So I've got a family that wants to try DND. No experience at all. The 10yo heard about it and wants to play. The family is interested so they are all interested in being part of the game. They know I play so they asked me to run something tabletop for them. 3 adults and 3 kids (10, 12, 13) I had originally purchased Candlekeep without realizing it was not an actual campaign. However, I have figured out a good hook to string it together as well as leave an option for an improvised extension if they want to get to L20. However, a couple of the adventures have me a bit worried about appropriate for the 10yo. Specifically Shemshimes and Sarah of Yellowcrest. I hadn't found any other campaigns that looked good for the range of ages I have. The campaigns I find when i search for kid friendly are too toned down for the adults. They can play an adult concept game. They do want a lengthy game, as they want something to last the next 2-3 months (playing weekly for a few hours each game). Any thoughts? I can replace the adventures and have already started working on that but figured I'd throw this out there and see what else might be out there. Trying to avoid the references in shemshime about family member's murdering each other and the same in Sarah of Yellowcrest (parents request)
Unfortunately I think you’ll keep running into Wizard of the Coast’s official stance that the game is for ages 12 and up so anything officially released will be aimed slightly older than you need. I can understand parents wanting to avoid the family murders but for what it’s worth I played Shemshine as the first ever session with my 12-16 year olds D&D club and two years later it’s still the session they all rave about.
One suggestion, and it’s usually my suggestion for any group with beginners, is Lost Mines of Phandelver. You can pick it up either as a starter set on eBay or as the first half of Phandelver & Below. It’s a great little campaign for levels 1-5, mostly fighting goblins, spiders and the occasional ghost, so nothing too adult (if you buy the Phandelver & Below version it continues into a higher level campaign with mutating people and Eldritch horrors so might want to stop before that) and gives a decent range of combat, exploration and social interaction to give a good feel for the complete game and is set in a small village surrounded by forests and mountains so any one shots from Candlekeep you like are fairly easy to drop in as side dungeons without too much work
I've run, The Wild Beyond the Witchlight, for my kids, their friends, and my sister and her husband. This group ranged from 8 years old all the way to over 50. We managed to run the entire carnival with no actual combat. When one of the children tried to attack a Witchlight Hand I had security eject them from the carnival and they needed to figure out how to sneak back in. There are also mechanisms to dissuade combat and encourage roleplaying if you want to use them. Hope that helps.
I would also suggest Lost Mine. It is a great introduction to D&D and I have run many times with players in elementary school as well as with adults. If you want to keep the bloodshed down replace the goblins with skeletons and zombies. Have the leader be a necromancer kidnapping people in order to make more zombies. Kids have no problem fighting zombies and giant bugs. The redbrands are obvious gang bullies, so fighting them should not be objectionable. Be prepared to put them in jail instead of killing them outright.
If you want to beef it up, combine it with Dragon of Ice Spire Peak.
So I've got a family that wants to try DND. No experience at all. The 10yo heard about it and wants to play. The family is interested so they are all interested in being part of the game. They know I play so they asked me to run something tabletop for them. 3 adults and 3 kids (10, 12, 13) I had originally purchased Candlekeep without realizing it was not an actual campaign. However, I have figured out a good hook to string it together as well as leave an option for an improvised extension if they want to get to L20. However, a couple of the adventures have me a bit worried about appropriate for the 10yo. Specifically Shemshimes and Sarah of Yellowcrest. I hadn't found any other campaigns that looked good for the range of ages I have. The campaigns I find when i search for kid friendly are too toned down for the adults. They can play an adult concept game. They do want a lengthy game, as they want something to last the next 2-3 months (playing weekly for a few hours each game). Any thoughts? I can replace the adventures and have already started working on that but figured I'd throw this out there and see what else might be out there. Trying to avoid the references in shemshime about family member's murdering each other and the same in Sarah of Yellowcrest (parents request)
Unfortunately I think you’ll keep running into Wizard of the Coast’s official stance that the game is for ages 12 and up so anything officially released will be aimed slightly older than you need. I can understand parents wanting to avoid the family murders but for what it’s worth I played Shemshine as the first ever session with my 12-16 year olds D&D club and two years later it’s still the session they all rave about.
One suggestion, and it’s usually my suggestion for any group with beginners, is Lost Mines of Phandelver. You can pick it up either as a starter set on eBay or as the first half of Phandelver & Below. It’s a great little campaign for levels 1-5, mostly fighting goblins, spiders and the occasional ghost, so nothing too adult (if you buy the Phandelver & Below version it continues into a higher level campaign with mutating people and Eldritch horrors so might want to stop before that) and gives a decent range of combat, exploration and social interaction to give a good feel for the complete game and is set in a small village surrounded by forests and mountains so any one shots from Candlekeep you like are fairly easy to drop in as side dungeons without too much work
I've run, The Wild Beyond the Witchlight, for my kids, their friends, and my sister and her husband. This group ranged from 8 years old all the way to over 50. We managed to run the entire carnival with no actual combat. When one of the children tried to attack a Witchlight Hand I had security eject them from the carnival and they needed to figure out how to sneak back in. There are also mechanisms to dissuade combat and encourage roleplaying if you want to use them. Hope that helps.
I would also suggest Lost Mine. It is a great introduction to D&D and I have run many times with players in elementary school as well as with adults. If you want to keep the bloodshed down replace the goblins with skeletons and zombies. Have the leader be a necromancer kidnapping people in order to make more zombies. Kids have no problem fighting zombies and giant bugs. The redbrands are obvious gang bullies, so fighting them should not be objectionable. Be prepared to put them in jail instead of killing them outright.
If you want to beef it up, combine it with Dragon of Ice Spire Peak.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskGameMasters/comments/geohcz/running_dragon_of_icespire_peak_and_lost_mine_of/
The "And Below" part doesn't play smoothly so I would leave it out.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale