DnD For the Kids

This is a post about making your own worlds with your players at the table, whilst playing a TTRPG, like Dungeons and Dragons. It is not actually about any beverages, caffeinated, alcoholic, or otherwise.  I need to preface this post with the following admission. I am not a home brew guy. I grew up in the 90's, surrounded by more D&D products than any one person could ever run and no one to play D&D with. I spent hours enjoying the " lonely fun " of steeping myself in the the lore of The Forgotten Realms, Planescape, The Dark Sun, Spelljammer, Greyhawk, Mystara, and Thunder Rift. I poured over sourcebooks, read adventure modules, and experienced the adventures of Drizzt, Caderly, Minsc, The Nameless One, and many more through novels and video games. When my day finally came to begin running D&D adventures for my friends, my children, and anyone who would let me, I was prepared with decades of lore in my back pocket. Nothing comes up that I don't have an an...

So, I finally did it! I had the opportunity and support to start a D&D club at my Middle School building. Now this isn't a big after-school program or anything. This happens during the school day in our "clubs period" every other Tuesday. Joined by my friend and colleague, Jared Reck  (read his books!), I ventured to come up with a club that would introduce our students to this awesome hobby.  The Setup The advertisement we put in our middle school clubs catalog looked like this:  D&D is exceptionally inclusive. All you need to join is an imagination . Playing is like creating infinite stories that you and your friends write—and rewrite and re-rewrite—together. You’re all active participants in writing a unique adventure through different, fantastical worlds and scenarios. There is no winner. Instead, the goal is to deepen your understanding of your character by interacting with other players and their shared environment. Participation in tabletop cooperative role...

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...