My kids', (11 year old twins) have been interested in the world of D&D and fantasy things alike for quite a few years now but I was afraid they didn't have the attention span to really appreciate and understand enough of D&D to actually enjoy a session or want to continue on. I am 36 and played D&D in my younger years, childhood and young adult, and last time I played was 3.5, I was completely out of the loop through 4th edition and from what I have heard from others, I am lucky to have missed that? Just this year I have dipped my toe back into the world of D&D as a player and not just a spectator and this past week I spent the whole week preparing for this weekend to finally introduce my kids to this amazing world of chance and imagination. I visited thrift stores and craft sections of various stores and bought bits and pieces of things to piece together a custom built red and black dice box for rolls, got a handful of miniatures and took some backside of leftover wrapping paper, placed it behind an unused poster frame and use a dry erase marker to draw in the maps as they see them and uncover things. I took some old plastic containers I was saving from a bad habit(nicotine pouches) and they are rectangle so I painted about 20 of them as walls for a modular brick wall system for added 3D effect on the dry erase "battle mat". I also added an unused red rope light under the "battle mat to add a nice atmosphere for the whole thing. Gathered up all the old dice sets I had and bought some nice wooden boxes from a thrift store that was perfect as a dice holder for each of them and sorted them out their own set. I grabbed my netbook and dusted it off, hooked it up and logged in to D&D Beyond that really helped me DM this session, hooked up a 30" monitor at the edge of the table for them to easily view their character sheets as we play and cut down on overwhelming them with too much to keep up with themselves. Picked up some $1 journals for each of them to take notes and keep up with important things throughout the journey. Took them one at a time and had them create a character they wanted. My daughter went with a High Elf Fighter and my son chose a Human Barbarian. I then explained to them how the rolling system works and gave them a general outline of how it works between players and the DM and other basics. I then advised them they could write some background stories to their characters if they wanted and of course my daughter came up with quite an elaborate story of hers and my sone went with a more on-the-spot approach and came up with one when asked in-game and I was pleasantly surprised by both of their stories and details. Surprised and proud of them because I would have to admit their effort and details were more than most of the people I used to play with would ever do for any of their characters and we were much older than 11. So I chose the Lost Mines of Phandalin as our intro into D&D and I clicked play on some music as they started their journey. They instantly had smiles from ear to ear as that music started and were so enthusiastic about it all, they instantly handled the RP like champs and I made some adjustments to the general story to give them time to explore Neverwinter and interact with others around town before actually heading out on the road to Phandalin. They again went above and beyond my expectations with their exploration and interactions with every character and situation I tossed at them and eventually they made it to the goblin ambush. As the battle music started and the fight began, they got a new burst of enthusiasm and loved every moment of the encounter. Needless to say they crushed those little goblins and my daughter ended up keeping 4 goblin fingers she managed to cut off during battle >_>? but then by that time we had already spent 3 hours and for a couple of 11 year olds on a Saturday night, I would say that's impressive and all they could talk about was D&D and what their plans were for tomorrow for it, all the way until they fell asleep. I was worried my week full of spending my small amount of free time and extra money on preparing a D&D experience would end in disappointment for me and possibly even them because of course I wish they would find as much magic and enjoyment in D&D as I once did and still do, but I kept my skepticism there because again, they are 11. They can be into something one morning and over it and done by the afternoon. But so far their interest in D&D has held up and tonight showed me that they are serious about this and from what I can tell, they loved it. I am not an expert on D&D by any means and I am out of the loop on a lot of things related to it but I think I managed to DM their session fairly decent. Although if anyone has any suggestions on anything at all or can point me to some must-have things or whatever, that would be much appreciated. I want to continue to keep them interested and excited about this. I sadly do not have a lot of expendable cash to throw at this, that's why I built and made much of what we used tonight but I also want them to have the best experience possible. I am hoping to improve the experience and immersion for them as we go from here. So please let me know of anything I can do to make that happen.
wow but that's a block of text! I'm afraid I didn't make it through it - I feel that if you edit it to add paragraph breaks then it will feel assailable and you'll get some responses!
