I volunteered to run a campaign for my eleven year old and five of his friends. I've never run a campaign for kids before and am a little intimidated. Here are some of my thoughts on streamlining this.
1. I prepare character sheets in advance so they can jump into roll playing without worrying about rolling characters and learning new characters.
2. I'm starting the characters on lvl one to simplify keeping track of spells.
3. With adults I've always preferred sandbox campaigns set in the middle of political intrigue. For these kids, I might just start with a meeting in an inn and a dungeon crawl.
Add enemies they would think are cool and recognize. Kobolds aren't known outside of D&D and other fantasy games (or so I think), and aren't the most physically strong. A classic skeleton attack would jumpstart their excitement.
Pick an enemy of appropriate level from one of the manuals, and build the story around that. A wererat? "The roads east of daggerford is haunted by a beast said to be part man and part rat. A local noble has hired you to deal with the threat" Guard Drake? "A powerful patron (the non-warlock kind) have offered a great reward if you make your way into a rivals house and steal something of great importance. Problem is, the guard dogs are quite vicious, if they even are dogs..."
As for the gameplay, keep it simple. No intricate political intrigues, just a simple fight the bad guy story. That goes for all new players, BTDubs. And don't stress with role-play. When I DM'ed for a few children, we didn't even have names for the characters, just "Thief", "Wizard", "Knight" and "Priest". Let them know that role-play is a possibility, but not a requirement.
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"What do you mean I get disadvantage on persuasion?"
I don't know, Sneet, maybe because your argument is "Submit and become our pet"?
I DM for my kids and wife, it's our family night thing every week. I started off with giving them a mission that wasn't too big, find your way to a location and talk to a person there for the next part of your mission. The idea was to give them some small battles along the way to help them understand combat. Have them run into some random NPCs so they could learn how to role play. Once they got to their destination I had them do a couple "training exercises" so that they could understand that teamwork is important as well.
From there I just picked a plot line that was as cliche as you could get, something the kids would understand intrinsically and the wife would be able to enjoy as well. I had them head out to find the evil that was corrupting the forest and defeat it. I gave them all the tropes I could find, sick animals that needed help, children and families that needed saving, a big bad guy that would show up every so often to make them miserable, and henchmen to thwart. I needed to pull them by the nose every so often but, with my wife playing along, they started to feel more confident in making their own decisions.
One other thing I did in the game is something I personally enjoy doing with children and young adults: I throw in consequences to actions that mimic real life and have as many quests as possible have a moral to the story. This way I can incorporate social dynamics, teach critical thinking, create a safe situation for them to explore whatever they want, and give them feedback that can be applicable to real life. Sure you may stumble across a Griffon at the bank of a river, sure you may feel like it's aggressive response warrants killing it, however in the morning you see another Griffon with two cubs flying around calling out. They find an abandoned Goblin den, an injured Worg lay bleeding. Sure you could finish it off or, in the case of my daughter, you could tend to it and bring it back to health and acquire a pet that could be helpful in the future.
My son will be the only one who has played tabletop before.
Okay. Here's my .02 from teh experience of playing with and DMing for two kids ages 9 and 12 who had never played before.
They're going to be coming from the perspective of video games. They're going to act like combat operates just like it does in video games. Video games don't have a lot of room for role playing. (Even ones labeled as RPG.) This is because of the natural constraints of a video game. My two nephews, with whom I played as a PC through LMoP and now DM for on a playthrough of ToD, are way more interested in being murder hobos. The 9 yo has started to pick up on the RP stuff of it more, but that's only because their dad and I have had to lead by example. (Their dad was DM for LMoP and now he's a PC in ToD.) The 12 yo still is more interested when we get to combat than any other aspects of the game. They're used to video games, which largely railroad you. Breath of the Wild was semi-sandboxy in that you could go any direction you wished as far as what you did first, but there were still rails. The railroad will be good for them that young and especially that new to the game. Work with all the kids to set up their characters. My 9 yo nephew was way into setting backstory and things like that for his character. It's been like pulling teeth to get the 12 yo to come up with anything about his character. Being so used to video games, they didn't catch any of the side quest hooks on LMoP. My failure as a PC in that campaign was to not steer them toward all the side quests. We did get some of them done. If you leave things too open, things will get missed. But if you're okay with that, then go ahead for the sandbox style and minimize the rails. You might try the opening session as a sandbox style and then see how the kids do. if too much gets missed, start steering it.
Lead by example when it comes to the RP stuff. If your son's played it before, use your NPCs to engage his character so that the other kids see someone their age RPing and can start to follow suit.
Last piece of advice. This one comes from the geek & sundry youtube channel series about DMing with kids at the table. The kids' PCs never die. I've extended this to the ranger's companion in the case of my 9 yo nephew. He had so much fun coming up with the concept for his beast companion (his dad was DM and allowed him to create his own creature which I've now homebrewed and added to his character sheet), that when the bird should have died, I fudged the dice rolls.
I volunteered to run a campaign for my eleven year old and five of his friends. I've never run a campaign for kids before and am a little intimidated. Here are some of my thoughts on streamlining this.
