DnD For the Kids

So, it's been awhile... I have been busy! I'm normally a pretty busy dude, what with teaching, coaching Esports, caring for my family, and running all over creation because I co-parent with someone who lives an hour away from me. But let's take a look at what's new:  Moving (I'm moving into an old farmhouse that is still being renovated - I have no kitchen) Teaching (teaching is hard this year... so many new responsibilities with so little time!) Dungeon Mastering I'm still dungeon mastering for a group of adults at home. I'm still dungeon mastering for 2 groups of kids at home. Running D&D club at my school (I started a D&D club at school! Kids are dungeon mastering and playing!) Yeah, so I've been busy. I have a lot to share with you in coming weeks, but here's a preview: Starting a D&D Club Starting a D&D club at school or elsewhere?? I have slide presentations galore to share for you to steal and modify! Look forward to this post ...

So, I'm pretty confident at this point that I can point new Dungeon Masters, particularly those who want to DM for a group of Kids, to a set of videos on Youtube, and have them pretty darn equipped to start running games this weekend.  Seriously, these videos pretty much sum up what I think one needs to know to get a group of kids sucked into a game and rolling dice in pretty short order. If you're getting ready to DM for some kids for the first time, and you have no idea where to start, I'm hoping that you will find this post to be a life saver! Photo by Nika Benedictova on Unsplash  I listen to these videos on my commute (like a podcast). If there's a visual I really need to see, I just revisit the video later. Bear in mind, these videos will help you run the game . You will still need some basic components to get going, but I've got those covered in these posts: The Ultimate Budget Gamemaster! Counting the Cost  ...and if you're online: You down with VTT...

I was recently listening to a conversation with Dael Kingsmill & BardicBroadcasts on Questing Beast's Youtube Channel. The discussion was titled, "Why DnD Is So Great", but the group covered many different topics. If any of you spend a lot of your life commuting or driving children all over creation, it's a great conversation to listen to in the car.  Anyway, the topic of Wizards of the Coast's big campaign books came up in the second section of the video, entitled "Most nostalgic module". All of the panelists seemed to make the assertion that they're too big, too cumbersome, and too much of a plot railroad. I think it was Dael who said something to the effect of, "I don't even know what to do with them". I do use Campaign books when running games for the kids, and I'd like to talk about how I think we got here, some of the benefits of the campaign books, what I miss about the old days, and strategies for applying these books...

Today's post is a bit of a deep topic, but I think it's important to understand moving forward, particularly as we bring the next generation into D&D or TTRPG's in general.  What separates the tabletop from the machine? Our kiddos are coming into this game from a completely different context form whence we started 20 or 30 years ago... Good lord, it hurts to say that. 1992, when I opened the black box for the first time feels like yesterday. Anyway, when we (assuming you are nearly as old as I am) got those polyhedral dice in our hands for the first time, we had never heard of hit points or armor class . We may have read a fantasy book or two, but the class archetypes were nothing that we had codified. We had to learn from the rules that mages were squishy but had the potential to deal out massive damage or status effects on our enemies. Our kids know this. They have experience playing a character role, gaining experience, and watching their hit points in a multitude ...

So, a lot has come up recently that I want to talk about, but none of it necessitates a whole post. So, what do you get? You get a little ttrpg tapas table of goodness. Without further adieu, on to glory! New [ish] Products First of all, I bring you product reviews. Understand that my early D&D experience looked a lot like Travis Miller's, as outlined here . That said, I try not to focus too heavily on buying stuff. Sometimes, though, I like to buy things. Don't we all? Then, I like to review those things here. Towns & Taverns For Christmas, my wife got me The Dungeon books of Battlemats , which I talked about in my Holiday Gift Guide . Meanwhile, I pre-ordered the Towns and Taverns set from my friendly local game shop,  Comic Store West  because I do a lot of Urban-ish adventuring. My primary, longest running campaign is Waterdeep Dragonheist, and I also have a Saltmarsh campaign, where we spend a lot of time in town.  Again this is a great set. It's portable, v...

... I was talking to a friend from college the other night. He and I played 2nd Edition AD&D together in 1998... Man, 1998 was 23 years ago! I'm just letting that sink in... Anyway, 1998 was a great year. When my roommates and I weren't playing Baldur's Gate, Diablo, or Final Fantasy 7, we were sitting down to enjoy some serious AD&D. The hobby was still expensive back then, but most folks did not spend near as much as one does today.  Anyway, it just so happens that my college friend, Jim, and I are both running games amidst this pandemic with the folks nearest to us, and we got to talking about the current cost of 5th edition adventures.  During our phone conversation I got stuck on the idea that while a modern D&D 5e Adventure book is around $50.00, you're actually getting great value for your money. I repeated some of the points that Mike Shea often makes on the topic. I keep going back to that call in my mind, though. There are so many great free or ch...

Running D&D or any TTRPG for kids is fun and rewarding on many levels, but at times it can be frustrating, especially when you don't know what they don't know. I'm a teacher, and I have a lot of cues I can use in my Computer Science class to figure out where my students' gaps are. I have a curriculum that contains a scope and sequence for instruction, noting what they will be exposed to at each grade level. I have formative assessments that gauge their performance on distinct skills and knowledge, allowing me to fine tune my instruction to fill in what's missing allowing students to apply a firm foundation of concepts and practice to create their projects.  Often, when running an RPG for a group of newbies, kids or adults, you need to come along side them and help fill in the gaps. The problem is that many of us old grognards have been rolling dice since the 80's and we have years of foundational knowledge that's not necessarily covered in the Players Ha...