DnD For the Kids

In this post I will endeavor to walk you through how I used one of D&D Beyond's Encounter of the week articles to guide my middle school D&D Club table DM’s through their first encounter. For all the links and materials I used, scroll to end.  It has been a minute since my last D&D club update. A lot has happened between last year and this year! First, my partner in crime , teacher / author / renaissance man, Jared Reck , has moved to the high school, leaving me solely responsible for the Middle School D&D club. Meanwhile, its popularity has grown. I now have about 30 kids to teach this game to and to manage! In other news, Wizards of the Coast has gotten involved in my little world of DND in education. Thanks to a shout out from Greg Tito and Shelley Mazzanoble , I ordered the after school club kit . I’m still waiting for it to arrive, but I was able to get D&D beyond unblocked at my school, giving me access to all the resources I already have, including Lo...

So, I got it! It finally came out, and I got it in print! Adventures in Rokugan arrived in my mailbox about six weeks ago, and I have been reading it and weighing it ever since. Adventures in Rokugan takes the intrigue-rich RPG, L5R (Legend of the Five Rings) and brings it to the fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons. Admittedly, my only experience with Rokugan is the 2001 Oriental Adventures supplement for 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons by James Wyatt. I have to be honest that I, like the Dead Games Society , was hoping that this game would be a lot like that one.  Obligatory Gushing Let's look at the stuff I liked about this book. The art is beautiful and vibrant. Like some of this art is next-level stuff. The landscapes in particular are breathtaking. The artwork is definitely immersive and makes me want to play in this world. The books seems very true to the lore of the source material but without some of the basic, "here's what's going on", which woul...

Some thoughts on the One D&D play test thus far.  So, Wizards of the Coast announced that One D&D, an edition that continues the already functional legacy of Fifth Edition with some minor rules tweaks would be the next iteration of Dungeons & Dragons.  The D&D community at large took in the news and began prognosticating about what broken systems from Fifth Edition might fall under the scalpel.  Maybe they'll get rid of short rests... Maybe they'll clean up the whole use this ability once per long rest / per day vs. number of times equal to proficiency bonus mess.  Maybe they'll get rid of the whole use of the word "race" in the rules... Maybe they'll streamline the whole character background thing to make it easier / less complicated for new players. We were all wrong. Instead, the play test documents have focused on rules that most players never considered broken or lacking while adding in new levels of complexity. It has taken optional syste...

Yes, it has been a long time since I have posted. I’m a teacher, and summer vacation is a schedule disruption. I don’t know what that means for other teachers, but for me it means I have a whole lot more work to do than during the school year and none of it allots time for me to sit in front of a computer and bang out a blog post. Summer is when I work on all the projects my wife has for me to do around the house and farm and for the catering business. Yes, we live on a farm, but I don’t farm it. We run a venue in the middle of all the farming. Nonetheless, there is a lot of work to do. This fall, I started connecting my class to another teacher's to make an integrated STEM experience, so that's keeping me busy. Did I mention my wife is due in November, and I'm a 46-year-old man with no kitchen in my mid-renovation farmhouse about to have a newborn?  Also, my regular D&D sessions get all messed up during the summer because of family vacations, varying custody schedules ...

My most read post on this blog thus far has not been about getting kids into D&D but rather how I made my Waterdeep Dragon Heist kit . This was an artsy-craftsy, "How did he do that?" kind of post. It all started when I posted a photo of my table in the Dungeons & Dads group on Facebook. I had a lot of folks asking where I got my stuff. I put forward my best attempt at a how-to post for design artifacts for my Waterdeep Dragon Heist game. I love making stuff for may games, and had a great time putting that post together. At the time, I was just a guy trying to live the Beadle & Grimm's lifestyle on a Dollar Tree budget. I also noted that if my readers had more money than time, Beadle & Grimm was the way to go. It turns out that may or may not be the case. B&G & NFTs Now with talk going around about the Beadle & Grimm's owners jumping on the Blockchain Bandwagon, maybe you want to live the Beadle Grimm Lifestyle without the guilt of su...

Wizards of the Coast does not determine your fun. This is a sentiment that I've heard Mike Shea (aka Slyflourish ) share multiple times. I wanted to start today's post with it because it informs much of what I will be saying today.  Where is this coming from? I recently read an article entitled " Spelljammed ", by Graeme Barber  (which is a very good read, by the way) on the recommendation of Sam, the Educational DM . In the article, Graeme lays out the main problems with Spelljammer from a game design and thematic perspective. The main issues presented were: The supplement lacked sound mechanics, with an example of the lack of rules for things like ship-to-ship combat. The setting had serious tonal inconsistencies: some aspects being campy while others were heavy & deadly serious. The "facts" of the setting had a serious lack of impact on / coherency in the other settings. The lore was inconsistent or contradictory. I'm not here to argue any of thes...