Similar story for me this weekend. First time DM and had 5 players. 1 of the 5 has started playing with me last fall in a campaign and enjoyed. I am using Dragon of Icespire Peak with modifications. Like you, I did a lot of prep work including 3D printed mini's and painted them, created larger maps, some 3d structures, helped them create characters ahead of time and created simple one page spreadsheet of the character with important information. I had folders with spare paper and hard copies of the characters for them. Dice for each person. Music in the background, etc.
They loved it. We got through 2 of the first modules in the quest and played for 7 hours. We spent lots of time in town role playing. It was great fun and another date has been scheduled for 3 weeks out.
1. Print small round pictures on a printer, cut them out, and tape them to bottle caps.
2. For something slightly fancier, you can buy transparent plastic “quarter holders” for coin collectors. These open and close, so they can be reused with different pictures.
3. There are also stick-on epoxy dots you can use, but since those are permanent only use them for player characters, use quarter holders for the monsters.
4. If you don’t like cutting out all of those little round pictures, buy a round punch meant for crafters, it will save you a lot of time and finger cramps.
5. When you need to make enemies that take up more than a single one-inch grid square, print a bigger token for them and then “laminate” it with clear packing tape. If grabbing/moving such a flat token turns out to be difficult, you can tape a few bottle caps or quarter holders to the underside so it’s not laying directly on the mat.
6. If you don’t want to make picture tokens for all the monsters, there are little dry-erase circle tokens that you can quickly scribble a drawing on, or even just write letters/numbers on. This is particularly good for something like a swarm of goblins, because you can keep track of the fact that goblin C is at half hitpoints, goblin D was hit by a spell that deals acid damage every turn, etc. The dry-erase tokens are also available in larger sizes for larger monsters.
The nice thing about tokens instead of minis is that you can afford to give every monster a picture token (if you want to), and the kids get the fun of making or choosing their own pictures for their characters’ tokens.
My kids', (11 year old twins) have been interested in the world of D&D and fantasy things alike for quite a few years now but I was afraid they didn't have the attention span to really appreciate and understand enough of D&D to actually enjoy a session or want to continue on. I am 36 and played D&D in my younger years, childhood and young adult, and last time I played was 3.5, I was completely out of the loop through 4th edition and from what I have heard from others, I am lucky to have missed that? Just this year I have dipped my toe back into the world of D&D as a player and not just a spectator and this past week I spent the whole week preparing for this weekend to finally introduce my kids to this amazing world of chance and imagination. I visited thrift stores and craft sections of various stores and bought bits and pieces of things to piece together a custom built red and black dice box for rolls, got a handful of miniatures and took some backside of leftover wrapping paper, placed it behind an unused poster frame and use a dry erase marker to draw in the maps as they see them and uncover things. I took some old plastic containers I was saving from a bad habit(nicotine pouches) and they are rectangle so I painted about 20 of them as walls for a modular brick wall system for added 3D effect on the dry erase "battle mat". I also added an unused red rope light under the "battle mat to add a nice atmosphere for the whole thing. Gathered up all the old dice sets I had and bought some nice wooden boxes from a thrift store that was perfect as a dice holder for each of them and sorted them out their own set. I grabbed my netbook and dusted it off, hooked it up and logged in to D&D Beyond that really helped me DM this session, hooked up a 30" monitor at the edge of the table for them to easily view their character sheets as we play and cut down on overwhelming them with too much to keep up with themselves. Picked up some $1 journals for each of them to take notes and keep up with important things throughout the journey. Took them one at a time and had them create a character they wanted. My daughter went with a High Elf Fighter and my son chose a Human Barbarian. I then explained to them how the rolling system works and gave them a general outline of how it works between players and the DM and other basics. I then advised them they could write some background stories to their characters if they wanted and of course my daughter came up with quite an elaborate story of hers and my sone went with a more on-the-spot approach and came up with one when asked in-game and I was pleasantly surprised by both of their stories and details. Surprised and proud of them because I would have to admit their effort and details were more than most of the people I used to play with would ever do for any of their characters and we were much older than 11. So I chose the Lost