Introducing Your Child to D&D: Part Three - Playing the Game

Welcome to Part Three of my Introducing Your Child to D&D series. Check out Part One for guiding your child through joint imaginary play and characterization before diving into Part Two where I go over how to teach the core mechanics of Dungeons & Dragons. In this final part, we’ll go over the top tips and tricks for making the most of your child’s early foray into World’s Greatest Roleplaying Game. Let’s get started!

Learn As You Go

Much like learning any new skill or hobby, you don’t need to be an expert to get started. In fact, the idea that you should know exactly what you’re doing when doing something new is inhibiting and unhelpful. If you’ve stumbled upon this blog post before my previous ones and want to just jump right into playing D&D with your child, go for it. I fully support it. Because nothing will teach you or your young one better than the actual experience of playing.

Trust that you’ll look up and share the rules of the game as they are needed. The basics will come first and then more advanced rules will be layered in over time. Your child (or even you!) won’t need to know about anything beyond Level 2 play until you’ve mastered the mechanics of a Level 1 character—and only the class that they’re playing with! I recommend starting simply and adding more complex mechanics as you go.

Some people are really good at creating scenarios that reach the basics. For combat, go for the classic “Help! An oversized rat invaded my cellar!” scenario. That will be a super simple combat scenario to run, perfect for introducing the concepts of initiative, attack rolls, and damage rolls.

Story Over Science

When I teach people the basics of being a Dungeon Master I make sure to preface that primary goal of Dungeons & Dragons is the story. The game and it’s mechanics are secondary and serve to contain the world of the story. If your young hero wants to defy the laws of gravity, strive to find a way to make that happen. Guide them via the story on how to achieve that goal. For example, if they’re stuck on the far side of a chasm and they shout “I wanna fly across!” but they don’t have access to any flying abilities yet, you’ve got yourself a fantastic opportunity for mini-quest. Explain that flying is very possible but first they’ll need to find the necessary ingredients to create a one-time use flying spell or potion to reach the other side.

Since D&D is a imaginary game of make-believe, we’re always striving to push the limits of what’s possible, expanding our imagination to the endless possibilities of a magic-filled world. The numbers and mechanics are really just guidelines for adjudicating the consequences of our actions. And they don’t always make sense. Of course, how can they really in a world with magic and monsters. Don’t let realism limit what anyone wants to achieve in their imaginations. 

Consistency is Key

And this bring me to a very important follow-up point. All those fantastical moments and rule-of-cool rulings that favor player ingenuity and creativity, you need to be consistent with them. Otherwise, the world of the story falls apart and your young player, even as a beginner, may begin to question the validity of their choices. A great example I use for to illustrate this is casting a spell like Fireball underwater. In your world, as the Dungeon Master, does the spell work underwater? Or does it instantly evaporate? Or if it does work and explode, does do any harm? Does it just heat up the water a bit before fizzing out? Does it create an enormous bubble of oxygen that rises to the surface in an explosion of hot steam? Whatever the ruling you make—and it is purely yours to make—make sure it is consistent. Because if the next time your young player tries the same thing and the outcome is different, you’ve taken away a crucial part of playing Dungeons & Dragons: the consequences. 

Everything Has Consequences 

If there’s one thing your young player should understand when playing D&D—okay, okay, there are tons of things they could foreseeably understand from playing D&D—then that is consequences. Every actions your child takes in D&D has a consequence for their character. Good, bad, neutral, small, big, catastrophic and miraculous. It all matters and it all adds to the depth of the story and world. 

If their actions in the story don’t carry consistent consequences that they can never truly achieve player agency and without player agency, you might as well be reading them a bedtime story. So for every choice, every action taken during the course of the story, jot down the possible consequences that will come up as a result of those choices. These consequences might not be big and they might not be immediately apparent. But I promise you, the first time they come face-to-face with the outcomes of their character’s influence, they understand something of the awesome power of Dungeons & Dragons. 

Just Make It Up!

Come in a little closer. Like, get really close to the screen right now because I’m going to share with you a little Dungeon Master trade secret. 

Make it up!

That’s right, you heard me. Make it up! It’s okay to make up a rule or pretend certain rules don’t exist for young players. Heck, it’s okay to do with adult players, even the experienced ones. It’s your call as the Dungeon Master and if you feel the story is going to suffer or the player experience is going to suffer, then throw it out the window and just make it up. 

The important thing is to be consistent with whatever you decide to do. If you throw out a rule in one instance but instate it in another, you better have a good reason for doing so. Even the youngest D&D novice will questions why daddy or mommy changes their mind so much :)

As your little hero grows older and more curious about the crunchy-ness of the game, layer in more of those rules and hold fast to the ones that may be less forgiving. For many players, the rules present a fun challenge, a competitive gamification to D&D.

Well, there you have it parents-of-prospective-players (the POPP!), the foundations for introducing your child to Dungeons & Dragons. I hope it’s been made clear that you should take only what works and throw out the rest. You know your child better than anyone so you know what will engage them and what will lose their interest. As a general rule, if they’re having fun, then you know you’re doing it right!