Hey ya'll!

It's going to be my birthday soon, and this year I asked my parents to sit down and play DND with me for the night. I'm a experienced DM, but all of my games have been with people around my age [Redacted] who have at least a passing interest in DND. However, here comes the problem.

My parents are M40+ and F50+, and only one of them has any sort of knowledge of DND, as my older brothers (30+) play it intensely. However, the other has no interest, knowledge, or experience with board games outside of Monopoly and Sorry, much less a TTRPG.

Dad will be playing a Level 5 Dwarf, Berserker Barbarian, and Mom will be a Level 5 Wood Elf, Circle of the Land Druid. 

So, here're the questions I'm asking:

How should I write this campaign?

What level should they start at?

Should we do low level?

How should I handle RP?

Do I write a standard "Rescue the princess from the dragon" or a more interesting, complex story?

And the final question, should I simplify the mechanics? I don't want to overwhelm my mom with the complexities that come with being a spellcaster, or confuse my dad with the many options of the barbarian, though I'm sure he'll stick to the whole "Bonk hard with Axe"

Also, if you have any other recommendations or suggestions, let me know ^-^

they can handle it. start at level 5, I like to use giants instead of dragons(I think dragons are overdone and giants are raw) (I also think giants should be believable to have fought a WAR with DRAGONS) (but I digress).

you could rip off a fairy tale. those can pretty fun

again with the giants, you could do rescue the dragon from the princess(a giant)

you could have them steal something from the dragon's hoard

if they haven't seen stranger things, you could do mind flayers

zombies are always good

if you want to do something different, you could do the false hydra

Capatin Crunch is right a rip-off of a fairy tale works (if you do want to do this, I recommend buying a copy of Grimm's Fairy Tales), as does a mind flayer adventure, but I pose a new idea. (To clarify I know what you're going through. My parents (40+) are the same. One (dad) has played before and one (mom) has never once in her life.) What if you do a well-known story (King Arthur for example) and put a D&D twist on it?

If you have new players, why are you starting at level 5? I’m sure your parents are smart enough to understand the game, but by level 5, you are giving them a lot of options all at once. That’s the beauty of low levels, you can help ease new players in without overwhelming them. 

That said, as someone who’s in your parents age range (though I’ve been playing for 40 years), I have a feeling they might more appreciate the rp aspects of the game over the combat side, or at least as much. Try and give them a good story with interesting NPCs to talk to. Let them get used to the idea of pretending to be someone else. I think they’ll have more fun with the story part of D&D than the fights. Of course, you know your parents better, I could be wrong. 

Have a talk with them as to what kind of hero they want to be. Use super hero movies as examples - they should have a passing understanding of hero types. Unless you already did that, hence their Barbarian and Druid choices. 

Level 5 is very high for people who have never played before. There will be more questions and explaining than playing.

I would go with level 2 and at the end of the night award level 3 and subclass choices. I agree with Xalthu that they might like the role play aspects more but I'm old too and enjoy a good fight.

No politics, just keep it simple - somebody needs rescuing (kids are a great hook), something needs finding, a great evil needs to be stopped, or all of the above.

My advice would be to pick a story they will know, and then follow it about halfway, then go sideways.

This method will mean that for the first half of the game, they will be semi-familiar with the story and focussing on their abilities and character. For the second half, they will be more confident with what they can do, and will appreciate the twists in the story more.

So you might pick the plotline of Shrek as your starting point. The two of them are tasked with going and rescuing a princess from a fire-breathing dragon in a castle. They can follow on easily, as they know what's going on, and are attacked by highwaymen on the way to flex their combat skills, and perhaps something a little more challenging further on, like an Owlbear. 

When they get to the castle they will be expecting to go in and fight the dragon, and that's where the twist happens, now that they know their characters - perhaps the Princess has already been kidnapped by an ogre, or the dragon is training the princess to control her wild magic, or something which throws a spanner in their expectations. The dragon is old and frail, or the princess has died long ago. Maybe they are confronted by an elderly woman who tells them the princess is old and needs water from the spring of eternal youth, which is conveniently one day from the castle, and when they bring it back (after some fights with guardians of some sort) the old woman drinks it instead, becomes youthful, and then transforms back into a dragon, roll for initiative. If they win, huzzah, the princess is theirs and they can hoist her back to whoever for this lovely forced marriage thing.