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[Dozebôm Lolumzalìs]

So out of my family of six (myself included), four other people have shown an interest in playing DnD. (My mother has not. She thinks it "too geeky." In related news, I'm never posting my address here, for fear of a geeky backlash on my house. )

I really want to play DnD with them, especially since they might be the only people around who I could join to play it. But... I don't actually have any money to get the thing started. Does anybody know of any websites in which I could find all the necessary documents for DnD?

Spoiler: avast! (click to show/hide)

Avast, ye landlubbers! I be not afraid to sail upon the high seas and steal from under the Queen's flag!

...I'm not sure whether it's okay to speak of illegal things on the Pirate Bay 12. Nobody quote me talking about pirating, please. Also inform me if it is, in fact, against the forum rules.

[BorkBorkGoesTheCode]

The D20 SRD is available on the Wizards of the Coast website, but it lacks any level advancement rules. You could buy a copy of Unearthed Arcana if you have $40.00 at least, or you could look up dandwiki.com

[Harry Baldman]

You could do a game of Pathfinder, which is like 3.5 D&D with minor differences, a lot more stuff and also with pretty much everything you'll ever need freely available on the Internet.

And yeah, certain things you shouldn't bring up on a forum.

... or you could look up dandwiki.com

Be warned, there's a lot of homebrew stuff in there, so it's a weird mishmash of SRD material and miscellaneous stuff.

[Criptfeind]

Posting links to copy written material is against the forum terms of service. So people probably won't secretly send you PMs anyway. Probably.

What edition of D&D Are you interested in though? 3.5 is pretty widely played, but also pretty complex. 4E is a lot different, it gets a lot of hate but I think it's okay, it's mostly a tactical game though. 5E gets some hate as well but I think it's an okay if pretty watered down and simplified (not a bad thing necessarily) take on the game.

Pathfinder is pretty much free as Harry points out. And thus would be the easiest in your situation.

The SRD is good for 3.5 but doesn't have everything you need for a game. Danddwiki.com is a pretty shit site.

[BorkBorkGoesTheCode]

You could do a game of Pathfinder, which is like 3.5 D&D with minor differences, a lot more stuff and also with pretty much everything you'll ever need freely available on the Internet.

And yeah, certain things you shouldn't bring up on a forum.

... or you could look up dandwiki.com

Be warned, there's a lot of homebrew stuff in there, so it's a weird mishmash of SRD material and miscellaneous stuff.

Posting links to copy written material is against the forum terms of service. So people probably won't secretly send you PMs anyway. Probably.

What edition of D&D Are you interested in though? 3.5 is pretty widely played, but also pretty complex. 4E is a lot different, it gets a lot of hate but I think it's okay, it's mostly a tactical game though. 5E gets some hate as well but I think it's an okay if pretty watered down and simplified (not a bad thing necessarily) take on the game.

Pathfinder is pretty much free as Harry points out. And thus would be the easiest in your situation.

The SRD is good for 3.5 but doesn't have everything you need for a game. Danddwiki.com is a pretty shit site.

While Pathfinder is an improvement, Dozebôm Lolumzalìs was asking about D&D.

[Harry Baldman]

While Pathfinder is an improvement, Dozebôm Lolumzalìs was asking about D&D.

And Pathfinder is D&D 3.75 is the point that's being made here. As well as widely and freely available.

5E only has three books (plus some Unearthed Arcana nonsense and, I believe, some campaign materials with class options you also don't need), and is a lot leaner than 3.5 and Pathfinder, so that might be a decent option as well. Theoretically I think you could DM a game of 5E with just the Player's Handbook, or at least just the PH and the Monster Manual, though you'd need to play some things by ear.

[Tawa]

You could do a game of Pathfinder, which is like 3.5 D&D with minor differences, a lot more stuff and also with pretty much everything you'll ever need freely available on the Internet.

I must also recommend Pathfinder. It turns a lot of people off by simply not being D&D, but it's basically D&D with the serial numbers filed off--I can personally confirm that some parts of the SRD are literally taken word-for-word from the D&D 3.5 Dungeon Master's Guide. Not only is Pathfinder Not!D&D 3.5, but it also has a ton of totally new content the 3.5 designers never dreamed of, like the Alchemist character class.

The website Harry Baldman linked is nice but also has a lot of 3rd-party crud and a huge amount of unnecessary variant rules and such, so I would recommend the Pathfinder Reference Document instead, which is easier to navigate, offers nearly as much Paizo content, and as a plus doesn't have the often bizarre and disruptive ads on d20pfsrd.com.

You won't find out the specifics about leveling up from those sites, I believe, but if you ask around it's pretty easy to figure out.
You will need some physical things regardless of whether you play Pathfinder or D&D, though. The foremost is paper and pencils (definitely not pens!) for character sheets. You'll need some kind of board or sheet with a grid on it for battles; I made one of my own a couple years back out of the lid of a pizza box. You'll need miniatures of some sort to represent characters during fights; you can use pieces of paper with names written on them, or buy miniatures, or anything in between, really. And, of course, you'll need imagination.

Also, you'll probably have to build your own setting for this since the exact specifics of most published settings are locked away in the depths of expensive copyrighted books.

[BorkBorkGoesTheCode]

Unearthed Arcana had Level Independent XP award levelling system.

[FallacyofUrist]

So yeah, are you looking for DnD in particular, or would another role-playing game be permissible?

Because if a different role-playing game would be permissible, I have a suggestion to make, heheheh.
~~~
But if it's just DnD you're looking for... eh, ditto on Pathfinder being awesome, but if it's just DnD... again, the SRD is freely available.
But still, Pathfinder is awesome.

[scriver]

5th Edition also released a SRD, which is basically a free but limited demo version of the game for what players are concerned.

Not to be confused with the 5th Edition Basic rules, which is another demo version previously released.

[Sappho]

Are you interested specifically in D&D, or are you interested in a fun role-playing game? Because if you have any interest in a system which is designed around being fun and exciting rather than realistic and tedious and complicated, I can heartily recommend QAGS. Its goal is to tell fun stories and do amazing things, and it does it very, very well. It contains a system to essentially bribe the GM into letting you do fantastical things (for example, you're playing a spy reminiscent of 007 and want to run across the catwalk while all the bad guys fire machine guns at you, and have all the bullets bounce off the railings - if you have enough YY points, the GM might let you do it, especially if you role-play it well). It adapts equally well to any setting, including fantasy, and is very simple and easy to pick up and use. Also, the books are funny and entertaining to read.

And you can get all the basic "Qik-Start" rules and character sheets on their web site for FREE. And even if you want to buy the full game books, they're super cheap. _{(Including the one that I wrote, which in no way influences my endorsement of this system, of course.)}

[Skyrunner]

Another vote for Pathfinder. It's free and has an excellent reference document at d20pfsrd.com, what's to hate?

[Jimmy]

Pathfinder is a perfect entry point, provided your group utilises a tabletop grid and miniatures. If you don't play with minis, I'd recommend avoiding Pathfinder, as much of the combat system is designed with a tactical tabletop grid for a reference. Since you don't want to spend money on the system, I'm assuming you don't have a lot of the additional gaming paraphernalia that goes with a rules-heavy system such as Pathfinder.

[Skyrunner]

The one RL group I've played with uses little tokens instead of miniatures, and a simple white-erase board with a grid on it.

[scriver]

Oh and yeah, I would suggest 5th Ed as an entry for new people too. 3.5, and even more so pathfinder, can be a bit overwhelming for fresh starters. 5th Ed has less you need to understand the ramifications of before you get going and less plottry numbers to keep in mind.