Starting in June, I'm planning on running a D&D campaign with my girlfriend and the kids. The kids are both 12. A boy & a girl. I haven't played D&D in 20 years. I've purchase the core rulebooks, the basic set and a bunch of miniatures. I'm planning on running the Age of Worms adventure path with them.
I've done a lot of reading, and I'm pretty comfortable with the 3.5 edition rules now. I did a quick playtest with my girlfriend and the daughter, and I've identified some areas I can improve on in my DMing and things to make the experience flow a little better.
I was just wondering if anyone had any input or any experience sbringing their kids into RPGs that they might share with me.
I've been DM'ing since the 1980's and I brought my own kids along for the D&D ride starting when they were about 8 or 10 years old. I'm now running my 4 kids through Dungeon Magazine's Adventure Path (they're all older now, two are in their twenties, but they still enjoy coming over to play). Games are a great way to stay in touch with your kids and their friends!
When I first started out, I handed them each a set of 3X5 cards of all of the items that they owned. On each card, I drew or taped a simple picture of their item and wrote the stats on the back. Ten years later, my kids still remember those 3X5 cards!
Also, using miniature figures on a gridmat was essential to help them understand the room layouts and to allow them to most easily figure out battle tactics.
Have Fun!!! you'll have some games that your kids will long remember!
Hurm.
My first is on the way and I can't wait to teach her the game. I'm very jealous of both of you ;)
Oh, I almost forgot another fun thing to do! For a small amount of real money, I purchased plastic coins and small, colored plastic gems to represent the real gold and gems. Occasionally, I shopped for cheap plastic rings, bracelets, and neckaces too. For all but the largest stashes of treasure, it's a handy way to keep track of those items and your kids will really feel rich!
Hurm.
I've been DM'ing since the 1980's and I brought my own kids along for the D&D ride starting when they were about 8 or 10 years old. I'm now running my 4 kids through Dungeon Magazine's Adventure Path (they're all older now, two are in their twenties, but they still enjoy coming over to play). Games are a great way to stay in touch with your kids and their friends!
When I first started out, I handed them each a set of 3X5 cards of all of the items that they owned. On each card, I drew or taped a simple picture of their item and wrote the stats on the back. Ten years later, my kids still remember those 3X5 cards!
Also, using miniature figures on a gridmat was essential to help them understand the room layouts and to allow them to most easily figure out battle tactics.
Have Fun!!! you'll have some games that your kids will long remember!
Hurm.
Yes, I think that gaming is going to be a great way of bonding with the kids. I also am hoping it will promote them using their imagination, strengthen their reading skills, and the roleplay should at least at some level inspire some social skills and confidence building. Also, it should develop their problem solving skills. I'm not necessarily saying the kids lack these skills, so much as saying it's a good way to reinforce them.
I agree with you on the props too. The first thing I did was buy a bunch of the Dungeons & Dragons Miniatures. And now I've purchased some cardstock model sets from WorldWorks Games -- they had a writeup in Dragon an issue or two ago for their modular "Chunky Dungeons" product. I've been building cardstock models every evening while watching tv with the girlfriend. At first she said I needed professional help because I spent 20 hours in a week making paper models for miniature play. Then I pointed out that those same 20 hours, she just spent sitting and watching tv. Now she wants to make some models too :P
I'm big on hand outs, print outs of monsters and characters encountered, and I'd like to pick up some props. The coins, jewels, rings etc are a great idea. Even if the 12 year olds don't get the full impact of them -- although I'm sure they'll think it's cool -- the soon to be six year old will really appreciate it.
The 3x5 cards sound kinda cool too. Part of the learning curve of d&d is actually things longtime players take for granted. Not the rules, but knowing what splint mail is, or a halberd. Pictures next to the stats could be really helpful.
I know the next issue ships on the 17th, and I'm wanting to actually use it within 2 weeks or so of that, so I doing all the 3x5 cards may take some extra work to knock out in time. Especially since I want to use 3d scenery for the encounters as much as possible, so I'll probably be doing a large amount of model building in a short period of time :P
Anyway, I'm definitely looking forward to getting the kids back into it, and I'm actually really looking forward to playing, period. It's been a long time, and I remember having a lot of fun with it when I was younger.
