One on one offspring

[CroBob]

My son, who's almost seven, wants to play D&D with me. I was wondering if anyone else had young children who wanted to play, and how they handled it.

As of now, I'm going to do it one on one, but I'm not sure exactly how to handle it. So what have you done?

 

[knightemplar]

There are a couple of posters that run it with elementary children, but I will let them reply. I did see this on Critical Hits where Chatty_DM was running a game with his son. It did seem pretty freeform, and was very rules light.

Castle Death! A Dead Simple RPG for Kids and Parents, Part 1 : Critical Hits

Castle Death! A Dead Simple RPG for Kids and Parents, Part 2 : Critical Hits

Castle Death! A Dead Simple RPG for Kids and Parents, Part 3 : Critical Hits

Chatty’s Mailbox: Playing Castle Death for First Timers : Critical Hits

 

[Voadam]

I ran a few games with my son when he was five and we talk D&D type stuff a bunch. The games were mostly single battles with riffing on D&D elements like crazy magic, dungeons with maps, rolling a d20 and adding numbers to hit then rolling a funny die plus some numbers for damage and a d20 plus some number for skill checks. Descriptions were a big deal and saying yes as a DM to crazy things as well as improvising. We used lego ninjagos for minis. I used the colorful battle maps from those 3.5 mini module/map products like the Hellspike Prison one.

Plan on short events, I originally planned on running the mini modules from the 3.0 adventure intro set but never got past single encounters when playing with dice.

I used the 4e rules set with pregens from Keep on the Shadowfell (he wanted to play a rogue) and the rule system is pretty good for keeping things simple and the math at an appropriate level. Plus minions are a good idea for starting PCs to feel heroic. Avoid dragging mechanical encounters by careful encounter design or modifying monsters.

My brother has been playing full on 4e adventures (he handles character creation for them based on what they say they want to be able to do) with his girls for years (they are eight and eleven now). The youngest one has even guest DMd for his group (dream sequences while adventuring in the Feywild).

 

[The Red King]

My 4 year old Daughter likes to steal the dice, but My friend's 6 year old son guest stars in my campaing every now and then. Biggest thing I think the young ones have to overcome is that D and D takes a LONG time. If you as the DM can break it down to shorter lengths of game play, they will enjoy it till their attention span gets longer.

 

[Cerebral Paladin]

I have some discussions of running for my son (started when he was 4; he's 5 now) at http://www.enworld.org/forum/story-...s-my-sons-first-game-updated-7-18-7-31-a.html

A couple of general thoughts:
Use a simple system for young kids. 4E was not a good choice for a 4 year old.

For young kids, physical representations make the game work better. Minis, pictures, etc., make it easier for them to picture what's going on. As they get older, that's less necessary.

For young kids, short games are the rule, not the exception. My games for my son are typically an hour or so long--maybe 3, 4 encounters. Both keeping the overall amount of time short and keeping the number of separate things small are important--you don't want the child getting bored or lost. With a seven year old, it may be less of a concern, but still--don't start with epic things.

One-on-one works well for young kids. I've tried group games as well, and those were fun, but they were also way crazier. It can be hard enough to keep one kid focused--two kids at the table makes lots of opportunity for somebody to be bored, spaced out, or disruptive. Still, once you get the one-on-one working, inviting one of your kid's friends could be a good idea.

And my biggest conclusion: you can often run a good game for a young child by asking the child what they want to do, and then tailoring the adventure to that. Because the adventures don't need to be terribly involved or complicated, you can fill the details in on the fly, tailoring them to what your child suggested and then adding in new elements.

Have fun!

 

[Hal G]

I started with mini's and used my sheets as mountains/valleys etc, rolled d20 to see if they hit, took turns and them used different damage die depending on what mini's we picked as they got older and understood dice rolls I started adding more rules, the key is play the way they want to play not the way you want to run it.

 

[frankthedm]

The D&D board game Wrath of Ashardalon might be worth a shot. Simple, co-operative & a decent deal considering what you get with the box set.
Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Product (Wrath of Ashardalon Board Game)

Wrath of Ashardalon Board Game
Dungeons & Dragons Wrath of Ashardalon Board Game - Wizards of the Coast - Board Games at CoolStuffInc.com