Introducing 10 year olds to D&D

[aco175]

Sounds fun,

One idea to start off with is to allow each fighter a pick of they type of weapon or armor they want. Say that each starts off with chain mail and longsword as standard, but there may be a giant ax that does more damage or plate armor and let tehm choose one. It would give you some insight on what they may like if one player wants more AC and another wants damage and a thrid wants more speed and a ranged weapon, or a spear for reach or something.

 

[Bullgrit]

The game was a great success. I'm really, really busy this week, so I don't have time to discuss it here, right now. But I have posted about the first half of the game session on my blog Total Bullgrit
Boys Delve into the Dungeon Total Bullgrit

If you're interested, feel free to discuss it here or there.

Bullgrit

 

[grodog]

Sounds like fun. I'll check out the blog later, BG.

I taught how to play D&D for a few years in an after school enrichment program for kids ~9-13 or so, back in South Jersey in the mid-'80s. I should have the syllabus up in our attic amongst my stuff, if you're curious? It was a lot of fun (although not quite as much fun as teaching my boys to play D&D in Castle Greyhawk! ).

 

[Bullgrit]

The second half of the tale of our 10-year-olds' Basic D&D game day is up on my blog.

First half: Boys Delve into the Dungeon Total Bullgrit

Second half: Boys Delve into the Dungeon, part 2 Total Bullgrit

I want to discuss the game, (here, not on my blog), from the behind-the-screen, DM's point of view, after interested folks have had a chance to read the tale from the Players' point of view. This whole thing, combined with my previous recent running of a Basic D&D game for my experienced, regular game group ... discussed here:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...sion-basic-d-d-my-game-groups-experience.html
... has been enlightening. A real learning experience.

Bullgrit

 

[tanalos]

Great run down on the players perspective and it appears by the end of the session they learned that stealth is their friend =) This adventure takes me back to the first time we ran a dungeon crawl here and its a very good memory. I definitely think you've given them a nibble at roleplaying and they've bit hook, line, and sinker! Great job!

 

[Bullgrit]

I ran this game with the boys in a manner completely contrary to how I normally run a D&D game.

Normally, I run a status quo game: Room 1 has 4 orcs, Room 2 has a gargoyle, Room 3 has an ogre, etc. (Of course, as the game progresses, the dungeon inhabitants may shift for various reasons -- the orcs may retreat from a losing battle with the PCs and shack up with the ogre, or the ogre may come to the orcs' aid; the gargoyle may come out to investigate noise outside its room; etc.) Treasure is placed before the PCs enter the dungeon. I try to have everything set in writing before starting an adventure.

For this game for the boys, nothing was set. I had a selection of index cards with monster stats written on them, and I placed them in rooms, as wandering monsters, etc. as I thought most exciting. There was no set treasure -- I completely made up placement and items and amounts on the spur of the moment. (Heck, I never even told how many coins they found or the value of any of the items.)

I pretended to roll for wandering monsters, but really I just had them show up when the boys were noisy or when we needed a little excitement.

I pretended to roll for secret door searches, but really I let the boys find them when they thought to search.

I listened to the Players talking and I made things happen when and how they mentioned them. For instance, when the magic-user cast detect magic, I made the door glow (and came up with a reason off the top of my head) and determined that there was a magic ring in a non-existent secret compartment in the throne. The method of opening the magically locked door, (by wearing the ring), was an idea spoken by one of the Players after other actions failed to open the door.

I was completely making up all this stuff as we played. I wasn't even one step ahead of the Players -- I was making everything up right in the moment.

As a matter of fact, anyone familiar with In Search of the Unknown is probably scratching their head when reading the game tale, because most, (pretty much everything but the map layout, and I altered even that), of what the Players found is not from the module as written. I had the cover map open, but I never opened the module booklet except for one time when I needed to pretend to read it for a minute to think of an idea.

Some of the boys were talking about how they hoped to fight a dragon. So I put a dragon in the penultimate battle. And I didn't even know it was the penultimate battle. But when the dragon fight went so easy, I added goblins and a wizard behind it.