Oooh! Cardstock models! I might just use those for my big kids in AP1 for a scene where an umber hulk rampages through the town!
I'd be interested in hearing how your first session goes, so be sure to post some comments afterwards.
Hurm.
Oooh! Cardstock models! I might just use those for my big kids in AP1 for a scene where an umber hulk rampages through the town!
I'd be interested in hearing how your first session goes, so be sure to post some comments afterwards.
Hurm.
I'll formulate a plan for the cardstock layout as soon as I see the first adventure. I'll have pictures available of the build too. :D
My daughter would absolutely be horrified to try D&D, since it is something that grown-ups do! She's 12. My son is 2, so he's still too young.
I think it's funny because when I was a kid, one of the reasons I played D&D was a little bit for the "shock" value it brought to adults....my, how times have changed!!
I think that all the ideas you guys have posted here about how to make the game appealing to your kids are very good and I'll keep them in mind if and when the opportunity presents itself.
My friend and I were talking about getting our kids involved with D&D at some point in the future since both of our kids are under 1 years old. =) This thread has some really helpful ideas...
We were wondering if anyone has heard of any modules written for young kids that may have moral lessons, a la Brothers Grimm. If not, how about adventures with easy black and white decisions for the characters to make.
In other words, we're looking for some good G-rated reference material.
Thanks for any help.
Index cards are a great gaming aid in many ways. Using them to represent items helps people manage their inventory. For example, if someone uses a potion of 'cure light wounds', they have to hand the DM the corresponding index card. If one player loans another player an item, they index card actually changes hands. When people just keep track of things on paper, sometimes "clerical errors" occur, and items get duplicated, or people "forget" to mark-off that potion they used, etc. For kids just learning the game, I think this might help make things less confusing.
Also, you can create a card for each spell a player has ready, with all the key info written on the card - this saves having to look things up every time.
Finally, you can have cards with AC, attack bonus, saves,etc. written down for each player and each NPC/monster for your own reference. During combat, you can sort the cards into initiative order, then just flip through the deck. This helps keep track of who's turn it is. Plus, you can write down damage, modifiers due to spells,etc. as you go. You don't have to ask the players for as much info, because you've got it all right in front of you.
And if you have a laptop computer handy, you can use something like Excel spreadsheets instead of real index cards.This is really helpful at high levels, when you have lots more details to keep track of.
These are tips to help any game run more smoothly, but when playing with younger kids, I think it's especially important to keep the game moving. If you spend 5 minutes looking up a spell or feat in the books, people get bored, lose interest, wander away for snacks, etc.
goood ideas ^
you guys must have really good handle animal checks to get little kids to understand DnD...JK!
whenever i teach the game to kids at my school i ask another teacher who knows how to play to come and help the kids manage their sheets, this is the most overwhelming part of the game for 12-14 yearolds and having an adult who does nothing but help them find stuff on their sheets and point out what dice to roll is very helpful - also don't force decision making on new characters - give them a range of choices and let them pick one until they get the hang of it (choose your own adventure like)
Miniatures are a must, premade iconic characters are good also(first timers do not care to make characters and cannot really make "choices" when creating a character anyway), first level, have drinks and snacks ready, play at table, music (lotr soundtrack is good)...
Start with combat - combat is fun and exciting - roleplaying requires more comfort level than rollplaying - don't kill anyone - fudge the numbers like a madman if you must. Complicated "frustration" traps etc. should be avoided. Descriptive DM language to describe the characters actions in cinematic flare will have the players doing the same and giggling at each other real quick.
My son is 3 years old and he already loves to play D&D with daddy and his friends. By play D&D i mean he lines up all my miniatures and harassess them with a beholder, rolls dice and brings injured "guys" over for boo boo kisses, and expalinations like "what's this guy got" and "what's this guy called".
I can't wait for my 8 month old son to get old enough to be interested in D&D! I will definitely keep all of your ideas in mind, thanks a lot!