Mines of Phandalin as our intro into D&D and I clicked play on some music as they started their journey. They instantly had smiles from ear to ear as that music started and were so enthusiastic about it all, they instantly handled the RP like champs and I made some adjustments to the general story to give them time to explore Neverwinter and interact with others around town before actually heading out on the road to Phandalin. They again went above and beyond my expectations with their exploration and interactions with every character and situation I tossed at them and eventually they made it to the goblin ambush. As the battle music started and the fight began, they got a new burst of enthusiasm and loved every moment of the encounter. Needless to say they crushed those little goblins and my daughter ended up keeping 4 goblin fingers she managed to cut off during battle >_>? but then by that time we had already spent 3 hours and for a couple of 11 year olds on a Saturday night, I would say that's impressive and all they could talk about was D&D and what their plans were for tomorrow for it, all the way until they fell asleep. I was worried my week full of spending my small amount of free time and extra money on preparing a D&D experience would end in disappointment for me and possibly even them because of course I wish they would find as much magic and enjoyment in D&D as I once did and still do, but I kept my skepticism there because again, they are 11. They can be into something one morning and over it and done by the afternoon. But so far their interest in D&D has held up and tonight showed me that they are serious about this and from what I can tell, they loved it. I am not an expert on D&D by any means and I am out of the loop on a lot of things related to it but I think I managed to DM their session fairly decent. Although if anyone has any suggestions on anything at all or can point me to some must-have things or whatever, that would be much appreciated. I want to continue to keep them interested and excited about this. I sadly do not have a lot of expendable cash to throw at this, that's why I built and made much of what we used tonight but I also want them to have the best experience possible. I am hoping to improve the experience and immersion for them as we go from here. So please let me know of anything I can do to make that happen.
wow but that's a block of text! I'm afraid I didn't make it through it - I feel that if you edit it to add paragraph breaks then it will feel assailable and you'll get some responses!
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
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Love it.
Similar story for me this weekend. First time DM and had 5 players. 1 of the 5 has started playing with me last fall in a campaign and enjoyed. I am using Dragon of Icespire Peak with modifications. Like you, I did a lot of prep work including 3D printed mini's and painted them, created larger maps, some 3d structures, helped them create characters ahead of time and created simple one page spreadsheet of the character with important information. I had folders with spare paper and hard copies of the characters for them. Dice for each person. Music in the background, etc.
They loved it. We got through 2 of the first modules in the quest and played for 7 hours. We spent lots of time in town role playing. It was great fun and another date has been scheduled for 3 weeks out.
Suggestion for D&D on a budget: Don’t use minis.
Here are some cheaper alternatives:
1. Print small round pictures on a printer, cut them out, and tape them to bottle caps.
2. For something slightly fancier, you can buy transparent plastic “quarter holders” for coin collectors. These open and close, so they can be reused with different pictures.
3. There are also stick-on epoxy dots you can use, but since those are permanent only use them for player characters, use quarter holders for the monsters.
4. If you don’t like cutting out all of those little round pictures, buy a round punch meant for crafters, it will save you a lot of time and finger cramps.
5. When you need to make enemies that take up more than a single one-inch grid square, print a bigger token for them and then “laminate” it with clear packing tape. If grabbing/moving such a flat token turns out to be difficult, you can tape a few bottle caps or quarter holders to the underside so it’s not laying directly on the mat.
6. If you don’t want to make picture tokens for all the monsters, there are little dry-erase circle tokens that you can quickly scribble a drawing on, or even just write letters/numbers on. This is particularly good for something like a swarm of goblins, because you can keep track of the fact that goblin C is at half hitpoints, goblin D was hit by a spell that deals acid damage every turn, etc. The dry-erase tokens are also available in larger sizes for larger monsters.
The nice thing about tokens instead of minis is that you can afford to give every monster a picture token (if you want to), and the kids get the fun of making or choosing their own pictures for their characters’ tokens.
I like 2d print outs affixed to some cardboard and binder clips used as bases
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.