MNblockhead
A Title Much Cooler Than Anything on the Old Site
Please share your experiences playing table-top role-playing games with kids. The good, the bad, the ugly, and the funny--from either a game master's or player's perspective (or both!).
My sons, ages 8 and 11, have recently gotten really into Dungeons & Dragons to their old man’s delight. This isn't their first TTRPG experience. I played through all of the No Thank You, Evil! boxed set adventure and some adventures with the Story Please! expansion. We also did all the Hero Kids. Then there was almost a year where they showed no interest in TTRPGs. Recently my older son started asking about D&D and reading the books. Also, he has friends in school who play. So I started the Trail of the Apprentice adventure path (a "family friendly" AP published by Legendary Games) with him and his younger brother.
Interestingly, they both almost immediately wanted to DM and would rather DM than play, which is fine by me. I’m usually the DM, so it’s nice to play. So we put TotA campaign on hold and alternate between each son's campaign.
Playing in a game run by one of my sons really brings back the memories of playing in the 70s and 80s, before things like “game balance”, “story arcs”, and “making any goddamn sense whatsoever” were concerns. Here are some things I’ve (re)learned from about running games after playing in kid-run games.
Preparation is optional. Kids are great improvisers. My 8-year old is a damn improv savant. He makes Sly Flourish look like a workaholic. “Dad, is it okay if I just make things up as we play?” he asked one fated night. “Uh, okay…” I responded with some trepidation. He proceeded to run a game where he made up the story, NPCs, and even monster stats on the fly. It was still fun.
But preparation can be fun and more educational than most of the homework they are given in school. My 11-year old is already at the age where he’ll spend hours creating stories, dungeons, and creating his own monsters and magic items in D&D Beyond. Reading, researching, mapping, presenting, moderating, going through the what-if scenarios--all that stuff DM's do for fun. As an adult, I can see how all these skills apply to real-life skill sets. My son does very well in school, esp. math and language, but he's always hated social studies. I think D&D has helped bring some of that stuff to life as I can see influences from his coursework seep into his adventures.
Embrace the Gonzo. As a DM I care about things like verisimilitude, not breaking in-game logic, so as not to break the suspension of disbelief, etc. My first adventure with my 8-year old involved pitting three 5th-level characters (my wife's, older son's and mine) against a boss battle involving a horned devil, four young red dragons, and a troop of lizardfolk. But he provided an NPC ancient silver dragon that for some reason was able to cow the red dragons with a shout. Also, his inexperience makes the horned devil much more manageable. I can't say I would be happy with this kind of encounter design in, say, an Adventurer's League game, but I think it is important when playing with kids, especially kid DMs, to roll with it. Kid's don't need lectures on how to play. Let it occur naturally. Let them cause a TPK with a ridiculously impossible encounter and then have an improbably wandering angel resurrect everyone. I think it is hard to appreciate and absorb advice on adventure design until you have some experience under your belt and, uh, after your brain is more fully developed.
Enjoy watching them learn hard lessons rather than lecture them. Don't tell kids how to play the game. Let them split the party. Let them make "obvious" tactical blunders. Let the DMs learn that players can usually outsmart the DM. As someone who mostly DMs, I have to say I took probably too much pleasure at seeing my older son's reaction to the amount of damage my Tortle barbarian great-weapons master could deal out in one round.
Try to keep the adults out of it? I find myself wishing that my sons had more opportunities to play "unsupervised" with peers. I guess this is not just TTRPGs, but everything. None of his friends are in walking or even biking distance (for his age). Getting together with friends to just play requires adults to at least drive. He's never played a TTRPG without at least one adult playing. One reason I think he was turned off role-playing games for a while is that the dads would spend 30 minutes of an adventure calculating profit on a trade that they could make to get more gold to fund an expedition. That and the dads would tend to dictate the tactics. Now that other friends of his in school are into it, I'm hoping he can join in on some regular games without parents involved (other than in the next room playing a different game, perhaps).
Buy them their own books. I try to teach my kids to respect books, but it is a game and books are meant to be used. Still, when I saw my son using pencils as bookmarks in my copy of the Monster Manual, it was hard to let my desire to let my kids enjoy the game overcome my possessiveness and book fetish. A mixture of ground rules for borrowing my stuff and getting him his own stuff was necessary. D&D Beyond has been great. He has full access to all of rule and monster books on his iPad and he loves making custom magic items and monsters on it. I know that a lot of people hate on D&D Beyond's pricing model, but it has been a blessing for me to have a way to share all the content with both of my sons, each having their own account (not to mention the players in my grown-ups only game).
