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?
I have been DMing for my kids using 5e since the youngest of them was 6yo, so I have some first-hand experience.
Before then, I had DMed for them a few times some super-basic RPG with home made rules since they were 3yo, so at least they knew what was a RPG about. At 6yo, we started playing 5e as-is.
(1) Yours are already older, you can use 5e rules, don't waste your time trying to modify the rules, and don't waste your money in other systems. All you really need, is keep their characters simple, and avoid what is not necessary during the game. Do not teach them the rules in advance, tell them how things work only when they ask to do something. If you don't know the answer, or you think it'll be something too complex to explain, you are allowed to make something up.
(2) Before you play, create some ready PCs of various classes. Not all of them, it's enough to make a Fighter, Wizard, Rogue, a couple more if you wish. Make them as simple as you can, by picking the simplest (and shortest to read) spells and abilities. Then tell your kids what does each character do in general: the Fighter fights and defends his friends, the Rogue explores and finds dangers, the Wizard does magic. Let them choose which one to play, and decide only the name, gender and race*, and whatever appearance and personality they want.
*Use human stats when creating the PCs, and let race be only a cosmetic choice. Although, you could pick ONE special ability for each race such as Dwarf's darkvision, Halfling's luck or similar.
(3) Strictly one character each. You'll make very easy encounters instead.
(4) You don't need an award-winning story: "save the puppies from the evil goblins" will just work. But you can include samples of all traditional D&D tropes: talking with NPCs, doing some investigations, explore a place with possible traps and hazards, and of course combat.
(5) Combat rules in 5e are super simple if you don't tell all the possible actions in advance. Tell them the principle of "one important action per turn", and wait for them to come up with anything less obvious than an attack or spell. Similarly, don't explain stuff like opportunity attacks before a character triggers one, then of course let them avoid them properly.
(6) Give them room to choose how to solve problems without constantly calling up rules. Reward good ideas by not having them roll dice at all, explain that they need to roll when the idea is ok but not that great.
(7) Do not let them lose their first game! If they fail, always open up a new possible continuation of the story towards a positive ending. Maybe the goblins got away with the puppies, but you can still figure out where they live before they eat them!
(8) Should it ever happen that one of their PCs dies, well just DON'T. Replace death with something else: a bad wound that forces them to stop and see a doctor, losing consciousness and being robbed, or being captured and now having to escape. You can tell them that adult gamers usually accept their PC to die, but it's not yet the time for them.
(9) Visualize stuff (for examples using maps, monster pictures, minis or treasure props) but be careful not to overdo it: keep an eye open that your kids don't become more interested in the props than the game (like they start playing with minis instead of following what happens in the story).
