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Introducing a 10-year old to D&D: framing the adventure
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<blockquote data-quote="Magean" data-source="post: 7618182" data-attributes="member: 6896297"><p>Hi,</p><p> </p><p>So I am going to stay for a few days at my cousin's place and she has a 10-year old son. He's fond of me because I'm the big boy who understands his centers of interests, plays with him, and at the same time has the experience to show him new exciting games.</p><p> </p><p>That boy is, I believe, the sort of child who gets deeply into fiction (not all do). At his school, Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh are still big things so he can just talk about it for hours and hours. And, since he plays the corresponding TCGs, I introduced him to the next level, namely Magic. Following that, I was literally buried under questions on MtG lore. [As a side note, WotC was wise to replace old-style theme decks by planeswalker decks. New players, especially the younger audience, want poster-characters to relate to]. He'd been reading every single piece of subtext on the cards, and asked me about even the most irrelevant names appearing there. He thought about logical inferences on relationships between characters that made sense but were completely unexpected, such as "this dragon [mentioned in a subtext], is part of Kolaghan's brood and Kolaghan is a scion of Ugin, therefore it's Nicol Bolas's grand-nephew, isn't it?" "Uhh... yeah I suppose so".</p><p> </p><p>So, as he has such a mindset and is old enough to navigate relatively complex rule systems, I believe the time has come to introduce him to tabletop RPGs. D&D 5 is a natural choice. It's a very flexible system, not exceedingly complicated when appropriately DM'd, conveniently it's the system I'm most proficient at these days, and it's the one my little cousin is most likely to play with school buddies in the future.</p><p> </p><p>I think the challenge of introducing a newbie to D&D, and in particular a kid, comes in two parts: first, teaching the principles of role-playing and game mechanics; and secondly, devising an appropriate scenario.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Regarding the first part, I'm certainly not the first one to wonder about it, so I researched it a bit and found some pieces of sound though oft unsurprising advice. I'd like to rather focus on the second part, namely scenario-design. Nonetheless, I'll summarize what I have in mind for the first, more general part of introducing D&D.</p><p> </p><p>-don't overwhelm the audience with a lecture on rules and the adventure setting. Instead tell them the basics of roleplaying, that they're going to roll D20's most of the time, that the adventure is rather free-form but for skill checks, except in combat where it's structured more like a board game... things like that. Present the broad strokes of the setting. Then, jump into the game and let people learn by doing and explore the setting. This piece of advice applies to any newbie, not just kids.</p><p> </p><p>-as a result, pregenerated characters are to be preferred. The first time you create a character, it takes hours and can feel overwhelming. The amount of information to process is simply daunting. A roster of pregens (with blank fields for gender, physical features and personality traits) to choose from is largely enough. Attach easy-to-read spell cards to spellcasters, possibly using a color-code to distinguish between cantrips, prepared spells and unprepared spells. Players can prepare other spells once they've a better understanding of the system. Again, that applies to all newbies.</p><p> </p><p>-Now this is more specific to the younger audience: props and visual elements are especially important for them to get into the setting and their character. Bring pictures of people and places, minis, tokens, maps...</p><p> </p><p>-Children love doing cool stuff and they have a vibrant imagination for that. In case of a conflict between rules and cool RP, the latter should definitely trump the former.</p><p> </p><p>-They also like to emulate tropes and famous characters.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Now, regarding the second part, the scenario... The boy doesn't know much about fantasy, he has never watched the Lord of the Rings (his mother find it too violent for now, so there's no starting with Tolkien 101) or the Hobbit, and has probably never played RPGs beyond Pokémon. As a result, he doesn't have expectations about gruff ax-wielding Dwarves, refined Elven archers, stealthy but surprisingly bold Halflings and the like. Thus, I can't tap into those tropes. I can use them, but they won't feel familiar.