I'm interested if any players out there have used D&D in a classroom setting. I'm a HS Theatre teacher and thought I might start a group for beginners during our school's scheduled "Club" time. Open to any tips or suggestions as I prepare for next fall.
I've seen people mention playing D&D with students and children of various ages. I recommend starting with Lost Mine of Phandelver (I dont think you need any additional rule books to run it). You can find the pre made characters on WotC's site, or they can make their own.
Check out Bill Allan's YouTube channel. Here's his playlist of three seasons worth of gameplay with students, including session zero for each student, for seasons 2 & 3. From the sounds of things, this seems to be what you're looking to do.
Thanks for thinking about encouraging D&D in your school! I'm always excited to see kids get the chance to play!
Check out Teaching With D&D by Sarah Roman & Kade Wells, who use D&D and other TTRPGs in the classroom quite a bit and include a lot of resources on their site. They were interviewed on Dragon Talk a while ago, here's that video.
Also Ethan Schoonover has run a very successful D&D club at his school and has talked about his methods and success quite a bit. He's got a lot of resources on his Twitter and website.
Finally check out Game to Grow, which is a non-profit that pioneers and advocates using RPGs to help young people become more confident, creative, and socially capable . While their focus is more therapy orientated they also have a lot of experience and suggestions for running D&D with kids.
When your group is up and running make sure to fill out our Club Account Form so we can help support your school group!
If I were a math teacher I would use D&D to teach probability and statistics. For example, when I was growing up (AD&D) we rolled 3d6 six times and took the best roll for our first stat, STR. Then we rolled 3d6 six times and took the best roll for our second stat, INT; and so on. Is this better than rolling 4d6 and taking the best three die to come up with a stat? Those are great math exercises and they teach probability. This exercise also allows a teacher to discuss permutations which most HS students don't understand at all. And you can build more skills off of that.
I figured I would be able to incorporate math into it. In fact, it's stuff like this that I'm presenting to the admin to get the ball rolling. Hopefully they'll see that it has incalculable educational value. But alas, I'm in the bible belt where the Satanic Panic was very real. I remember having to play in secret at my grandmother's house as a kid in the 80s.
I've been running lessons with my elementary school kids. I started with just simple dice games - roll 3d6 and add them etc - It's good math practice.
Kids want to play and since you're doing it outside of class time you can be more flexible regarding subject matter - you don't always have to find links to curriculum. Although having some kind of link would be helpful - math, cooperation, team building, critical thinking.
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"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
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I'm interested if any players out there have used D&D in a classroom setting. I'm a HS Theatre teacher and thought I might start a group for beginners during our school's scheduled "Club" time. Open to any tips or suggestions as I prepare for next fall.
I've seen people mention playing D&D with students and children of various ages. I recommend starting with Lost Mine of Phandelver (I dont think you need any additional rule books to run it). You can find the pre made characters on WotC's site, or they can make their own.
Check out Bill Allan's YouTube channel. Here's his playlist of three seasons worth of gameplay with students, including session zero for each student, for seasons 2 & 3. From the sounds of things, this seems to be what you're looking to do.
Fantastic, dude! Thank you!
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InsiderThanks for thinking about encouraging D&D in your school! I'm always excited to see kids get the chance to play!
Check out Teaching With D&D by Sarah Roman & Kade Wells, who use D&D and other TTRPGs in the classroom quite a bit and include a lot of resources on their site. They were interviewed on Dragon Talk a while ago, here's that video.
Also Ethan Schoonover has run a very successful D&D club at his school and has talked about his methods and success quite a bit. He's got a lot of resources on his Twitter and website.
Finally check out Game to Grow, which is a non-profit that pioneers and advocates using RPGs to help young people become more confident, creative, and socially capable . While their focus is more therapy orientated they also have a lot of experience and suggestions for running D&D with kids.
When your group is up and running make sure to fill out our Club Account Form so we can help support your school group!
Find me on Twitter: @OboeLauren
Thanks OboeCrazy! ( Actually a bassoonist here)
Ethan's experience is actually what inspired me to try this. I'll check out all of those amazing sources!!
If I were a math teacher I would use D&D to teach probability and statistics. For example, when I was growing up (AD&D) we rolled 3d6 six times and took the best roll for our first stat, STR. Then we rolled 3d6 six times and took the best roll for our second stat, INT; and so on. Is this better than rolling 4d6 and taking the best three die to come up with a stat? Those are great math exercises and they teach probability. This exercise also allows a teacher to discuss permutations which most HS students don't understand at all. And you can build more skills off of that.
I figured I would be able to incorporate math into it. In fact, it's stuff like this that I'm presenting to the admin to get the ball rolling. Hopefully they'll see that it has incalculable educational value. But alas, I'm in the bible belt where the Satanic Panic was very real. I remember having to play in secret at my grandmother's house as a kid in the 80s.
I've been running lessons with my elementary school kids. I started with just simple dice games - roll 3d6 and add them etc - It's good math practice.
Kids want to play and since you're doing it outside of class time you can be more flexible regarding subject matter - you don't always have to find links to curriculum. Although having some kind of link would be helpful - math, cooperation, team building, critical thinking.
"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