I am a teacher who now has a DnD club daily. Each class is 15 minutes long. 30 kids, 5 dms, and 22 who have never played before. I'm starting by going over the basics. Character creation, basic play, etc. All ideas will be helpful! Thanks!
I understand but I can't do anything about the time I have. I got thorough explaining Human as a race out of the base races on Friday, so I CAN get through everything but I want them to play and have fun playing. Any thing that can make it so these 11-14 year old kids actually enjoy DnD is helpful. I have about 30 hours with them left this school year. It won't take THAT long to go through.
Player enters a cave. There is a bandit who just broke open an iron strong box. It has a canvas bag in it that is open. Its labeled "Bank of Rennydale". The bandit is putting coins in his pockets when he turns, sees the player and pulls out a dagger. Roll for initiative.
I think you probably need a more rules-lite system than D&D. You’d be hard pressed to get through a single conversation with an NPC in 10 minutes. And I doubt you could get through even 1 round of a combat encounter.
Maybe say you’re not going to play, you’re just going to go over the rules in small chunks. Then tell them that actually playing is their homework. Then next time they come in, you can try to go over rules questions that came up during their sessions.
Even that would likely take more than 15 minutes, unless the group is incredibly fast in combat.
The player pulls out her wand of fireballs. She screams "Ignee Bola!" The bandit rolls to save vs spell, DC 15. He saves. Takes half damage. Game over. No wait! There is a voice coming from deeper in the cave. It sounds like a crying child. Thanks for playing. See you tomorrow,
I understand but I can't do anything about the time I have. I got thorough explaining Human as a race out of the base races on Friday, so I CAN get through everything but I want them to play and have fun playing. Any thing that can make it so these 11-14 year old kids actually enjoy DnD is helpful. I have about 30 hours with them left this school year. It won't take THAT long to go through.
For characters, I'd say that you should use handouts and premade options a lot.
But for play, I got nothing. I do not think it's possible to play D&D in 15 minute chunks in a way that'll hold the interest of kids who aren't already into it.
I understand but I can't do anything about the time I have. I got thorough explaining Human as a race out of the base races on Friday, so I CAN get through everything but I want them to play and have fun playing. Any thing that can make it so these 11-14 year old kids actually enjoy DnD is helpful. I have about 30 hours with them left this school year. It won't take THAT long to go through.
The DMs will learn that encounters take a lot of time when he/she has 6 players -- especially when half of them are new to the game. So make all the player characters magic users and introduce them to the concept of magic items -- like maybe a magic scepter.
Next, the DMs will run a fetch quest inside a forgotten crypt. The DMs must explain that the hieroglyphs (glyphs) carved in stone above each mummy's sarcophagus are names. Next, tell them that the names that have a circle carved around them are the names of Kings and Queens. Next they learn that the femine names always end with an icon of a loaf of bread. So they are literally learning to read Egyptian hieroglypics as part of their investigation to find Queen Cleopatra's sarcophagus and retrieve her scepter. The DMs have to use their creative imaginations to design pictographs that are names of 3 Kings and Queens. And the players need to figure out which of the DMs pictographs identify Queen Cleopatra. If they find it, their DM introduces a skeleton warrior who awakens to protect the crypt. The skeleton runs away if he sees Queen Cleopatra's scepter. Make it fun!
As mentioned, 15 minutes is not going to cut it. Is this every day for 5 days you have 15 minutes?
You can help create characters in those 15 minutes. You can go over select rules in 15 minutes. While yo can't create and go over rules together in 15 minutes, you can Repeat this cycle for all people and characters and rules.
But you will need to make time out of regular class time (after school day is done) to do an actual session.
I understand but I can't do anything about the time I have. I got thorough explaining Human as a race out of the base races on Friday, so I CAN get through everything but I want them to play and have fun playing. Any thing that can make it so these 11-14 year old kids actually enjoy DnD is helpful. I have about 30 hours with them left this school year. It won't take THAT long to go through.
The DMs will learn that encounters take a lot of time when he/she has 6 players -- especially when half of them are new to the game. So make all the player characters magic users and introduce them to the concept of magic items -- like maybe a magic scepter.