1. I prepare character sheets in advance so they can jump into roll playing without worrying about rolling characters and learning new characters.
2. I'm starting the characters on lvl one to simplify keeping track of spells.
3. With adults I've always preferred sandbox campaigns set in the middle of political intrigue. For these kids, I might just start with a meeting in an inn and a dungeon crawl.
Any thoughts on handling a younger group?
All of your thoughts are on track. I DM for kids too. Never be afraid to railroad though. Sometimes they just NEED the path laid out for them.
Have they played any tabletop before? Or are they brand new to it and have only played video games?
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Add enemies they would think are cool and recognize. Kobolds aren't known outside of D&D and other fantasy games (or so I think), and aren't the most physically strong. A classic skeleton attack would jumpstart their excitement.
Pick an enemy of appropriate level from one of the manuals, and build the story around that. A wererat? "The roads east of daggerford is haunted by a beast said to be part man and part rat. A local noble has hired you to deal with the threat" Guard Drake? "A powerful patron (the non-warlock kind) have offered a great reward if you make your way into a rivals house and steal something of great importance. Problem is, the guard dogs are quite vicious, if they even are dogs..."
As for the gameplay, keep it simple. No intricate political intrigues, just a simple fight the bad guy story. That goes for all new players, BTDubs. And don't stress with role-play. When I DM'ed for a few children, we didn't even have names for the characters, just "Thief", "Wizard", "Knight" and "Priest". Let them know that role-play is a possibility, but not a requirement.
"What do you mean I get disadvantage on persuasion?"
I don't know, Sneet, maybe because your argument is "Submit and become our pet"?
-Actual conversation in a game.
My son will be the only one who has played tabletop before.
I DM for my kids and wife, it's our family night thing every week. I started off with giving them a mission that wasn't too big, find your way to a location and talk to a person there for the next part of your mission. The idea was to give them some small battles along the way to help them understand combat. Have them run into some random NPCs so they could learn how to role play. Once they got to their destination I had them do a couple "training exercises" so that they could understand that teamwork is important as well.
From there I just picked a plot line that was as cliche as you could get, something the kids would understand intrinsically and the wife would be able to enjoy as well. I had them head out to find the evil that was corrupting the forest and defeat it. I gave them all the tropes I could find, sick animals that needed help, children and families that needed saving, a big bad guy that would show up every so often to make them miserable, and henchmen to thwart. I needed to pull them by the nose every so often but, with my wife playing along, they started to feel more confident in making their own decisions.
One other thing I did in the game is something I personally enjoy doing with children and young adults: I throw in consequences to actions that mimic real life and have as many quests as possible have a moral to the story. This way I can incorporate social dynamics, teach critical thinking, create a safe situation for them to explore whatever they want, and give them feedback that can be applicable to real life. Sure you may stumble across a Griffon at the bank of a river, sure you may feel like it's aggressive response warrants killing it, however in the morning you see another Griffon with two cubs flying around calling out. They find an abandoned Goblin den, an injured Worg lay bleeding. Sure you could finish it off or, in the case of my daughter, you could tend to it and bring it back to health and acquire a pet that could be helpful in the future.
Okay. Here's my .02 from teh experience of playing with and DMing for two kids ages 9 and 12 who had never played before.
They're going to be coming from the perspective of video games. They're going to act like combat operates just like it does in video games. Video games don't have a lot of room for role playing. (Even ones labeled as RPG.) This is because of the natural constraints of a video game. My two nephews, with whom I played as a PC through LMoP and now DM for on a playthrough of ToD, are way more interested in being murder hobos. The 9 yo has started to pick up on the RP stuff of it more, but that's only because their dad and I have had to lead by example. (Their dad was DM for LMoP and now he's a PC in ToD.) The 12 yo still is more interested when we get to combat than any other aspects of the game. They're used to video games, which largely railroad you. Breath of the Wild was semi-sandboxy in that you could go any direction you wished as far as what you did first, but there were still rails. The railroad will be good for them that young and especially that new to the game. Work with all the kids to set up their characters. My 9 yo nephew was way into setting backstory and things like that for his character. It's been like pulling teeth to get the 12 yo to come up with anything about his character. Being so used to video games, they didn't catch any of the side quest hooks on LMoP. My failure as a PC in that campaign was to not steer them toward all the side quests. We did get some of them done. If you leave things too open, things will get missed. But if you're okay with that, then go ahead for the sandbox style and minimize the rails. You might try the opening session as a sandbox style and then see how the kids do. if too much gets missed, start steering it.
Lead by example when it comes to the RP stuff. If your son's played it before, use your NPCs to engage his character so that the other kids see someone their age RPing and can start to follow suit.
Last piece of advice. This one comes from the geek & sundry youtube channel series about DMing with kids at the table. The kids' PCs never die. I've extended this to the ranger's companion in the case of my 9 yo nephew. He had so much fun coming up with the concept for his beast companion (his dad was DM and allowed him to create his own creature which I've now homebrewed and added to his character sheet), that when the bird should have died, I fudged the dice rolls.
My Homebrew Backgrounds | Feats | Magic Items | Monsters | Races | Subclasses
Thanks to all for your input.