In the standard game you have a choice between five character classes, these being Amazon, Sorceress, Barbarian, Paladin and Necromancer. Each has their own unique skills and abilities for example the necromancy can call forth skeletal warriors from the corpses of slain foe's..
Your character starts with a basic set of weapons and no armour , a small amount of life force and mana (magic energy) points, as you progress through the game you earn experience points which in turn lead to level advances.Each time you advance a level you get to 'upgrade' certain physical attributes, its up to you which attributes you increase each time so how your character fares in later levels depends on how well you distribute your advancement points.
Along the way you will find items dropped by monsters ( or given as rewards for performing set goals) . These range from magical rings and amulets to weapons and armour. You may find that you cannot use some items, this could be just because your character simply isnt ready to use them ( not enough of a certain attribute) ,or that they need to be identified by use of a scroll to begin with and later by a character you rescue....
The gameplay itself is fairly straightforward, click the mouse over a section of floor and you'll go there, click on an enemy and you'll attack etc....there are a few keyboard controls and again their very simple to grasp...buttons 1 to 4 represents 'slots' on your characters equipment belt which is used to carry healing potions. Pressing the key uses the equivalent potion...
The single player game is fun but can sometimes be a little too difficult, I much prefer to play online...There are two ways of playing online. The first is on a dedicated free server hosted by Battlenet , here you will find a vast number of public games you could join or you could create one of your own. Don't want people you don't know playing? then you have the option to password protect your game so that only those you tell the pass word to can join.
The second method of playing online is over a tcp/ip connection, one of you hosts a server/game and tells the ip to the others who will be playing. I rarely use this method myself and would reccomend that its only used between very good friends.
If your not happy with just the standard five character classes you can always get the Lord of Destruction expansion pack which introduces two new character classes (druid and assassin) as well as a plethora of new items and an entire new level!
There's also the HardCore method of play for those who think its too easy, but be warned , in standard play if you die its not the end of things, you ressurect back in town and can go back to where you died and recover your equipment from your corpse, not so in hardcore....when your dead your dead, time to create a new cahracter and start again...
Unfortunately this is another game where cheats and hackers abound , but Battle-net are trying to restrict the activities of these players and are constantly updating the software with patches designed to nullify the effects of the more common hacks....we are currently awaiting the release of the latest patch (1.10) with baited breath, more on that when it happens.