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2 years ago ::
May 07, 2011 - 6:37PM
#1
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I have played D&D on and off for years but never as a DM. I wanted to introduce my young children to the game and it has been well received. They are 10,6 and 6. Though I think the 6 year olds are a bit young they are excellent readers with wonderful imaginations. Provided the gaming sessions are kept fairly short I think they will do just fine.
We are starting out with the downloaded adventures from here and the 4th edition Red Box set is in the mail. Though these are great resources they will only last so long. I am on the fence of creating my own mini adventures to keep things rolling after that or to get involved with a campaign setting.
Forgotten Realms keeps popping into my head, but I'm not sure of they (or me) is ready for the complexity of that.
Can any one suggest a decent traditional campaign setting the will run us from starting levels on up? The kids are really psyched about traditional characters and enemys so I think I'm going to stay away from stuff that dives too deeply into multi-dimensional type game play. I think it would be difficult for them to understand. They readily grasp the concept of knights, healers and wizards and "bad guys".
Thanks for your input!
Mike
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2 years ago ::
May 08, 2011 - 1:56AM
#2
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Date Joined:
Feb 13, 2010
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Hi Mike, I see you have a D&D Insider account, have a search through the Dungeon magazine archives for the Chaos Scar adventures ( theres also a group on here dedicted to it) - it has a number of scaled adventures that build into a good little campaign and the feedback and info on here add to its playability. The red box is a great starting point for new gamers as it uses a streamlined version of the Essentials line (though once your characters get to 3rd level you'll find that you have to do a bit of converting to match the skills up), there is an article somewhere on the wizards site which tells you which bits need tweaking. ( Here's the link), and a good follow on is the "Reavers of the Harkenwald" adventure in the Dungeon Masters Kit as it expands the Nentir Vale adventures begun in the red box. The Forgotten Realms is my campaign setting of choice (has been since 1st Ed), and yes its depth of background can be a little daunting to begin with. But the thing is you only have to delve as deep as you wish to. A good start is to look at the LFR ( Living Forgotten Realms) adventures, which have just been opened up for easy access, as each is a self contained adventure with its background and rewards, and are split into the relevant geographical areas. Hope this has helped a little, the best resource I've found are these community groups, even though I've been playing for 30 years, I only got back into D&D with 4e 12 months ago and they have been invaluable.
"Well that encounter was easy....er, guys, why is the DM grinning?" (party members last words) It's not a party till the screaming starts!
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2 years ago ::
May 08, 2011 - 6:05AM
#3
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Awesome info! Thank you so much. Funny too I was playing DDO last night and realized that it is set in Eberron! Your right about going as deep as you wish, I'm one of those just in both feet first kind of guys but for the kids I really need to make this a K.I.S.S game for them so they have fun and dont loose interest.
Again, thanks for your info!!
*dashes off to read some links and get inspired*
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2 years ago ::
May 11, 2011 - 4:44PM
#4
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LFR is the campaign setting I have used to return to the DM role after many years. My group splits the sessions into two night, of around 2 hours each. That might make it easier for younger players. My son is 15 and still finds playing times of over 4 hours tedious. The LFR campaigns I print off of the website here I find sometimes very complicated, especially those above Level 4. I agree with the previous post that Red Box and Chaos Scar are good to start off with.
The Eberron Campaign book has some easily run encounters at the end. My son started with this for his first DM experience. He is moving on to The Ashen Crown now set in the Eberron campaign.
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2 years ago ::
May 12, 2011 - 3:36AM
#5
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Well so far so good!!!
I picked up the forgotten realms campaign guide and players hand book the other day and we started running the loudwater adventure out of that. The kids loved it, the wife made me stop about 20 min into it so she could roll up a dwarf pally (we used the online char generator).
Our first session ran a bit longer then I wanted it to because the two youngest girls were having a hard time. We worked through it though and everyone had fun. All the goblins are dead and the village is safe for another day, which is all the really counts in the end.
I HAVE GOT TO GET BATTLE MAPS and a hand full of minis, but dang those things are an arm and a leg. We improvised with an enlarged photo copy of the encounter map in the book and some pencil erasers as the minis but it was pretty much a FAIL!!! They kept getting knocked over, it was a mess. There is no gaming store near by so I am limited to ebay and amazon for buying these little things. (secretly hoping to find a box of them at a lawn sale this summer)
Thanks so much for the help guys, forgotten realms it is for now, I am really hoping they release dragonlance, that was a great story line growing up.
Oh one last thing. Is the product catalog and dragon/dungeon magazine a pain in the butt to navigate or WHAT?!?!
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2 years ago ::
May 15, 2011 - 11:25AM
#6
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Date Joined:
Feb 13, 2010
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I HAVE GOT TO GET BATTLE MAPS and a hand full of minis, but dang those things are an arm and a leg. We improvised with an enlarged photo copy of the encounter map in the book and some pencil erasers as the minis but it was pretty much a FAIL!!! They kept getting knocked over, it was a mess. There is no gaming store near by so I am limited to ebay and amazon for buying these little things. (secretly hoping to find a box of them at a lawn sale this summer)
Check out the community.wizards.com/new_to_dming/go/th... thread for some hints and tips on what some of us are using when gaming on a budget  .
There is a Dungeon article with tips on converting the H1 Keep on the Shadowfell adventure to a Forgotten Realms based game which you may find interesting.
"Well that encounter was easy....er, guys, why is the DM grinning?" (party members last words) It's not a party till the screaming starts!
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2 years ago ::
May 16, 2011 - 10:30PM
#7
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Date Joined:
Mar 10, 2011
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The Monster Vault and the cardboard tokens and maps that come with it are a nice boxed set, and the tokens are a great alternative to minis. I think that kids are naturally fascinated by monsters, and the Ravenloft campaign setting seems to zoom in on individual starring monsters in the spirit of those old Universal horror movie classics, like Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, and so on.