The final treasure room, I came up with the sleep spell defense as the boys walked into the room. The treasure chest being too heavy for one or two fighters to pull it out, I made up right then as a way to involve all the boys in getting the big treasure haul. The two piles of treasure being illusions, I came up with because I noticed it was time for the game session to end and I didn't want to spend time having the boys come up with a way of getting all the coins.

This whole thing was completely against my style of DMing. It is the absolute antithesis of my style. I was not a referee, I was a stage director. Other than the rolls in combat, (which were all done in the open for all to see), I completely cheated the hell out of this game to make things happen in the most dramatic ways.

And the game was a huge success. Everyone loved the game. Everyone had fun and every boy and both dads said they really wanted to do it all again sometime soon.

This causes a bit of a crisis for me. Possibly the best and most exciting game I've ever DMed was done in a style completely reversed of my normal style. The pacing was perfect, the way everything worked out was perfect. All because I managed everything to work out perfect as the game flowed. Nothing happened naturally, or "honestly." And this is so against my style and preference for D&D games. But then, I've seen how my normal style ends up: http://www.enworld.org/forum/genera...sion-basic-d-d-my-game-groups-experience.html

So, have I been a bad DM all these years by following the status quo style? Is the make-it-up-as-you-go and tailored style the most fun? I've got opposing examples of the same game system in the same adventure module to compare results. One ended with "meh" and the other ended with rave reviews.

Bullgrit

 

[Cerebral Paladin]

Player base matters. I run one-on-one D&D games for my son, who's just shy of 5 years old, pretty frequently. They're railroady, somewhat nonsensical, with lots of off the cuff improvisation, and a high degree of willingness to listen to what he wants and make adjustments at any moment. I also run games for groups of friends roughly my age--30 something, more or less. In those games, I aim for a consistent, sensible world, where situations make sense and players can figure out what's going on or how to pursue their goals, and where they face tough choices. In those games, I'm not very inclined to cheapen the players' experience by handing them what they want on a silver platter.

I don't run those two game styles the same way, because what is good for a young child would be boring and frustrating for adults, and what's good for the adults would be boring and frustrating for a young child, although in very different ways. My son would be lost in my normal games, unable to figure out what's going on and unable to solve any of the puzzles or mysteries. My adult friends would find games I run for my son unchallenging, simplistic, and devoid of interesting choices. But they're each good for the groups that I run them for, although they're not necessarily the only good options for those groups.

In other words: you might find that what works best for these kids' games isn't what works best in other contexts.

All that said... if you tried running a game like this and had a great time, producing a great and satisfying game... it might be worth trying that some more. There are different benefits to a by the book game versus a wing it based on the mood and the needs of the game. But it's worth considering that the style that you intellectually think is the "best" one may not be the best one for your purposes.

Part of what I would also consider is whether the prior B1 game was aberrational. When you DM normally, not for the kids, in your traditional style... how do the games go in general? Is frustration and annoyance common? Or do you normally run awesome, super-fun games, although once in a blue moon a session falls flat? If most of the time your games run well, then it probably makes sense to keep running most of your games in your general style. But if frustrating, not very successful sessions are common, then maybe you should experiment with more sessions like this one, and see how your adult players react.

 

[tanalos]

Grading yourself on DM Skills

You will always be your own worst critic when it comes to being a DM. Was this your normal gaming style, no but it fit the situation. Not all games are the same and eventually the game will work back in to more of a balance that you're use to.

Key things to remember:
- You have just started a new generation (gaming table) of players in to a non digital table top roleplaying session that THEY CHOOSE to come back to!
This in its self is a huge win from my perspective

- You brought kids and parents together for a game and quality time together sparking interest

- You have the ability to shape later sessions and create the D&D challenges that you enjoy too

Great stuff and I wish more folks did this with their kids instead of plopping them down in front of World of Warcraft where an uncontrolled gaming environment of hackers, foul mouthed adults, and board trolling creeps cause undue harm to kids minds. I love online games but the controls aren't in place for most kids to handle and its at a far more adult level then kids need at that age. I DM and support old school basics and love to hear about others who do like wise. Keep up the great work!

