What to buy a 9 year old D&D playing son?

[buddhafrog]

My son and I began playing D&D 4e in Dec 2009. He is now playing two different campaigns with two different friends - about 4 hrs/wk. I'm glad that we can do this together. It provides endless conversation topics and has helped to make us even closer. Furthermore, he's awesome as a player and I'm proud.

Occasionally when his friends are over but I'm too busy to play, my son will lead his friends as the DM in a semi-D&D encounter. He's told me that he wants to DM some time in the future.

I'm looking at the Essentials Kits and looking for advice on what might be the best box to give him as a gift. Any suggestions?

We live in Korea so I can't really investigate the kits well, and shipping will almost double the prices.... I could go with the hard cover books, but I think the Essentials would provide a better value (although we'd probably never use the tokens - miniatures family we are)

The Essentials Monsters Kit is very safe - every kid loves flipping through monster books, right? The Red Box is a pretty easy suggestion, but his friends mostly play with us already (though some are very new and a few haven't yet) so most don't need to start from zero. The DM Kit looks interesting and the most complete, but I'm wondering if it may be too complex for a 9 year old.

I'm hoping to find something that will let him explore the D&D world on paper - everything we have is via computer and maps and minis. I want to give him the experience I had flipping through books - giving him personal time to explore and imagine.

Suggestions?

 

[buddhafrog]

I left out the Essential Dungeons & Dragons Compendium - but it is a possibility of course. Maybe it'd be the most complete, but I worry it'd be a little too dry to grow his imagination.

 

[S'mon]

I'd think that the Red Box would be the thing for a beginning DM, even if the players have past experience.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I'd give him 2 things: one of the books of some kind (like the Red Box) and a handmade coupon from buddhafrog that is good for 1 free hour of DMing advice (or some such).

The first gets him in the game, the second lets you guide him through a rough patch of rules confusion or planning & running an encounter.

 

[Bold or Stupid]

I misread this thread at first glance and was wondering why anyone with a roleplaying child would sell it...

I support the general Red Box/Essentials consensus.

 

[wedgeski]

I think the Essentials are aimed squarely at your son and I wouldn't hesitate to buy him the DM's kit. Only you would know for sure, but even if the books are above his level, discovering the rules and making his own mistakes are both going to be key steps in giving him that shared experience you're looking for.

 

[Kzach]

I don't know, how much do nine year olds go for these days? Would I have to feed it?

 

[IronWolf]

I would get the DMs Kit for him. While the Red Box set sounds cool from what I have read it is targeted at the beginners and for those of us who have been playing for a bit more likely either another piece for our collection or used as a gift to a new player.

It sounds like your son has been getting regular play time for the majority of this year. So I think the possibility exists that he is past the target audience for the starter box set. He might get some short term use out of it, but likely quickly move past it.

The DM Kit is apt to provide him with a lot more material to digest and work with. As others have said he might struggle just a bit learning, though at nine and already playing a regular game I'm not even sure how much he'd struggle. The DM kit certainly sounds like the gift that would provide longer term entertainment at the moment though.

 

[crazy_monkey1956]

Red Box and DM's Kit.

Red Box not because he's a beginner necessarily but because those two products together should give him all the tools he needs to teach others and bring more of his friends into the hobby.

 

[Cor_Malek]

Um from what I heard (note, I don't have one) Red Box would be largely redundant in this situation. It seems to be targeted at two groups of people:
- those who never played RPG's of any kind
- die hard fans wanting to have a peek at Essentials line

It skims through the options, while it's no good as in-the-pill, since important stuff is left out for sake of simplicity (ie combat advantrage). Polyhedrals you've already got, and tokens you don't use.

What's left of the box is the 64 p. DM book. Now, if the question would be "What to buy a 9 year old non D&D playing son" - I'd think that the Red Box is the stuff. In your case... not so much.

Out of other options, The Monster kit could be quite risky, really. Definitely cool as a skim-through-monsters book (heh, I still dig those ;-) ), but could be hard to use before rest of the essentials come out. So for one shot... maybe, but with the third option...

IMO the DM kit would be best. He gets two poster maps, that could also play the look-and-imagine role of Monsters book. He gets two adventures, that he can run for his friends largely by himself if there's a need. He also gets his very own DM screen. It's a rite of passage stuff there, man!
At this point what's left - is a 200 p. DM book, which I agree might be or not - too hard to chew on for a 9 year old kid. But with rest of the kit, and your backing - he can start going into it whenever he wants. And doing things that are over the top of our head is what allows us to improve
Note, that in terms of accessibility to kids, 64 p book is no easier than a 200 p one - as it boils down to wording, using hard structures and such (unless he'd have to read it all in one go ). In Red Box it's possible that the only useful part would be the short book, while in DM kit - a much larger DM book is an auxiliary part of the set

I like Dannyalcatraz coupon option as well - you would be able to help him out if he wants to prepare one of the adventures, or dig through the DM box, and would give a personal touch to it.

Cheers!