My 7-year old daughter loves to play in my campaign (formed otherwise of adults from Paizo and Wizards of the Coast). She's a little impatient, though.
"Come get me when we get into a fight!" : )
I really like the idea of putting everything on cards. I'm going to use that.
Also, as far as a recommended starting age... I think as soon as they can read at about a 3rd grade level, you're good to go. With the cards for everything, you could probably start earlier.
Cheers,
- rob
My 7-year old daughter loves to play in my campaign (formed otherwise of adults from Paizo and Wizards of the Coast). She's a little impatient, though.
"Come get me when we get into a fight!" : )
I really like the idea of putting everything on cards. I'm going to use that.
Also, as far as a recommended starting age... I think as soon as they can read at about a 3rd grade level, you're good to go. With the cards for everything, you could probably start earlier.
Cheers,
- rob
I started playing at age six with some collegians back when the game came in a box. I understood the rules of play completely but then early D&D was tic-tac-toe with pixies.
Third grade, for an initiation into modern D&D is probably about right.
I remember back to when Eldritch Wizardry was this amazing new offering. I bought it, came home, and practically slept with it. And those (at the time, new) polyhedral dice were wondrous artifacts to a young boy. With a twenty sided in my pocket I had a secret talisman none else could fathom.
The one problem I encountered coming to the game so young and enthusiastic was that I'd accidentally memorized most of the text from the 1st edition hardcovers. Hey, it was exciting stuff. All those tables... ug... useless now.
My mind refuses to memorize the complexities of D&D these days. I know the minute I truly commit to 3.5 I'll be hit with 3.72 revisions.
"We won't be fooled again." ;)
After making a comeback from the post collegiate real life diversion (10 year) I'm back playing in a weekly group. It contains 2 female players (I didn't know they existed). But since I'm snapping up 3.5 rule books like candy and have begun reimmersing myself, my thirteen year old stepson keeps asking me what's up. Today I said, "Well my boy..........I think it's time someone showed you what it's all about." I know it's not my original three book boxed up '83 version but I think he'll manage.
I don't want to sound like a thread crapper but in all honesty I don't really want my son to take up the hobby, I'd rather he be outside playing sports. No, I'm not a self-loather (RPG's are my favorite hobby by far), I just want him to be different than me, that's all.
My wife, for example, has absolutely zero (zilch, zip, no) interest in RPG's and for that, I am thankful. She provides me with a different view of the world instead of seeing everything through a gamers eyes. She keeps my feet firmly on the ground.
Ultimately however, my son is going to decide whether or not he wants to play RPG's. I've never believed you could really convert anyone into the hobby. You are either wired to like it or you're not.
How come he can't play D&D and play sports? You make it sound a little like D&D players are pre-wired to be bookish booger eaters with thick glasses.
Half of my high school's wrestling team played D&D. Heck, we played D&D in the Army while we were in the field. Half of the players in my Army game were Rangers...which are as much an elite bunch of macho jocks as you can find...I did have to ask a few of them to quit gesturing with their bayonets :-)
One of my earliest DM's was the star quarterback of our high school football team. He dated a cheerleader and could bench press a tractor....why not encourage everything--sports, D&D, etc...
I personally played football and soccer and I still enjoy some sports, mostly golf now as I've gotten older and my CON has dropped a few points.
I converted plenty of people into the hobby--my wife was one of them. I really don't believe you can "convert" people into the hobby is in my opinion quite incorrect and very much removed from my actual gaming experience. Anybody likes to have fun and once their inhibitions about doing something "unusual" drop, pretty much anybody will play.
Heck, my sister-in-law just got converted into the game and she played college basketball and is now a coach. She drives 120 miles every two weeks just to game with us.
"Come get me when we get into a fight!" : )
As an active member of Rob's campaign I must say his daughter cracks me up every time we play. She doesn't want any of that namby-pamby roleplay or fancy talk - she just wants to KILL.
With a daughter of my own on the way, I feel much like other posters above: I can't wait to teach her the game.
How come he can't play D&D and play sports?
Preach it, brotha!
I "upgraded" to 3.5 about 9 months ago and one of my greatest difficulty as a player and/or DM was all the special stuff you can do as a standard vs full-round action ...
