Introducing Your Child to D&D: Part Two - Learning the Rules
Dungeons & Dragons, like the majority of popular Table-Top RPGs, is made up of rules. Rules that adjudicate what you can do, how you can move, what things you can interact with and how. The 2024 Player’s Handbook (PHB) has rules on everything from underwater monster fights to suffering from malnutrition. With so many nuanced definitions and conditions, how can anyone be expected to understand them all? Let alone a young child just learning a hobby?
Big Picture Basics
It should come as no surprise that the best place to start is with the basics. And in the case of Dungeons & Dragons, the basics mean understanding the core mechanic of the game: The D20 Test. The D20 Test is the primary way Dungeon Masters and Players determine the results of any course of action that comes with a chance of success or failure. ‘Chance’ is an apt word choice in this situation as the dice in D&D are meant to represent just that, the random factor inherent in all aspects of life.
If you haven’t done so already, now is the optimal time to introduce the d20 die to your young adventurer. D&D, when played with real dice, pencil, and paper, offers so many wonderful tactile ways to engage with the game. The kind of multi-sensory exploration that helps with learning. Warning: Please be wise about very small children playing with dice, as it poses a high choking risk. In my personal experience with introducing dice rolls to a young roleplayer, I can’t help but call out the 1 and 20 on the d20 die as particularly special numbers for D&D. Explaining how a 20 is a critical success and a 1 is a critical failure can add another layer of engagement.
Break Out The Dice
Start making some d20 rolls with your child and identify the number rolled each time. Next, layer in a goal with the rolls; either aiming to hit a certain number on the die or to roll above or below a certain number. When they get comfortable with that, introduce the idea of modifiers that add or subtract from the number rolled on the die, creating a new total number that was rolled.
[This reminds me! It is absolutely CRUCIAL that you teach your young adventurer the plural and singular use of ‘dice’ and ‘die.’]
You’re On A Roll
Now comes the fun part! Start imagining potential scenarios to roll the d20 die for. It doesn’t necessarily have to be things that have a chance to succeed or fail. It could be to decide which game your family plays together, what chores or things around the house need to be completed first and by whom, or, going back to the world of make-believe, making up with d20 tests for the characters you and your child came up with during the Part One exercises. Roll dozens of different scenarios, working together to decide on the number your child has to beat (also called a Difficulty Check, though your child doesn’t need to know that yet!) after considering any positive or negative modifiers that are affecting the situation.
An example of this dice rolling exercise could be deciding what dish to have on the side for dinner. If there are, say, three options to choose from and your child has a strong inclination for one of them, have them make a d20 roll and include at least one positive or negative modifier. Perhaps you decided there is a +5 because modifier because your child ate all of their veggies during lunch. Or maybe there is a -5 penalty because they chose that same side for yesterday’s dinner. Have your child roll the die and let the final answer—that is, the DC you’ve chosen—to be decided in the moment. If your child beats the DC with their roll, they get the dish they want. If they didn’t beat the DC, then you may need to make an unpopular decision ;)
It’s more important that your child understands the mechanics behind the roll, not that they’re getting enough variety during dinner time, though that is understandably very important!
The Core Traits
After understanding the mechanics of the d20 in a game system like Dungeons & Dragons, your child should then learn about the Six Abilities. Learning about the Abilities is super cool because they are these universals constants in the world of D&D that are used to measure the strengths and weaknesses of any character or creature.
Thankfully, the 2024 PHB and the Basic Rules has an easy-to-read table perfect for introducing Abilities and what they govern:
Abilities & Their Characteristics
| Ability | Description |
|---|---|
| Strength | Physical might |
| Dexterity | Agility, reflexes, and balance |
| Constitution | Health and stamina |
| Intelligence | Reasoning and memory |
| Wisdom | Perceptiveness and mental fortitude |
| Charisma | Confidence, poise, and charm |
While these words and descriptions might be easy for adults to grasp, I recommend going through each with your child and coming up with specific examples of these Abilities in action. When you explain Constitution, for example, you could share an example of a character being poisoned by a plant and needing to rely on their Constitution to prevent getting sick. Or if a character is trying to make a potion, they need to use their Intelligence to mix all the ingredients together in the correct way.
Everything Is Numbers
Of course, since D&D is a game with rules, Abilities Scores are then quantified using numbers. Use this table from the Basic Rules as a starting off point to explain the relationship of an Ability Score and the degree of strength or weakness that comes with that sore. You can skip learning about scores above 20 for now:
Abilities & Their Numerical Meaning
| Ability | Description |
|---|---|
| 1 | This is the lowest a score can normally go. |
| 2-9 | This represents a weak capability. |
| 10-11 | This represents the human average. |
| 12-19 | This represents a strong capability. |
| 20 | This is the highest an adventurer’s score can go unless a feature says otherwise. |
I have seen a difficulty in young players to understand this concept so be sure to give some real world examples. Maybe you take a squirrel or some other smaller creature and decide with your child what that creature’s scores would be. I would do this several times. Then, if possible, find the closest corresponding creature in the Monster Manual and compare your scores to what the game designers decided. This should give your child a clearer notion on how the score determine the strengths and weaknesses of a creature.
Check Yourself
Now we can bring what we’ve learned about the d20 Test and Ability Scores together by introducing Ability Checks. Explain to your young gamer that Ability Checks are when a creature uses their talent or training to try and overcome a challenge. Give some examples of this, like when someone is trying to break down a door or persuading a guard to let them pass. Talk about how the many talents and training a character in D&D possesses are articulated through modifiers, that is, bonus and penalties we add to our D20 Test. For example, Since your tap-dancing dinosaur has training in dance, they might receive a +5 bonus to their D20 Test when making a Dance Ability Check (if only there was such a check in D&D!).
Depending on how well your child has been absorbing this information or if they have any familiarity with D&D character sheets, you might want to produce a pre-made character and demonstrate some Ability Checks using those scores. I recommend using the power of your child’s imagination to think up different scenarios where an Ability Check might be needed to determine if something succeeds or fails. Now is also a good time to talk about Difficulty Checks (if you haven't done so already) so your child understands how a success or failure is determined.
Once your child understands how the D20 Test and Ability Scores tie into Checks, they’re ready to begin their first Dungeons & Dragons adventure! Well, mostly that is. There are still hundreds of individual rules and abilities and spells and items that a player could know in order to make the most of the experience. But how necessary are all those rules when a young child is just starting on their D&D journey? We’ll discuss this and more in Part Three of this series: Playing the Game.