</p><p> </p><p>However, this isn't necessarily a hindrance because my go-to setting is Eberron. It's the one I know best and can improvise best in. Eberron adds it own twist to the classic fantasy tropes, it doesn't feel as Tolkien-ish as the Forgotten Realms. Now, Eberron is often advertised a "pulp-noir". Obviously, I'm not going full nihilistic noir with a 10-year old. There won't be troubled antiheros with a very dark past, shades of grey everywhere, moral quandaries, clash of political ideologies, everyone being a potential villain with a relatable excuse... I won't do that. The pulp side, though, would in my opinion do the job.</p><p> </p><p>The way I see it, the atmosphere of Paul Dini's <em>Batman</em> cartoons from the 90's would be a very good fit. It's pulp in a noir dress, so to speak. The action would be set in Sharn, Eberron's most detailed metropolis, with a distinctive Gotham feel. Yes, there would be corrupt cops and not-so-benevolent institutions... because we need room for heroic action. The villains may have a detailed backstory but they would still be pulp / Bond villains.</p><p> </p><p>At that point, I'm considering ripping off the plot of<em> The Attack of the Clones</em>. Say whatever you want about the movie, if you remove the terrible angst & love Anakin parts and focus on Obi-Wan, you're left with:</p><p>-an assassination attempt (could be a kidnapping, heist, whatever)</p><p>-a chase</p><p>-an investigation that goes from the slums to the Jedi archives (university library, in game terms), involving different skill checks</p><p>-travel to an exotic location</p><p>-another chase</p><p>-a stealth / infiltration scene</p><p>-a climactic battle</p><p> </p><p>All of it leading to the gradual unraveling of a conspiracy, with a a plot that "thickens" along the way.</p><p> </p><p>Doesn't it look like a perfect pulp RPG scenario? There's combat, investigation, social interaction, exploration, infiltration... And a deep-running mystery.</p><p> </p><p>So, yeah, I believe I'll do something along those lines, maybe throw in a small dungeon in the mix because the game is called D&D for a reason. I'll watch a few episodes from the aforementioned Batman series for inspiration.</p><p> </p><p>It's most likely going to be a singleplayer game. I'm pondering letting my young cousin play multiple characters at once, so he can experiment various things. That being said, a friend of his as well as his older sister may join us, who knows. </p><p> </p><p>Alright, so that's what I have in mind. I'd be very interested by your comments / suggestions. I'm looking forward to reading them !</p><p> </p><p>Thanks in advance <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Magean, post: 7618182, member: 6896297"] Hi, So I am going to stay for a few days at my cousin's place and she has a 10-year old son. He's fond of me because I'm the big boy who understands his centers of interests, plays with him, and at the same time has the experience to show him new exciting games. That boy is, I believe, the sort of child who gets deeply into fiction (not all do). At his school, Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh are still big things so he can just talk about it for hours and hours. And, since he plays the corresponding TCGs, I introduced him to the next level, namely Magic. Following that, I was literally buried under questions on MtG lore. [As a side note, WotC was wise to replace old-style theme decks by planeswalker decks. New players, especially the younger audience, want poster-characters to relate to]. He'd been reading every single piece of subtext on the cards, and asked me about even the most irrelevant names appearing there. He thought about logical inferences on relationships between characters that made sense but were completely unexpected, such as "this dragon [mentioned in a subtext], is part of Kolaghan's brood and Kolaghan is a scion of Ugin, therefore it's Nicol Bolas's grand-nephew, isn't it?" "Uhh... yeah I suppose so". So, as he has such a mindset and is old enough to navigate relatively complex rule systems, I believe the time has come to introduce him to tabletop RPGs. D&D 5 is a natural choice. It's a very flexible system, not exceedingly complicated when appropriately DM'd, conveniently it's the system I'm most proficient at these days, and it's the one my little cousin is most likely to play with school buddies in the future. I think the challenge of introducing a newbie to D&D, and in particular a kid, comes in two parts: first, teaching the principles of role-playing and game mechanics; and secondly, devising an appropriate scenario. Regarding the first part, I'm certainly not the first one to wonder about it, so I researched it a bit and found some pieces of sound though oft unsurprising