Li Shenron
Legend
There are many games out there specifically targetted at children (I am talking about the grammar-school to pre-teen age range here), basically all of them concerned with simplifying the rules of the game, when not outright dumbing them down. It seems to me that the general idea behind this is that young children cannot handle the typical rules of the game or the math behind them.
I've been running D&D 5e for my children on a weekly basis for about a month, following a different approach that is mostly allowing us to stay within the normal rules, and we do not have problems. Children are smarter than we think. They might however need some help with their attention span and their feelings while playing.
Also, there are different kinds of complexity to be aware of... there is choice complexity and there is resolution complexity. The first one can paralize even an adult if the number of possible choices is large and the difference between them is minimal.
The following are the ideas that I have been using so far...
1. Pregenerated characters: the intent here is not to avoid character building. They can handle it. The intent for this was instead to be able to start playing almost immediately. Character sheets were ready to use, they only had to add their character's name and race, everything else was pre-chosen including spells and equipment.
2. Iconic only: a party of Fighter, Cleric, Rogue and Wizard is perfect for their first ever game of D&D. However I ended up making an exception because one of my children had already heard about the Druid and wanted to play one. The rest of the group picked 3 characters out of the other 4. Similarly, I pre-selected iconic spells for the spellcasting classes. The idea is to give them a starting point that is rooted in the history of D&D. There will be other games in the future to try out something different.
3. Race choice as narrative only: racial abilities are nice but add a lot more stuff to keep in mind to a first level character. In addition, the choice of races prevents using pregens, because it modifies a lot of stuff on the character sheet. Human (non-variant) characters are the lowest-complexity option within the core rules, no house rules required, so it was used as a basis for all pregens. On the other hand, fantasy races are a great selling point for children, and so I did tell my players they could be something else than human, I just didn't tell them that it wouldn't make a difference in game terms. Only one of them was interested and picked a centaur... now imagine what would happen at an adults' table: my guess is that most DMs would just say no, and the rest would start looking for a "balanced" solution, possibly in some obscure accessory book or house rules. We just went with it narratively, without changing any stat.
4. No unsolicited explanations: no going through the character sheets and explain the meaning of everything, or explaining the rules of the game beforehand, I just told them that the explanations will come when they are needed. The kids asked some questions immediately anyway, because the character sheet is something that inspires curiosity, so I answered some of their questions but after a while I actually had to say no, or we would have spent too much time without starting the story.
5. No patronizing beyond the most obvious: before choosing characters, it was enough to tell them the role of each, and after that I come to help only when they are undecided about what to do, but there is no need to suggest the 'best' tactic. Similarly, forget about telling them how to 'design' a PC's personality and roleplay stuff (e.g. the background traits etc.). They will emerge naturally through play, and "my character is GOOD" is a perfectly functional starting point.
6. Introduce the rules gradually: there is no need to eliminate or simplify rules, it's enough not to mention what isn't strictly necessary, and keep it for later. Every weekend I reveal something new... some concrete examples here:
- We started with Theatre of the Mind combats so that they could focus on the choice of action and ignore the details of movement and position. "Near" and "far" covered everything. A battlemat with minis can be introduced after a few sessions, for example when featuring a larger battle with many monsters or when starting to encourage more tactical ideas such as taking cover or using the environment to your advantage. Before that, TotM combat helps focusing on which target to choose and whether to attack or cast a spell for example.
- Prepared spells were preselected, and only prepared spells were shown on the character sheet. I didn't tell them immediately that their characters know more spells than those, and can change the prepared spells each day.
- Because action economy is simple enough but not trivial, I did not explain it up front (beyond telling that they can move in addition to acting). I took care of minimizing the presence of abilities that use bonus actions or reactions. I made a mistake however and accidentally added Shield of Faith to the Cleric's prepared spell. No problem however, when the player decided to try the spell out, I explained why it says "bonus action". The key was to delay until it comes up in play.
7. Sprinkle the game with media, but not too much... I have a nice range of Lego minifigs to use for battle, but I am waiting before using them because there is a risk of the kids starting playing with the minis instead of with D&D. OTOH it's a good idea to show some pictures of the locations where the characters are, and of course also pictures of the monsters! I also let them buy maps for complicated locations. We also have some background music, but you have to be prepared to turn it off if it becomes distracting (it helps to avoid actual songs, and instead focus on ambient or film music that sets the mood without grabbing much attention).
8. Keep control of in-game situations and descriptions so that they of course contain only children-friendly stuff (this should go without saying, but it's good to keep in mind!)
Eventually, there is no problem with the actual rules of the game. We are even using my custom character sheets, which I designed specifically to diminish the amount the stuff written, but actually require to make some calculations on the fly (most notably for skills and saving throws). And notice that their PCs are perfectly "rules legal" and they can even keep using them into an adult game.
