Raven Crowking
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NOW LIVE! Into the Woods--new character species, eerie monsters, and haunting villains to populate the woodlands of your D&D games.
Introducing a Child to D&D
- Thread starter Raven Crowking
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Silmarillius
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Raven Crowking said:There was a broken window at the store last night that derailed the adventure. We'll have to run it later.
You didn't get to game early because of Simon? That's horrible Dan. I hope your gaming doesn't affect the fact I accidentally broke the big table in your store.
Herobizkit
Adventurer
Call me crazy, but I think you're going azz-backwards here.
The simple joy and fun of story-telling with a child is, at its core, a pure source of ideas for adventure design. Why on earth would you want your young children to get bogged down into the morass of rules that is 3.5?
... Ok, I'm calm again. *LOL* What I MEAN, is why not just enjoy the simplicity of "make believe" without worrying how it fits into the big machine of D&D? For example, you said your daughter wanted to play a cheetah-girl, and you proceeded to write up her stats and special abilities and what your vision of a cheetah-girl would be. Why does it matter? If I had been in that situation, I would say "Ok, you're a cheetah-girl", and game on. She doens't care what her ability mods are, or special abilities. She wants to look like a cheetah girl, and in her mind that's all she needs to know to play. Makes sense to me.
I might also suggest running Blue Rose/True 20 instead of 3.5 for the beginners. Much more rules lite, and the game encourages story-telling over killing/taking their stuff in its design.
The simple joy and fun of story-telling with a child is, at its core, a pure source of ideas for adventure design. Why on earth would you want your young children to get bogged down into the morass of rules that is 3.5?
... Ok, I'm calm again. *LOL* What I MEAN, is why not just enjoy the simplicity of "make believe" without worrying how it fits into the big machine of D&D? For example, you said your daughter wanted to play a cheetah-girl, and you proceeded to write up her stats and special abilities and what your vision of a cheetah-girl would be. Why does it matter? If I had been in that situation, I would say "Ok, you're a cheetah-girl", and game on. She doens't care what her ability mods are, or special abilities. She wants to look like a cheetah girl, and in her mind that's all she needs to know to play. Makes sense to me.
I might also suggest running Blue Rose/True 20 instead of 3.5 for the beginners. Much more rules lite, and the game encourages story-telling over killing/taking their stuff in its design.
occam
Hero
Herobizkit said:
Speaking for myself... I've played make-believe with my six-year-old daughter since she was two years old. Frankly, for an adult, that can get a little old after a while, but that's not the main reason to bring D&D into it. There are several good reasons to do it, with some of them being:
- A (somewhat) impartial rules set rewards real problem-solving. Overcoming a challenge requires not just thinking of something you want to have happen, but coming up with a solution that will actually work within a given structure. In fact, I'd say this is the primary benefit of RPG rules for adults, as well.
- Playing D&D demonstrates the necessity of teamwork and perseverance in overcoming challenges.
- Learning the rules provides opportunity and incentive to train math, reading, and critical thinking skills.
- It's a fun way to introduce the importance of good money management, without using real money.
- D&D source material spurs the imagination, helping to break from the make-believe rut you can fall into (in my case, of princesses, unicorns, and fairies
). - And one of the great benefits: New D&D players!
And from initial experience, it can be much more involving than simple make-believe. So far, my daughter and I have only made up her first character, but she really got into all the minutiae of character generation (more than I expected), and even brought her character sheet to bed so she could study the details.
Herobizkit said:
I use a greatly simplified rules set to introduce my six-year-old to D&D, I would never start with the full 3.5 rules. Also, I plan to focus on non-violent solutions to problems; the D&D rules don't discourage such solutions, they just make it easy to kill things and take their stuff.
crazy_monkey1956
First Post
I've introduced my 10 year old son, 7 year old daughter, and 5 year old son to gaming through both of the recent incarnations of the Basic Game, and some of our own ideas. I try to cater to their interests in what they want to do with the game. For example, my eldest really wants to DM, so he's the one I concentrate on teaching the rules to. My 7 year old likes getting into her character (Lidda usually) to the point of emitting ear piercing shrieks when her character gets attacked. My 5 year old likes to play with the dice.
My eldest also has his own collection of D&D Minis. Having been an only child when I was growing up, teaching my kids to play is quite a challenge. One of the tricks is a) not to underestimate their intelligence and imagination, and b) cater to their interests.
My eldest also has his own collection of D&D Minis. Having been an only child when I was growing up, teaching my kids to play is quite a challenge. One of the tricks is a) not to underestimate their intelligence and imagination, and b) cater to their interests.
Raven Crowking
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Raven Crowking
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definatley dont underestimate thier abilitys! I dont have any kids myself yet, but I remember when I started playing. I was 7, and a friend of my dads started me out with http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomb_of_Horrors within a year I was DMing my own group, made up of neighborhood friends at my age, and we loved it. proof that as long as the kid has fun they can do anything that we can do!
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