advice. I'd like to rather focus on the second part, namely scenario-design. Nonetheless, I'll summarize what I have in mind for the first, more general part of introducing D&D. -don't overwhelm the audience with a lecture on rules and the adventure setting. Instead tell them the basics of roleplaying, that they're going to roll D20's most of the time, that the adventure is rather free-form but for skill checks, except in combat where it's structured more like a board game... things like that. Present the broad strokes of the setting. Then, jump into the game and let people learn by doing and explore the setting. This piece of advice applies to any newbie, not just kids. -as a result, pregenerated characters are to be preferred. The first time you create a character, it takes hours and can feel overwhelming. The amount of information to process is simply daunting. A roster of pregens (with blank fields for gender, physical features and personality traits) to choose from is largely enough. Attach easy-to-read spell cards to spellcasters, possibly using a color-code to distinguish between cantrips, prepared spells and unprepared spells. Players can prepare other spells once they've a better understanding of the system. Again, that applies to all newbies. -Now this is more specific to the younger audience: props and visual elements are especially important for them to get into the setting and their character. Bring pictures of people and places, minis, tokens, maps... -Children love doing cool stuff and they have a vibrant imagination for that. In case of a conflict between rules and cool RP, the latter should definitely trump the former. -They also like to emulate tropes and famous characters. Now, regarding the second part, the scenario... The boy doesn't know much about fantasy, he has never watched the Lord of the Rings (his mother find it too violent for now, so there's no starting with Tolkien 101) or the Hobbit, and has probably never played RPGs beyond Pokémon. As a result, he doesn't have expectations about gruff ax-wielding Dwarves, refined Elven archers, stealthy but surprisingly bold Halflings and the like. Thus, I can't tap into those tropes. I can use them, but they won't feel familiar. However, this isn't necessarily a hindrance because my go-to setting is Eberron. It's the one I know best and can improvise best in. Eberron adds it own twist to the classic fantasy tropes, it doesn't feel as Tolkien-ish as the Forgotten Realms. Now, Eberron is often advertised a "pulp-noir". Obviously, I'm not going full nihilistic noir with a 10-year old. There won't be troubled antiheros with a very dark past, shades of grey everywhere, moral quandaries, clash of political ideologies, everyone being a potential villain with a relatable excuse... I won't do that. The pulp side, though, would in my opinion do the job. The way I see it, the atmosphere of Paul Dini's [I]Batman[/I] cartoons from the 90's would be a very good fit. It's pulp in a noir dress, so to speak. The action would be set in Sharn, Eberron's most detailed metropolis, with a distinctive Gotham feel. Yes, there would be corrupt cops and not-so-benevolent institutions... because we need room for heroic action. The villains may have a detailed backstory but they would still be pulp / Bond villains. At that point, I'm considering ripping off the plot of[I] The Attack of the Clones[/I]. Say whatever you want about the movie, if you remove the terrible angst & love Anakin parts and focus on Obi-Wan, you're left with: -an assassination attempt (could be a kidnapping, heist, whatever) -a chase -an investigation that goes from the slums to the Jedi archives (university library, in game terms), involving different skill checks -travel to an exotic location -another chase -a stealth / infiltration scene -a climactic battle All of it leading to the gradual unraveling of a conspiracy, with a a plot that "thickens" along the way. Doesn't it look like a perfect pulp RPG scenario? There's combat, investigation, social interaction, exploration, infiltration... And a deep-running mystery. So, yeah, I believe I'll do something along those lines, maybe throw in a small dungeon in the mix because the game is called D&D for a reason. I'll watch a few episodes from the aforementioned Batman series for inspiration. It's most likely going to be a singleplayer game. I'm pondering letting my young cousin play multiple characters at once, so he can experiment various things. That being said, a friend of his as well as his older sister may join us, who knows. Alright, so that's what I have in mind. I'd be very interested by your comments / suggestions. I'm looking forward to reading them ! Thanks in advance :-) [/QUOTE]
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