What is D&D?
That's a big question - but if you're asking it, it's definitely worth answering.
Dungeons and Dragons is a roleplaying game built to be played together on a tabletop with friends - equal parts shared storytelling, social event, grand adventure, and imagination. A Game Master (mostly me!) describes the world - everything you see, everyone you meet, every event that transpires - and you, as a player, taking on the persona of a character in the world, figure out what you want to do. This results in the GM adjudicating the action and responding with what happens next.
At the end of the day, it becomes a shared narrative adventure in a grand fantasy setting, limited only by the imagination of the participants. A great game of let's pretend in a shared environment.
Character:
You don't go into this as yourself - well, most of the time. Instead, you're going to take on the persona of another .. well. Being. Someone you create, with specific strengths and weaknesses that may not be your own; someone perhaps not even human.. perhaps not even alive. You'll decide not only what you can do, but why you can do it.
Have you ever wanted to be a hard-bitten mercenary bounty-hunter, chasing fugitives across a fantasy world? Maybe you've always dreamed of bending the raw force of magic to your will - or maybe you've imagined singing songs that literally charmed your audience to follow you.
The possibilities are near infinite. Stealthy rogue, doughty fighter, mysterious sorcerer, tormented warlock - they're all there for you to try out, and to spend some time being fictional for a while with friends.
Conflict:
Of course, when you were a kid and you played let's pretend, you invariably got into an argument - "I have a shield!" "My laser is more powerful than your shield!" and so on. In order to prevent that kind of back and forth, we use a System. This is a set of rules that attempts to describe all the stuff that we fought about as children and change it from an argument to a framework on which we all agree.
Dungeons and Dragons uses dice to create a bit of randomness, rules to determine how good your persona is at something, and then puts that all together to figure out what happens when you try something with a bit of risk, go to hit that monster with your sword, or ... whatever else you can think of.
The Point:
What's the goal?
That's the best part. Nobody wins in D&D in a traditional sense - we tell a story together, we grow in power, we explore a world and our fictional selves.. and we figure out *what happens next*.