What really helped is that we sat down and went ...
A) What is it like to trip?
B) What is it like to sunder ?
C) What is it like to aid another ?
D) What about flanking, darkness, invisibility ... ?
E) ad infinitum ...
We tried everything on a "tactical" grid (a simple map I made with passages, balconies, stairs, etc.)
Not only was it fun but it really helped to understand the flow of combat & movement and special cases ...
In my opinion, with kids, I would drop the following:
Sundering, Disarming, Grappling, Attack of Opportunity.
At least until they're confortable enough with the rest of the rules ...
This is great you have that opportunity to play with the kids! Have fun with the family :)
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My son is one year old, and I cannot wait for him to possibly enjoy the wonder and thrills that I experienced as a new gamer. I remember rewriting word for word the tracking entry for my ranger Rudd from the AD&D player's handbook. If he isn't interested, that's cool, but he is my son, genes are in my favor.
Non service members would be surprised how many military gamers there are. I am on deployment at the moment, and there are so many people who want to play once they find out about our game, that I will soon be running three different weekly games.
Non service members would be surprised how many military gamers there are.
I'm certain that there were, maybe, only a dozen or so non-gamers in my last unit. We never had time to play, but there were geek discussions while breaching simulated mine fields. :-)
Starting in June, I'm planning on running a D&D campaign with my girlfriend and the kids. The kids are both 12. A boy & a girl. I haven't played D&D in 20 years. I've purchase the core rulebooks, the basic set and a bunch of miniatures. I'm planning on running the Age of Worms adventure path with them.
I've done a lot of reading, and I'm pretty comfortable with the 3.5 edition rules now. I did a quick playtest with my girlfriend and the daughter, and I've identified some areas I can improve on in my DMing and things to make the experience flow a little better.
I was just wondering if anyone had any input or any experience sbringing their kids into RPGs that they might share with me.
My daughter starting playing D&D with our group when she was 10, now 15 and loves the game. The DM wanted her to have a good time but didn't hold anything back as far as game play.
her first character was a teenage witch named Sabrina. She died in the Moathouse in ToEE. After that she preferred to play magical or magically enhanced animals. She got through 5 lives of a talking cat before a TPK. She's played an owl druid, a winged cat sorcerer, a faerie dragon, a young silver dragon and a sabre-toothed tiger druid that took elf for it's first wildshape.
It's been fun. She had improved her math skills, and reading since starting the game. In the current game I'm running she has a tiefling from Kanak in the Dry Steppes. so far it's been fun but she wants me to run NPCs like Vash and Shoshomaru. o_0
I have brought both my kids into the fold four years ago after converting my wife to roleplaying. Now we hold regular (ok, semi-regular) roleplay sessions and my son has even taking to DMing so I get to play characters!
My son started playing when he was 10 and my daughter at 13. Adventures are always entertaining and it brings out the creativity in my kids. We still all talk fondly of my son's first character, Bob the halfling rogue who had a penchant for cheese and would sing "The Bugbear Went Over the Mountain" on the way to the dungeon.
It has been one of the best things for our family. By all means, teach your kids to roleplay.
I wonder if I'm the only kid DM that suscribes. My dad did a good job getting me my brother and my friends into it
I had no idea that Dnd was played at schools so much, even beeing taught by teachers! I wish my school would do that... i go to a visual and preforming arts school so there are quite a few people who play. I want to set up a club, but it has to be educational in order to be allowed, plus you need a teacher to be the organizer. Believe it or not, most people just think it is a regular game, like video games, that just rots you brain!
Ya'll have no idea how happy I am to see this thread. If it hadn't been for my fifth grade teacher teaching a bunch of us how to play on our lunch breaks (Mr. Tivnan, if you're out there - thank you!) I doubt I would probably never have heard of it and missed out on some of the most fun I've ever had. While I'm not sure teenage James could have dealt with playing in the same game as his parents, having older, more experienced folks around to show you the ropes is, in my opinion, the ONLY way to properly learn how to play D&D. The sad thing is, I'm not even sure the lunchtime-D&D thing would fly in today's schools... come to think of it, I'm surprised the PTA didn't freak (or find out about it) back then.