In TV shows, they call this a "Monster of the Week" approach, and it appeals to kids as much as adults. Some models for it include X-Files, Kolchek: The Night Stalker, Supernatural, and even kid-friendly Scoobie Doo! It seems like Ravenloft handles this by introducing the characters to the setting, presenting evidence of a monster at work, and then providing the PCs with the clues needed to identify the monster and figure out its weaknesses while exploring the world, and then track the monster back to its lair for a dramatic showdown. This can be done just as easily with other campaign settings, if it seems like it would work for your group  One of these days, I'll finish building a toolkit for designing this style of Monster-of-the-Week adventure...
New DM Tips
Show
- Trying to solve out-of-game problems (like cheating, bad attitudes, or poor sportsmanship) with in-game solutions will almost always result in failure, and will probably make matters worse.
- Gun Safety Rule #5: Never point the gun at anything you don't intend to destroy. (Never introduce a character, PC, NPC, Villain, or fate of the world into even the possibility of a deadly combat or other dangerous situation, unless you are prepared to destroy it instantly and completely forever.)
- Know your group's character sheets, and check them over carefully. You don't want surprises, but, more importantly, they are a gold mine of ideas!
- "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." It's a problem if the players aren't having fun and it interferes with a DM's ability to run the game effectively; if it's not a problem, 'fixing' at best does little to help, and at worst causes problems that didn't exist before.
- "Hulk Smash" characters are a bad match for open-ended exploration in crowds of civilians; get them out of civilization where they can break things and kill monsters in peace.
- Success is not necessarily the same thing as killing an opponent. Failure is not necessarily the same thing as dying.
- Failure is always an option. And it's a fine option, too, as long as failure is interesting, entertaining, and fun!
"Broken or not, unbalanced or not, if something seems to be preventing the game from being enjoyable, something has to give: either that thing, or other aspects of the game, or your idea of what's enjoyable." - Centauri
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2 years ago ::
May 18, 2011 - 2:57PM
#8
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Minis,
I ran into an old friend the other day who used to own a gaming/comic shop. I asked him if he had any old stock left in his basement he would be willing to let go cheep. It seems he liquidated every when the business went under. He got back to me a few days later though and said he dug some stuff up out of the closet he would sell. He dosnt play any more and has no use for it.
I got probably 75 figures, all old. Some Ral Partha dragonlance stuff, lots of AD&D 2nd edition stuff. The red dragon (71/72) is on ebay for 89 bucks alone. The Ral Partha Dragonlance heros set, which is unpainted, unassembled with all the paperwork is selling on e-bay for upwards of 75 bucks. Got a Ogre Shamen still in the package too. I got it all for 35 bucks. So nice of him. He said he was happy I was getting kiddos into it.
My promise to hime was that none of it would ever be sold.
Thanks for the suggestions guys this has been a great discussion!! The girls (my wife and 3 daughters) are just thrilled with playing. We are all getting our imaginations back after years of television and video games!! Even the wife is talking about the adventure between sessions, trying to pry hints and info out of me LMAO!
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2 years ago ::
May 18, 2011 - 3:10PM
#9
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Date Joined:
Feb 13, 2010
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Some Ral Partha dragonlance stuff, lots of AD&D 2nd edition stuff. The red dragon (71/72) is on ebay for 89 bucks alone. The Ral Partha Dragonlance heros set, which is unpainted, unassembled with all the paperwork is selling on e-bay for upwards of 75 bucks. Got a Ogre Shamen still in the package too. I got it all for 35 bucks. So nice of him. He said he was happy I was getting kiddos into it.
Ah the classic Ral Partha mini's.
On my shelf (sadly gathering dust I must admit) are my Dragolance Heroes, Forgotten Realms Heroes, and Dragonlance Draconians - all have either been at least undercoated and many are finished in gaming varnish. Though I do have an original early 80's Citadel miniatures Fellowship of the Ring boxed set (with Bill the Pony!) that I just cant bring myself to desecrate (my mother picked it up from a second-hand shop for about 30 pence a few years ago) with the paint brush.
I've also got the old weedy looking beholder, the four-legged displacer beast amd the slightly oriental looking phase spider. Hmmm, now how can I work those into my next adventure?
Glad your family are enjoying the gaming, hope you all have many fantastic adventures together.
"Well that encounter was easy....er, guys, why is the DM grinning?" (party members last words) It's not a party till the screaming starts!
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2 years ago ::
Jun 03, 2011 - 3:06PM
#10
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Well I used the Red Box on my 7 year old sister last week. She absolutely LOVED it. The most exciting stuff for her was not knowing what would happen next, and getting fun die rolls (she's super lucky, rolling a 1 for a skill check, but since she has a large modifier she passed!). This was also done using the Ghost Tower of the Witchlight Fens solo adventure (the box had a code to download it).
So long as you give them what they want, it should be fine. For a two-player adventure I plan on making with her, I plan on using plenty of minions until she gets up higher in level (reward double EXP or something so they progress faster and you don't run out of material) then I can just use a few lvl 2 or 3 guys when she is lvl 5 (as suggested in DMG2).
I was going to mention KISS, but as I looked up just now I could see you did that already, lol. Try using this as an opportunity to work out a story for a normal game. I'm going to steal from World of Warcraft, as she wants dragons and royalty and stuff like that [Onyxia is undercover in human form, working for the King of Stormwind in the game]. Now that's something that'll excite her =P
Best of luck! Remember, you're the DM, the main role of your job is to make it fun for the players!
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