Next, the DMs will run a fetch quest inside a forgotten crypt. The DMs must explain that the hieroglyphs (glyphs) carved in stone above each mummy's sarcophagus are names. Next, tell them that the names that have a circle carved around them are the names of Kings and Queens. Next they learn that the femine names always end with an icon of a loaf of bread. So they are literally learning to read Egyptian hieroglypics as part of their investigation to find Queen Cleopatra's sarcophagus and retrieve her scepter. The DMs have to use their creative imaginations to design pictographs that are names of 3 Kings and Queens. And the players need to figure out which of the DMs pictographs identify Queen Cleopatra. If they find it, their DM introduces a skeleton warrior who awakens to protect the crypt. The skeleton runs away if he sees Queen Cleopatra's scepter. Make it fun!
I don't think setting up and solving that puzzle in 15 minutes is particularly feasible. Maybe with some groups, but definitely not all.
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I am a teacher who now has a DnD club daily. Each class is 15 minutes long. 30 kids, 5 dms, and 22 who have never played before. I'm starting by going over the basics. Character creation, basic play, etc. All ideas will be helpful! Thanks!
I don't think a 10-minute session is possible, unfortunately. Also, explaining how to create a character would take FAR longer than 15 minutes.
I understand but I can't do anything about the time I have. I got thorough explaining Human as a race out of the base races on Friday, so I CAN get through everything but I want them to play and have fun playing. Any thing that can make it so these 11-14 year old kids actually enjoy DnD is helpful. I have about 30 hours with them left this school year. It won't take THAT long to go through.
Player enters a cave. There is a bandit who just broke open an iron strong box. It has a canvas bag in it that is open. Its labeled "Bank of Rennydale". The bandit is putting coins in his pockets when he turns, sees the player and pulls out a dagger. Roll for initiative.
Even that would likely take more than 15 minutes, unless the group is incredibly fast in combat.
I think you probably need a more rules-lite system than D&D. You’d be hard pressed to get through a single conversation with an NPC in 10 minutes. And I doubt you could get through even 1 round of a combat encounter.
Maybe say you’re not going to play, you’re just going to go over the rules in small chunks. Then tell them that actually playing is their homework. Then next time they come in, you can try to go over rules questions that came up during their sessions.
The player pulls out her wand of fireballs. She screams "Ignee Bola!" The bandit rolls to save vs spell, DC 15. He saves. Takes half damage. Game over. No wait! There is a voice coming from deeper in the cave. It sounds like a crying child. Thanks for playing. See you tomorrow,
For characters, I'd say that you should use handouts and premade options a lot.
But for play, I got nothing. I do not think it's possible to play D&D in 15 minute chunks in a way that'll hold the interest of kids who aren't already into it.
The DMs will learn that encounters take a lot of time when he/she has 6 players -- especially when half of them are new to the game. So make all the player characters magic users and introduce them to the concept of magic items -- like maybe a magic scepter.
Next, the DMs will run a fetch quest inside a forgotten crypt. The DMs must explain that the hieroglyphs (glyphs) carved in stone above each mummy's sarcophagus are names. Next, tell them that the names that have a circle carved around them are the names of Kings and Queens. Next they learn that the femine names always end with an icon of a loaf of bread. So they are literally learning to read Egyptian hieroglypics as part of their investigation to find Queen Cleopatra's sarcophagus and retrieve her scepter. The DMs have to use their creative imaginations to design pictographs that are names of 3 Kings and Queens. And the players need to figure out which of the DMs pictographs identify Queen Cleopatra. If they find it, their DM introduces a skeleton warrior who awakens to protect the crypt. The skeleton runs away if he sees Queen Cleopatra's scepter. Make it fun!
As mentioned, 15 minutes is not going to cut it. Is this every day for 5 days you have 15 minutes?
You can help create characters in those 15 minutes. You can go over select rules in 15 minutes. While yo can't create and go over rules together in 15 minutes, you can Repeat this cycle for all people and characters and rules.
But you will need to make time out of regular class time (after school day is done) to do an actual session.
I don't think setting up and solving that puzzle in 15 minutes is particularly feasible. Maybe with some groups, but definitely not all.