D&D 5E D&D 5e suggestions for two beginner children and a first time DM dad?

[Mort]

I would start with the lost mine of phandelver

Lost Mines of Phandelver is a great intro set. But a warning:

1. It has to be read through thoroughly before running - otherwise it can be a confusing mess. I would not recommend sight-reading and running it;
2. There are some seriously HARD encounters (certainly for beginners) within the mix. This is not a bad thing, but you need to decide how you want to approach it with young kids.

 

[ninjayeti]

Harper's Tale is an extended adventure/short campaign for 5E designed for younger kids.
The game Hero Kids uses its own system, but there are lots of great kid-friendly adventures (with maps and stand up tokens) that could be converted easily to 5E.
There are also lots of resources available with a google search. This site has a bunch of free, kid-friendly adventures for download.

Good luck!

 

[Raven_King]

Wow, what a phenomenal response - that you all, and further thoughts very welcome.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

2. There are some seriously HARD encounters (certainly for beginners) within the mix. This is not a bad thing, but you need to decide how you want to approach it with young kids.

Yeah, there's a critter in the basement of the bad guy's hideout that can be encountered at low level if the player characters scout and find the secret entrance to the hideout that is rough. Full points for putting in something new to many players (it's an incredibly obscure monster from third edition) and interesting in the adventure, but unless you've got a full party ready for anything, it's a pretty scary monster to toss at them.

My players (two nieces, my brother and my son) wisely ran away.

 

[The Green Hermit]

Yeah, there's a critter in the basement of the bad guy's hideout that can be encountered at low level if the player characters scout and find the secret entrance to the hideout that is rough. Full points for putting in something new to many players (it's an incredibly obscure monster from third edition) and interesting in the adventure, but unless you've got a full party ready for anything, it's a pretty scary monster to toss at them.

My players (two nieces, my brother and my son) wisely ran away.

Mine did too. Lol!

 

[TheLibrarian]

shameless plug I wrote The Lady of the Lake for my kids when they were 10. Its the PERFECT adventure for new players of your kids age.

More seriously... Let them watch the old D&D cartoon before you play if you haven't done so already. That will kind of give them a feel for the archtypes and tropes in the game. Maybe it will help them visualize a little better what's going on.

 

[Yenrak]

I play with my daughters, now 9 and 12. We’ve been playing for two years. They had no problem picking up the simple mechanics of 5th Edition. It’s much, much easier and intuitive than AD&D.

The adventurers are meant for smaller parties. Usually around 4 players plus a DM. So you can play most with just two players (your kids), without changing too much. Just give ’em some extra potions of healing.

We ended up with a bigger group because when I mentioned to one of my older daughter’s classmate’s father that we were going to start playing, he asked if he could play an elven cleric character based on the one he played decades ago. His son wanted to be a rogue (that’s what we call thieves now). So we had four players right away. We now have four more, actually, because over the two years of our campaign (a highly modified version of Storm King’s Thunder—we were in Waterdeep hunting the dragon heist and we’re in Chult now, hunting the Ring of Winter, which doesn’t happen in the published adventure) more people heard about it and asked if they could join with their kids.

 

[ClaytonCross]

This seems like common since but its something I have seen a lot GMs drop from their mind focusing on running the perfect game... If its fun your doing it right and if they are losing interest find what they love about the game and bring it back around. You can have the "perfect module", in the "perfect setting", and the players can be hating it. If they de-rail a campaign or get side tracked but they are having fun, try to role with it and let them be side tracked. When they lose direction and/or interest in the side track then pull them back to the module to keep things going. Add to that one of your players may like talking and the other combat etc. You need to give them both "air time" for their fun while balancing how long the other player can sit in stand bye if they have different aims. You can "split" the party or even have a comical fight in the back ground (that is competitive but not life or death like arm wrestling etc) while one is talking to a NPC. If you get this right any module will work even a bad one. It might work out that your kids both like the same primary thing and your lucky so you can lean more heavy to that pillar of play. This shifts though so GMs who nail it at first create a formula and follow it sometimes run into confusion later when the formula stops working. Players change on what they enjoy as a person and because they got their fill for the day. If your players are having a meeting in a tavern and they seem to be getting restless in the conversation, perhaps their is a random not lethal bar fight that breaks out. If the players are tired of a fighting, perhaps a third group interrupts the fight forcing a stalemate that requires some dialogue. If players start drifting during your description of a setting or world building element, cut the description short and add it back in as information between interruptions so they get it but they get a break between information dumps to refocus them.

I hope this helps. Just keeping the thought in the for front helps me. I sometimes put a note on my GM screen facing me that says "Having fun?" just to remind myself that running the "perfect game" is not the same thing or as as important as the general environment of fun at the table. This sometimes leads to... interesting tangents, but fun is had.

 

[overgeeked]

Hello EN World!

I used to play AD&D 1e at school when these were the player’s handbook and monster manual:

Now, some 30+ years later, I have two primary-school children aged 8 and 10 who I’d love to get into D&D 5e. They absolutely loved the D&D Young Adventurers Collection:

How might I best introduce my kids to actually playing D&D, in a simple, age-appropriate way, in short sessions of max 1 hour to suit their attention span, and most crucially in a format that just three of us can play - the kids and I? We have a busy family life and I don’t see the opportunity for many four-hour play sessions with three other kids to make a bigger party happening on a regular basis. I don’t know anyone else who plays, or wants to start - yet! Maybe when my two are a bit bigger and have a taste for it we can organise something like that, but I would really love to have options for just us three to play now.

Should I get the kids to play two characters each, with some justification for why pairs of PCs might cooperate so closely? (Maybe the PCs they play are two pairs of twins?)

Should I try to play extra NPC party members to help with balance? Remember I am inexperienced as a DM… but willing to put significant effort in to prepare. It must be fun for the kids, and ideally me too, after all otherwise we will lose interest.

I’ve nearly finished reading the 5e basic rules, and (having a bit more money as an adult than I did back then) I have the core three 5e rule books, plus several others from WotC.

However, I have not yet found any kid-friendly adventures or campaigns suitable for an inexperienced party of two players. Do they exist? Can I realistically adapt other adventures to suit this severely limited party size and experience level?

Pick up the Starter Set. It has a great intro adventure. There’s one fight that’s nasty, a goblin ambush. Tone that way down. Have them play one character each and run two NPCs with them. As long as you have a tough front line character (barbarian, fighter, paladin), a healer (cleric or druid), and two damage dealing characters (anyone really), you’ll do fine. Also, you could cut the fights in half. Either half as many monsters or half as many hit points so they can handle the fights without you running two NPCs.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Lots of great ideas here! I ran Lost Mine of Phandelvar with my kids (6, 8, 10), and they had a blast.

My recommendations:

• Add a DMPC (or sidekick). With smaller parties, a run of bad luck can be deadly. Adding an extra character can help mitigate that. Choose a character that complements the party but is easy to run (I would avoid bards snd druids for this reason);
• Give the players a couple of extra potions of healing (this is s good idea for small groups period), and make it clear in the adventure where they can buy more.
• Houserule that drinking a potion is a bonus action not a regular action, so the characters don’t lose their action when they heal;
• Allow each character to start with a cool magic item. Not something like a +1 sword, but like an armor that allows them to misty step once per short rest, a cloak that turns them invisible once per day.