My conclusion so far is... there is no need to dumb down the rules of the game, children are not dumb! Just give them a smaller set of options when they start, so that they don't have to think too long, and trust in the fact that if they like the game, they'll come asking you for more. And that is literally what they are doing to me RIGHT NOW and why I have to post this thread half-baked
I've been running D&D 5e for my children on a weekly basis for about a month, following a different approach that is mostly allowing us to stay within the normal rules, and we do not have problems. Children are smarter than we think. They might however need some help with their attention span and their feelings while playing.
Also, there are different kinds of complexity to be aware of... there is choice complexity and there is resolution complexity. The first one can paralize even an adult if the number of possible choices is large and the difference between them is minimal.
The following are the ideas that I have been using so far...
1. Pregenerated characters: the intent here is not to avoid character building. They can handle it. The intent for this was instead to be able to start playing almost immediately. Character sheets were ready to use, they only had to add their character's name and race, everything else was pre-chosen including spells and equipment.
2. Iconic only: a party of Fighter, Cleric, Rogue and Wizard is perfect for their first ever game of D&D. However I ended up making an exception because one of my children had already heard about the Druid and wanted to play one. The rest of the group picked 3 characters out of the other 4. Similarly, I pre-selected iconic spells for the spellcasting classes. The idea is to give them a starting point that is rooted in the history of D&D. There will be other games in the future to try out something different.
3. Race choice as narrative only: racial abilities are nice but add a lot more stuff to keep in mind to a first level character. In addition, the choice of races prevents using pregens, because it modifies a lot of stuff on the character sheet. Human (non-variant) characters are the lowest-complexity option within the core rules, no house rules required, so it was used as a basis for all pregens. On the other hand, fantasy races are a great selling point for children, and so I did tell my players they could be something else than human, I just didn't tell them that it wouldn't make a difference in game terms. Only one of them was interested and picked a centaur... now imagine what would happen at an adults' table: my guess is that most DMs would just say no, and the rest would start looking for a "balanced" solution, possibly in some obscure accessory book or house rules. We just went with it narratively, without changing any stat.
4. No unsolicited explanations: no going through the character sheets and explain the meaning of everything, or explaining the rules of the game beforehand, I just told them that the explanations will come when they are needed. The kids asked some questions immediately anyway, because the character sheet is something that inspires curiosity, so I answered some of their questions but after a while I actually had to say no, or we would have spent too much time without starting the story.
5. No patronizing beyond the most obvious: before choosing characters, it was enough to tell them the role of each, and after that I come to help only when they are undecided about what to do, but there is no need to suggest the 'best' tactic. Similarly, forget about telling them how to 'design' a PC's personality and roleplay stuff (e.g. the background traits etc.). They will emerge naturally through play, and "my character is GOOD" is a perfectly functional starting point.
6. Introduce the rules gradually: there is no need to eliminate or simplify rules, it's enough not to mention what isn't strictly necessary, and keep it for later. Every weekend I reveal something new... some concrete examples here:
- We started with Theatre of the Mind combats so that they could focus on the choice of action and ignore the details of movement and position. "Near" and "far" covered everything. A battlemat with minis can be introduced after a few sessions, for example when featuring a larger battle with many monsters or when starting to encourage more tactical ideas such as taking cover or using the environment to your advantage. Before that, TotM combat helps focusing on which target to choose and whether to attack or cast a spell for example.
- Prepared spells were preselected, and only prepared spells were shown on the character sheet. I didn't tell them immediately that their characters know more spells than those, and can change the prepared spells each day.
- Because action economy is simple enough but not trivial, I did not explain it up front (beyond telling that they can move in addition to acting). I took care of minimizing the presence of abilities that use bonus actions or reactions. I made a mistake however and accidentally added Shield of Faith to the Cleric's prepared spell. No problem however, when the player decided to try the spell out, I explained why it says "bonus action". The key was to delay until it comes up in play.
7. Sprinkle the game with media, but not too much... I have a nice range of Lego minifigs to use for battle, but I am waiting before using them because there is a risk of the kids starting playing with the minis instead of with D&D. OTOH it's a good idea to show some pictures of the locations where the characters are, and of course also pictures of the monsters! I also let them buy maps for complicated locations. We also have some background music, but you have to be prepared to turn it off if it becomes distracting (it helps to avoid actual songs, and instead focus on ambient or film music that sets the mood without grabbing much attention).
8. Keep control of in-game situations and descriptions so that they of course contain only children-friendly stuff (this should go without saying, but it's good to keep in mind!)
Eventually, there is no problem with the actual rules of the game. We are even using my custom character sheets, which I designed specifically to diminish the amount the stuff written, but actually require to make some calculations on the fly (most notably for skills and saving throws). And notice that their PCs are perfectly "rules legal" and they can even keep using them into an adult game.
My conclusion so far is... there is no need to dumb down the rules of the game, children are not dumb! Just give them a smaller set of options when they start, so that they don't have to think too long, and trust in the fact that if they like the game, they'll come asking you for more. And that is literally what they are doing to me RIGHT NOW and why I have to post this thread half-baked