As for not wanting your kids to play D&D... I can understand wanting them to develop their own hobbies and personalities, but I think gaming is right up there with reading in terms of helping a child's development into a healthy adult. Think about it - all the reading, problem solving, and creativity goes a long way towards making an intelligent, interesting adult, and how many game can you find that are truly cooperative in every sense? I'm sure some people would call me crazy, but I'd much rather have my future children playing games where they work together to achieve as a group rather than out for blood on a little-league diamond while being screamed at by parents who want to live vicariously.
Not that I have anything against organized sports, I'm just sayin' there's more to life than winning and losing. ; )
Plus... well, there are millions of other benefits - as I frequently tell reluctant parents of prospective gamers, the only reason I knew the word "torpor" on the SATs was due to Vampire: The Masquerade. :)
Now if I might go off on a rant here for a second - I think it's a real shame that so many people write off gamers as unattractive, socially awkward eggheads, but that's a complaint that's been run into the ground. I want to push it one step farther and say that I think WE, the gamer community, are the worst proponents of that stereotype. There are so many more of us than anyone ever realizes, but we tend to hide it: I can remember a group of attractive, social guys in college who referred to it as "soccer" in mixed company to avoid detection.
So what does that personal pet peeve have to do with this thread? Everything: I think that, second to teaching them how to play, the best thing we can do for the next generation of gamers is to wear our polyhedral badges proudly - let's go out there with confidence and prove that there's more to gamers than, as I believe someone put it earlier, "booger eaters". :P Several of my friends are constantly astonished that I talk freely about gaming around the opposite sex, but I contend that gaming is only shameful if you allow it to be so. If you push it out there with confidence - "Yeah, I game. It's awesome." - people are far more likely to do a doubletake and end up interested than throwing up the high school geek-deflector shield. Every time a non-gamer runs into a gamer who's attractive/sociable/a good dancer/a rocker/whatever, the world grows a little bit more accepting. I mean, look at video games: they're just as traditionally "nerdy", but can you imagine a world where everyone talks as freely about RPGs as they do about Halo 2? A frat house where jocks talk about DC 15 kegstands with sorority girls debate the value of multiclassing? A bar where lawyers and doctors (and I answer your customer service calls - I know you're out there :) write campaigns over drinks? I'll admit that my roommate and I were probably a little overly optimistic when we convinced our 11th-grade homecoming group to come play D&D afterwards, but for every girl who rolled her eyes there was at one who picked up her bastard sword and got busy. I want to keep that ball rolling.
Anyhow, this is waaaaay too long and I ought to be doing work, but my basic point is: to all of you bringing next-gen gamers into the fold... thank you. Keep carrying the banner proudly.
-James Sutter
Proudly Geeking Out Since 1995
I played games with my neices and my friends kid, and the game did not rely around combat so much as apposed to skill checks the imeaditly (oops) knew how to jump and climb. My one buddys little girl 'bout 8 (i think) spent the whole night trying to track down and capture a kitten she wanted it was so halourious that the who group ended up watching her. Ahhh good tymes!
My kids are 4 1/2 and 3 1/2; my wife and I have already started to train them. :D They love things like dragons, knights, princesses, etc. My daughter doesn't have teddy bears, she has stuffed dragons. :D She sleeps with three of them every night. When she was a little younger and having problems with nightmares, my wife and I gave her the first one so it could chase away the bad dreams. ;) She's acquired two others since then.
My son also has a few stuffed dragons, as well as "knight stuff." One of his favorite books is The Knight and The Dragon.
The other thing they love is dice. I've got them started early. :D
After watching a friend's nine year old learn the game, I can give you one piece of advice. Try to keep things very clearly "the good guys" and "the bad guys." Make sure the kids stay on the good guys' team, too.
My first is on the way and I can't wait to teach her the game. I'm very jealous of both of you ;)
My wife and I are expecting our first two (twins!) in Jan. and I also can't wait. I really enjoyed the obove posts. Keep proudly gaming folks!