Community

I am planning to start to introduce my 5yo daughter and 6+yo son to D&D.
We did a bit of Lego Heroica earlier this year, and they did manage the dice rolls and the other simple rules there quite well.

However, i recall when i first started playing, must have been around 12 years old, and it was the red book. The combat these days were all in our heads, the DM would show us some pictures of kobolds, tell us where they were, ask us where we were, and on went the battle, and everything was played out in our heads using our imagination, and the DM telling us where the monsters moved, and us acting upon that. I loved it, as it was almost like a movie playing out in my head.

My playgroup uses 3.5ed and we still play out battles in our heads the same way that we started out with 25 years ago, occationally scratching some layouts on a piece of paper, and it works well for us.

I just bought the red box, and plan on using that to introduce my kids to D&D, but what i see from 4ed is that it is heavily based on using tiles and miniatures. I am wondering if anyone have any experience running 4th ed without using tiles, and does it work?

I want my kids to have the feeling that they are reading a story, and are participating in the story, like what you get when you are reading a book, rather than the feeling of playing a table top game, looking at miniatures most of the day.

One of the great things about the tiles and minis is that they add another dimension to the game for kids. Kids, especially at that age, are stimulated by seeing things that they can touch and manipulate. They don't have the lexicon or experiences to be able to build entire encounters in their head as we would. Using tiles and minis gives them something concrete to focus on, as well as deeply relate to. Kids at this age are still very much in the mode of learning via play, and you can easily teach lots of in-game concepts using tiles and minis (such as movement, attacks, powers) just by turning it into a fun session of moving things around on the table. Think of it this way: when you see kids playing with figures or soft toys, they're using them as props and telling themselves their own story. You can create the exact same circumstances at the table by giving them something to focus on (a mini) and have them tell the story of that mini does.