My assumption when giving out these pearls of wisdom is that you already have a guitar, have the means to tune it properly, and have some basic skills (i.e., perfunctory chord knowledge, ability to play bar chords, etc.)

The Chromatic Scale includes every note from one letter – say, A – to the next higher or lower A. Let’s go the higher route for now. So, by playing the 5th string open [A], and then playing every fret on the 5th string up to and including the 12th fret you have completed the Chromatic Scale from low A to high A.