 

[Jhaelen]

So, have I been a bad DM all these years by following the status quo style?

Yes!

Is the make-it-up-as-you-go and tailored style the most fun?

In theory, yes. In reality it depends on your form (and to a somewhat lesser degree on your player's form) on that day. When everything flows, it's the best gaming experience you can ever have. If your brain locks up, it's at best mediocre.

Status-quo gaming, though, in my experience, is rarely (and mostly accidentally) great. Usually, things start out well, but the longer the campaign runs, the more difficult it becomes to keep the players (and yourself) interested.

Since I started playing 3e I changed my DMing style radically. My reason for changing it was twofold:
Firstly and most importantly I simply didn't have the time to fully prep everything I'd have needed for status-quo adventuring.

Secondly, because of scheduling problems I was looking at an everchanging party composition. I had a pool of nine players and who showed up for a session and who didn't could not be planned ahead. So, without a status-quo party, using a status-quo setting didn't make much sense for me.

Luckily, the improved degree of control over encounter composition by calculating ELs (or XP budgets) allowed me to adjust the difficulty on the fly for best dramatic effect.

I was also noticing the effect of combat taking much longer than in previous editions: Combat had to matter. I completely got rid of random encounters, replacing them by adjustable, planned encounters.
Encounters I didn't use in a given adventure went into a pool to be modified as required and reused at a later time.

If I didn't use a published module as a basis for my adventures, I even got rid of maps in favour of a graph, linking events and encounters. I also liberally planted story-hooks and rumours without thinking too much about where they should lead.

Between sessions I could make changes to the graphs and storyline based on what the pcs had done and what they were interested in doing the next session.

I love this approach to adventure design and 4e makes it even easier to prep for sessions in this way.

 

[Bullgrit]

And here are a couple thoughts on stuff that came up in the game session:

After the game, there was talk of splitting up the treasure looted from the dungeon. One of the dads explained to the boys that you can use the gold to upgrade your equipment, "Get better weapons and armor."

Well, not really. In BD&D, there's really nothing better than the starting equipment to buy. The fighters could buy plate mail for 60gp and improve their AC by 2 points, but that's it. And most 1st level fighters can afford to buy plate mail at character generation, anyway. I gave them all chainmail only because the minis I was using were wearing chainmail -- I made the characters match the minis just to avoid confusion with this learning first game session.

So, really, in BD&D, all that loot hauled out of the dungeons isn't of much use after getting the xp for it.

* * *

I was surprised at how well the 1st level fighters held up in this adventure. Granted, I gave them all max hit points, (9 hp, in this case, with a 13 Con), and I remember in my early, original, BD&D days, it was not uncommon for a 1st level fighter to have 4 hit points. Technically you could have even 1, 2, or 3, but most DMs allowed rerolls for that low.

Also, I gave the cleric a staff of healing -- heal 2-7 hit points for each person once a day. I think every PC got healed by this, plus one cure light wounds spell used on one fighter.

When we were nearing the end of our game session, and the boys were talking about wanting to see a dragon, I decided to throw a 5 HD dragon at them. When I was writing up the monsters for this game session, I kept finding myself making monsters beyond 1st level. And I kept reminding myself that those creatures will kill the whole party. I remember my early, original, experiences with BD&D and the Caves of Chaos -- we had at least one TPK against the ogre.

I had decided to not use the 5 HD critter against the boys. But then with the end of the game session needing a climatic final encounter, I thought, what the heck, let's wipe them out. It'll end the game with a big bang.

The dragon had 25 hit points, did 1d10 damage with a bite and 2d10 with his fire breath. As soon as the boys opened the door to the room with the dragon, it breathed fire on them. One boy was taken to 1 hit point, and another made his saving throw so only took a minor hurt. Then the other boys ran up with their spears and swords and killed the beast. It only managed to wound one other fighter. It wasn't even climatic.

It's amazing what max hit points and one healing spell per person can mean for a party's staying power at 1st level.

I also allowed one fighter to be revived by the healing potion from -1 hit point. This fighter was played by the 7 year old boy, and he had been killing goblins left and right.

Bullgrit