D&D for Kids

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Some of you have kids, some of you *are* kids, so perhaps you can give me some advice on DMing for kids.

My 10-year-old son is very interested in D&D. All he does is read the rulebooks -- he is obsessed. I love to see that, because I remember being so myself as a kid (with first edition!) But I have not played since I was a kid, and I wonder if any of you has any advice on how to run a fun game for him and his friends.

Any ideas?

 

I've found that Dming for a younger audience can be very refreshing or very frustrating. In my experience the younger generation made better roleplayers even, since they had not receieved the powergamer taint from CRPGs. (nothing wrong with that, it just tends to make tabletop D&D a little less exciting) I would just say give 'em what they want. I had one young lad ask to play a dragon, so I wrote up rules on how a dragon character would advance and such.

 

Dealing with a younger group can be a challange. Just think of the difference between adult fantasy and kid's fantasy books. In an adult game there can be more character development, long range plot issues, political intrigue and the like. In a kid's game you may want to have more quick action and shorter plots. Remember on average they have a shorter attension span. Use more memorable NPCs and a little more humor. I wouldn't let the game become to much of a power game, that is easy to do with younger players, help them learn that role playing is also fun and help them grow with the game.

[ August 02, 2002, 14:19: Message edited by: Voltric ]

 

All right, I'm not a DM, and it's not even been a week since my first taste at playing DnD. So I guess my advice isn't going to be that helpful, but I guess l guess adventures that go along the line of "slay the orcs and get the treasure and experience without advancing the plot or one's character" could be used less, but still exciting themes should be made for them. Perhaps more magic and exotic things (the planes, weird monsters) could be used in the game, since so many children's fantasy books include exotic magics and creatures.

Oh well, just my two cents.

[ August 01, 2002, 23:07: Message edited by: C'Jakob ]

 

Don't let them think to much. No long plots or quests they need to puzzle a lot in, or else they will loose attention. Don't discribe things to them to clearly, they'll also loose attention. Just show them a lot of pictures of what things look like, that way they get a better image on what is going on. And let them fight a lot, that's more fun for them. Don't even bother with histories about a weapon or such, they don't care.

I know all about DMing for a bunch of kids. In my D&D group, I'm the DM and there are three players. They are all 19 years old, but they can very childish sometimes. I just let them play the kick-the-door-in kind of game and it is fun. When I say kick-the-door-in I really mean it. The half-orc barbarian doesn't even bother to open the door the conventional way, he just wants to kick them in.

 

Hah Silverblade, you just described the games my previous DM used to run.
Hmm, come to think of it, it's kind of sad

 

Don't, whatever you do, let them play stupid games such as runescape (lame online RPG) or they may never understand. Runescape and similar games can corrupt the way one thinks of D&D. I speak from experience

 

Ho ho ho...

I'm only 12, but I'm about to start DMing a game with my binch of 12 year old friends. Though from my experience, younger players aren't as good for it, for instance, one of my friends, who will remain nameless, decieded he's make a campaign with super intelligent tressyms (flying cats from Forgotten Realms). Every single one had the same friggin personality, they we're all utter smartarses, who belived that they could control exactly what they wanted...

To make it worse, his way of getting us to do the quest was to have the Tressyms threaten to kill us if we didn't (so they say, "hmmm, I wouldn't go doing that if I we're you!" ). Eventually, I just attacked the silly things and my friend got all pissed because "I wouldn't co-operate"...

"sigh..."

My tips for helping your kid get going with it all are:

To encourage him to get some friends together to play on a regular basis (every week or fortnight).

To NOT make every single character in any campaigns he make have exactly the same personality...

And to not force his players into doing things that they don't want to.

Phew... I hope this all way hopeful,

Cheersm Void

 

You could base it around something that they're familiar with such as is they're into Dragon ball z you could make up a plot or/and class about that. Or pokemon, digimon or anything they are even remotly interested in.

 

The thought of haivng any part of Pokemon in D&D causes me a have a violent reaction. Please don't deface something so great as D&D with something as bad as Pokemon. Even just tying the word makes me fell the need to go wash my hands.

 

Mixing Dragonball Z with D&D isn't such a bad idea. I also came up with it for my campaign. Two out of three of the players in my campaign always watch Dragonball Z. Just put in the Dragonballs as a major artifact you need to find for a quest. Dragonball Z is actually a big source of inspiration.

[ August 06, 2002, 19:53: Message edited by: Silverblade ]

 

I game with a mixed group, two people over 20 who are seasoned gamers and two kids who aren't even teenagers, one of the oldies DM. Holy Crap, the kids suck, we give them more than enough room to manouver, we ask them what they want to do, we try to urge them in the right direction, during the whole thing they just sit and stare blankly at us. They even have to be reminded to join in combat. I know they have to start somewhere but it's just so infuriating watching them do nothing. Whereas the old gamers are all full of ideas and action.

I also DM for a group of people my age (15-16) and they're all full of action, not as many bright ides but still, they're refreshing to play with. Sadly they're still in the "I wanna kick the door down!" stage, so just throw in a couple of false doorways with spikes places at foot and shoulder height... That usually stops them

So all in all DMing for the younger generation can be fun, but also extremely frustrating. If you think you can handle them not talking up, performing stupid actions, forgetting to roll dice, cheating on dice then go ahead, just always try to make it fun

First and Last rule of PnP - If you can't get your gamers to laugh even once, it's a bad session.

 

Thanks for all the good advice. I loved the bit about kicking down the doors -- my son would totally do that, I bet.

As far as computer games warping the PnP experience... it may be a little late. BGII (we have, but haven't played BGI much) has the boy thinking that seventh level is really the least powerful he could stand. He has been devouring the epic handbook and telling me about his googleth level monk/spellsword/palemaster/paladin...

 

OK, so pokemon is a bad idea. Um, he's gonna be a what! He should maybe come back to earth (BG1, getting slaughtered a few times by kobolds should help cure that

[ August 08, 2002, 10:18: Message edited by: zaknafein ]