for you before they start playing. If you find you can't be on time, message or call somebody to let 'em know you'll be late. At least that way your friends can decide whether to wait for you or to start the game without you.
Miss manners is right more often than she is wrong at the gaming table. Throw in some money for the pizza. Bring the fikabröd and fruit (at least some of the time). Be a good guest. Heck, you know this stuff. Just be considerate.
4. Stay on target, stay focused, stay in the game.
Every D&D game we've ever attended featured at least some amount of senseless cutting up and Monty Python movie quotes for no particular reason. Gaming is fun; it's a social activity. Part of the reason you're at the table is because you enjoy the company of the people you're gaming with, and you want to socialise. But try to recognise when people are trying to move the game along and get somewhere, and when people are kicking back and shooting the breeze.
When the game's on, pay attention to what's going down. If the Dungeon Master is talking, pay attention! Nothing is more annoying than a DM giving a crucial encounter setup, adventure background, or key bit of NPC conversation, only to have one of the players pipe up and say, "Huh? I was looking at my spells."
5. Help your friends to shine.
This one's a little tough. When you have the chance to grab the spotlight, it's natural to want to do exactly that. But sometimes it's actually more rewarding to let another player at the table have that moment in the sun.
Try to look out for situations that a particular character is suited for and defer to that other character if you can. For example, if you're playing and armour-plated fighter and the party needs to scout out a side passage that might lead into a monster's lair, you might say, "I'm the toughest guy, I'll go look." Or you might have a look over to your friend who's a stealthy rogue and say, "Steve, Kerdigard's no good at scouting. I'll follow your lead on this." Every character at the table is best at something, so let your friends show off at the things their characters do best.
Five don'ts
Now for the flip side - here are some things you should avoid doing at the table:
1. Don't hog the spotlight.
If there are four players and a DM at the table, you should assume that you're entitled to about one-quarter of the DM's time. If you insist on being the character who scouts every tunnel, tackles every puzzle, talks to every NPC, and dictates the strategy for every fight, you're being a bore. You're not the star of the show; D&D is a TV show with an ensemble cast, so you have to expect that sometimes other players will get good lines, too.
It's usually ok to take point on something that your character is the best at or to roleplay a long conversation that's of vital interest to your character, but remember that you've got the spotlight, and it's good to share it.
2. Don't disrespect the other characters.
Back in the Dark Old Days of gaming, many players thought of D&D as a fiercely competitive game. Squabbling over the best magic items in treasure hoards, stealing from inattentive allies, or even bullying lower-level characters were accepted behaviours in some games. None of that old-school garbage flies these days. Who wants to use their leisure time to play a game where their character gets picked on, shoved around, or stolen from?
Don't slip the DM notes saying that your 10th-level rogue is going to pick the fighter's pockets when she isn't looking. Don't threaten to vaporise your allies with a powerful spell if they don't let you have the ring of protection the evil wizard was wearing. Don't sneer at people, run down their characters, or generally go out of your way to let them know how stupid you think they are for being in the same game with you. It doesn't play well in real life, and it's just as unwelcome at the gaming table.
3. Don't be a poor loser.
It's natural to want to be successful in the game. When things don't go your way, try not to take it personally. Sometimes your character's going to get killed in horrific and spectacular ways. It happens.
We've seen more than a few players absolutely enraged, embittered, or brought to the point of tears by the death of their beloved character. If you play a long-running campaign and get attached to your alter ego in the DM's world, it's only natural to feel disappointed when the game doesn't go your way. Try to remember, if your character's never in any real danger, there isn't all that much excitement to any game. On occasion, you're going to have a character get mauled, because the other 90 percent of the time, it's more exciting to be worried about what's going to happen next.
Usually, characters get killed in one of two ways: You did something stupid and it didn't work out, or a monster just got lucky. When an ogre critical hits against your 2nd-level wizard and deals out 28 points of damage, well, the ogre got lucky. Why get mad about it? The vast majority of DMs don't start an encounter with the intent of killing a specific character, so don't blame the Dungeon Master! That's just the way the dice fell. Besides, truly horrific character deaths make for great "war stories".
4. Don't disrespect the supporting cast.
Most D&D adventures are populated with a whole host of "supporting cast" — nonplayer characters the DM uses to populate the places your character visits. Sometimes these NPCs are patrons or employers who give your character directions to the adventure. Sometimes they're sources of Information, folks who might know interesting rumors or who can point you toward useful resources. And sometimes they're nothing more than window dressing, a little bit of color the DM uses to give you a chance to roleplay your character. It's bad form to make the DM feel stupid for putting a "talky" encounter in front of you instead of something your character can just kill.
So how do players abuse NPCs? One classic bit is acting like a thug or putting on a show of sneering superiority because you're pretty sure your character is a few levels higher than the poor schmuck he or she is talking to. We don't know why some players enjoy the pretend-bullying of imaginary people, but they do. Another common tactic is the “outrageous Insult and take-back." It runs like this: “I shove my wand of fiery bolts up the baron's nose and tell him his brains are gonna be all over the ceiling if he doesn't give us what we want. Ha. ha! No. I don't really do that."
The point of all this is that there's constructive roleplaying, and there's destructive roleplaying. While you're slapping around the town guards because you're playing a 10th-level character and they're first-level NPCs, the clock's running on the real adventure, and the DM isn't having any fun. You want to keep the DM happy and show his or her game world some respect.
5. Don't argue with the DM
The Dungeon Master isn't infallible. Sometimes he or she will remember a rule wrong, forget that you're holding your action, or overlook an obvious plot hole in the adventure. But it's accepted gaming etiquette to let the DM run the game as he or she sees fit. The DM is the guy or gal who's putting in a lot of extra work to make the game fun for everybody else. Cut him or her some slack.
That said, you're within your rights to ask a DM to check a rule that you think he or she got wrong. If the DM says. "Joe, the evil cleric used command on Kerdigard to make you attack your friends." you can point out that you're not sure if the command prayer can actually make your character swing at his friends. If the DM insists he or she is right, the best thing to do is let it slide and go along with the way the DM wants to play it. That way you don't stop the game altogether and leave the other players sitting around waiting for the argument to resolve. You can always take up your point later on. after the game session is over.
If the DM is spectacularly wrong, spitefully inconsistent, uses NPCs to bully your characters (see the previous bullet), or refuses to be questioned, you might be dealing with a pocket tyrant. You'll have to decide whether you can live with playing the game by the, ah, unique rules the DM uses for his or her game, or whether you'd rather not let this person tyrannize your gaming time. If the DM is a great storyteller, maybe you can put up with his or her butchery of the rules. But if he or she runs a bad game all around, maybe someone else at the table would be a better DM.
Added 2018-04-23