Looking forward to reading other folk's experiences and recommendations.
My sons, ages 8 and 11, have recently gotten really into Dungeons & Dragons to their old man’s delight. This isn't their first TTRPG experience. I played through all of the No Thank You, Evil! boxed set adventure and some adventures with the Story Please! expansion. We also did all the Hero Kids. Then there was almost a year where they showed no interest in TTRPGs. Recently my older son started asking about D&D and reading the books. Also, he has friends in school who play. So I started the Trail of the Apprentice adventure path (a "family friendly" AP published by Legendary Games) with him and his younger brother.
Interestingly, they both almost immediately wanted to DM and would rather DM than play, which is fine by me. I’m usually the DM, so it’s nice to play. So we put TotA campaign on hold and alternate between each son's campaign.
Playing in a game run by one of my sons really brings back the memories of playing in the 70s and 80s, before things like “game balance”, “story arcs”, and “making any goddamn sense whatsoever” were concerns. Here are some things I’ve (re)learned from about running games after playing in kid-run games.
Preparation is optional. Kids are great improvisers. My 8-year old is a damn improv savant. He makes Sly Flourish look like a workaholic. “Dad, is it okay if I just make things up as we play?” he asked one fated night. “Uh, okay…” I responded with some trepidation. He proceeded to run a game where he made up the story, NPCs, and even monster stats on the fly. It was still fun.
But preparation can be fun and more educational than most of the homework they are given in school. My 11-year old is already at the age where he’ll spend hours creating stories, dungeons, and creating his own monsters and magic items in D&D Beyond. Reading, researching, mapping, presenting, moderating, going through the what-if scenarios--all that stuff DM's do for fun. As an adult, I can see how all these skills apply to real-life skill sets. My son does very well in school, esp. math and language, but he's always hated social studies. I think D&D has helped bring some of that stuff to life as I can see influences from his coursework seep into his adventures.
Embrace the Gonzo. As a DM I care about things like verisimilitude, not breaking in-game logic, so as not to break the suspension of disbelief, etc. My first adventure with my 8-year old involved pitting three 5th-level characters (my wife's, older son's and mine) against a boss battle involving a horned devil, four young red dragons, and a troop of lizardfolk. But he provided an NPC ancient silver dragon that for some reason was able to cow the red dragons with a shout. Also, his inexperience makes the horned devil much more manageable. I can't say I would be happy with this kind of encounter design in, say, an Adventurer's League game, but I think it is important when playing with kids, especially kid DMs, to roll with it. Kid's don't need lectures on how to play. Let it occur naturally. Let them cause a TPK with a ridiculously impossible encounter and then have an improbably wandering angel resurrect everyone. I think it is hard to appreciate and absorb advice on adventure design until you have some experience under your belt and, uh, after your brain is more fully developed.
Enjoy watching them learn hard lessons rather than lecture them. Don't tell kids how to play the game. Let them split the party. Let them make "obvious" tactical blunders. Let the DMs learn that players can usually outsmart the DM. As someone who mostly DMs, I have to say I took probably too much pleasure at seeing my older son's reaction to the amount of damage my Tortle barbarian great-weapons master could deal out in one round.
Try to keep the adults out of it? I find myself wishing that my sons had more opportunities to play "unsupervised" with peers. I guess this is not just TTRPGs, but everything. None of his friends are in walking or even biking distance (for his age). Getting together with friends to just play requires adults to at least drive. He's never played a TTRPG without at least one adult playing. One reason I think he was turned off role-playing games for a while is that the dads would spend 30 minutes of an adventure calculating profit on a trade that they could make to get more gold to fund an expedition. That and the dads would tend to dictate the tactics. Now that other friends of his in school are into it, I'm hoping he can join in on some regular games without parents involved (other than in the next room playing a different game, perhaps).
Buy them their own books. I try to teach my kids to respect books, but it is a game and books are meant to be used. Still, when I saw my son using pencils as bookmarks in my copy of the Monster Manual, it was hard to let my desire to let my kids enjoy the game overcome my possessiveness and book fetish. A mixture of ground rules for borrowing my stuff and getting him his own stuff was necessary. D&D Beyond has been great. He has full access to all of rule and monster books on his iPad and he loves making custom magic items and monsters on it. I know that a lot of people hate on D&D Beyond's pricing model, but it has been a blessing for me to have a way to share all the content with both of my sons, each having their own account (not to mention the players in my grown-ups only game).
Looking forward to reading other folk's experiences and recommendations.
