My 6-year old wants to play! Help :)

[Viktyr Gehrig]

Here's what I do for my five year old... He's in kindergarten, so reading isn't super high.

First, I showed him the races, and let him pick his favorite (half-orc), then let him choose his class (barbarian). I walked him through character creation, explaining a little, but basically making a lot of the choices. We focus more on dungeon crawls when he plays, because he's mainly interested in the combat with miniatures. I'm looking forward to how well he'll do at six. (extra player, hurray!!!)

I do this for my players quite a bit... and I play with adults.

 

[SylverFlame]

I started playing DnD when I was five years old. I read much of the PHB and sat in on my older brothers games to get the rest of the ideas. A friend of mine and I got a group and we went for it.

As for first hand suggestions, here is the big one. Let the child make the character decisions. Don't force anything and explain things so they have a "wow" factor. If you make one class sound better than others, they'll take that one and not have as much fun as when they get to pick from a balanced selection.

Number 2: I LOVED rolling dice. The bigger the handful and the more times I rolled the better (don't ask me why, cause I don't know). Maybe your kid will enjoy it to.

Number 3: Don't treat their character any different. If they do something that puts their character in trouble, play out the trouble. They'll appreciate "being one of the gang".

Number 4: Rubber rules. The more stringent the rules, the less interesting the game. This holds for all players in my opinion, young, old, newbie, or old-timer.

Number 5: This is by far the MOST IMPORTANT RULE. Make sure the child knows that it is a game. Kids have vivid imaginations. That is why they make some of the best players, but that imagination can run away with them. If they realize that DnD is just like video games and TV then everything is better.

I've been playing RPGs for 15 years now and I follow all these rules even now-a-days with any group I play with (even Rule 2, I love those dice ). It's all about fun and that's what kids want.

 

[CMonkey]

Death and Dying

Something I did for my son and his friends group was as a reward for their first adventure completed:

The mayor of the village they had saved sent them to see a mysterious hermit who gave them each magic tattoos with swirling patterns and strange animal-like icons. They were not told what they did by the grumpy old hermit...

The tattoos were activated by a character dying, and transformed the dead character into a very powerful creature for 1 minute and then restored them to life (0 hit points, but alive and stable). The reasoning behind this is, obviously, to give them an extra "life", but the animal thing gives it flavour (if you pick the animals well) and allows them to deal with whatever dropped them in the first place.

Some suggested animal forms:

• Fighter / Paladin: Dire Lion
• Barbarian: Dire Bear
• Rogue: Dire Weasel
• Ranger: Dire Eagle

... you get the idea.

 

[X-ray Crossbow]

Nice idea...

I planned a campaign where the two characters were carnies left behind accidentally. They'd be hired by the city as "City Defenders" to handle special situations.

A nearby magic-user would try out his experimental tattoos on them, that allow use of a 1st to 2nd level arcane or divine spell 3 times a day. (This is to make up for their lack of personnel)

But I can't decide whether to make this manpower lack up in minor magic items (like a Gem of Brightness, Ring of the Ram, Spined Shield, Six-Demon Bag, Bag of Tricks, etc.) or use just the tattoos, or send minor NPCs to assist them, or some combination of the above...

Something I did for my son and his friends group was as a reward for their first adventure completed:

The mayor of the village they had saved sent them to see a mysterious hermit who gave them each magic tattoos with swirling patterns and strange animal-like icons. They were not told what they did by the grumpy old hermit...

The tattoos were activated by a character dying, and transformed the dead character into a very powerful creature for 1 minute and then restored them to life (0 hit points, but alive and stable). The reasoning behind this is, obviously, to give them an extra "life", but the animal thing gives it flavour (if you pick the animals well) and allows them to deal with whatever dropped them in the first place.

Some suggested animal forms:

Fighter / Paladin: Dire Lion

Barbarian: Dire Bear

Rogue: Dire Weasel

Ranger: Dire Eagle

 

[Enchantress]

Now, however, my 6-year-old son wants to play D&D.

*shrugs* I play with an eight year old.