A few years ago, a friend’s son was celebrating his 10th birthday and as a special treat I volunteered to run a one-shot session for him and his friends. It posed some unique challenges – partly because they had never played D&D before, and partly because they were kids. I tweeted about the experience, but here’s a more permanent, searchable, and cohesive version.
Simple Is Better
Don’t get too clever. Kids don’t have a vast backlog of experience and they like figuring things out even if – to an experienced gamer – things seem totally obvious. My encounters, by typical standards were totally cliche: fight dinosaurs, cross a rope bridge, kill pirates. Guess what? They LOVED it. Why? Because fighting dinosaurs is AWESOME. Crossing a rope bridge is just like in the movies only YOU’RE THE ONE DOING IT. Fighting pirates? YES PLEASE.
Also: keep your encounters short & engaging. Kids, unlike adults, have no filter. They will literally walk away from the table when they’re bored.
Unexpected Prep: Character Sheets & Props
Normally when prepping a game I think about what the story arc might be like and what weird twists I can put on the possible encounters. That’s all great, but in an intro game you need to take a couple extra steps to make the session interesting and approachable.
Make clean, uncluttered character sheets. OVERSIMPLIFY them. We lost a lot of time to “wait which dice do I roll?” and “I don’t know, what’s my AC/attack/skill rank/whatever” Also, give each kid a separate die of the same specific color just for their attack damage. Otherwise they will keep forgetting which one to use. (Even adult first-timers have trouble telling a d12 from a d20 or a d8 from a d10.) Easier: “Ok, you hit with your axe. Roll damage. It’s that red die.”
If I’d had the prep time, I would have stripped the character sheet down completely, focused on a few key abilities and fudged some dice variables Does a random 10 year-old care if a scythe does 2d4 vs 1d8? No. Is it realllly that important to have a distinction between Acrobatics and Athletics? Not really. Bend the rules to speed play and minimize your need for repeated explanation.
Create a magnet for their attention with props. Sure, RPGs are a game of imagination, but great props inspire and engage. I bought a yard of canvas for $4, took Sharpies to it, and made this map. Dropped it on the table: “OMG!!! AWESOME!!”
(Apologies for the quality of the photo, my camera phone wasn’t quite up to the job back in 2014.)
A cool prop draws the kids into the game. “Don’t go near Greenwater! It’s poison!” “Are there really Thunder Lizards in the jungle??” “What’s that big iron gate!?!”
Having a selection of cool miniatures for the PCs and monsters also helps.
DM: “A giant robot rises out of the ship’s hold.”
*drops robot on table*
Kids: “OMG!”
Some Design Considerations When Planning The Encounters
Don’t stack challenges. Remember, kids are already prone to simultaneously engage with AND freak out about things. “OMG IT’S A VELOCIRAPTOR WE’RE GONNA GET EATEN!!! GET YOUR SWORD OUT!!” Don’t notch up the challenge as much as you would with a group of experienced adults. Kids will get hyped up over trying to cross a creaky rope bridge, you don’t need goblin archers firing at them too. Give them one problem at a time to start off with and see how they deal with it.
Minimize gory monsters. Skeletons and dinosaurs are cool and dangerous but also familiar. Ghouls, vampires, etc might be too scary. Tread carefully. Yes, kids love to freak themselves out and make a over-hyped display, but: they are also more easily freaked out in a genuine way.
And keep in mind the conversation that happens at home later. Some standard RPG stuff sounds downright creepy when a kid retells it.
Think about it:
“We went into a dungeon and a big scary guy grabbed Jess and tried to bite her!”
vs
“We fought dinosaurs and a giant robot!!”
Misreading the tone of what gets presented at the table can easily turn into someone (maybe not you!) getting a phone call from a concerned parent later.
At the same time, design for epic moments.
The PCs were level 2.
Did I give them an arrow of undead slaying?
YES.
Was there a skeleton boss monster?
OF COURSE THERE WAS.
It’s a one-shot, don’t focus on the minutiae and how many arrows they have. Make them feel like heroes.
Here’s where your props can really raise the players’ interest and excitement.
Sure, it’s already cool when the set-up is that the party fights a robot and a dinosaur on top of a bunch of pirate ships.
It gets exponentially cooler by dropping a few cheap toys and action figures onto the battle mat.
They don’t have to be your best, most precious miniatures. Kids are used to using whatever toy they have laying around as an imaginative stand-in for the story they’re making up.
But the more you can goose their imagination with something cool or evocative, the better.
Table Management.
Running a table of kids requires patience. If they start talking over each other too much and it gets unruly, here’s a simple trick: have them roll for initiative.
It feels like part of the game (because it is a part of the game), it enforces a fair sense of order, and it shuffles/refocuses the social dynamic of the table.
In fact, you can use initiative OUTSIDE of combat just to make sure everyone gets a chance to contribute. (Honestly, first time players have no idea that you’re only “supposed” to use initiative for combat.)
But keep in mind: that kid who is railroading the action & trying to do everything first before anyone else? He’s just THAT excited to play.
Try not to tamp down his enthusiasm. Channel or manage it. Yes, it’s a game of imagination, but it’s also a game of cooperation & taking turns.
Finally, when a kid asks a question it’s really an indirect contribution to the game. They’re telling you how they want to play. Find a way to say yes or incorporate the idea they have into part of the challenge of the current encounter.
Conversely, watch out for how many times you stop the action to correct a kid on how the game works. Every time you say “No, it doesn’t work like that” you are slamming the door on their imagination and engagement. When I hear that phrase uttered by the DM before a table of newbies it’s a huge red flag. Do not get hung up on the rules or making sure everything is 100% right. You are introducing young minds to a world of adventure. Make it EPIC.
Finally, and most importantly, remember: With this one session, you can spark a whole new generation of RPG players. Make it fun, safe, cool, and inclusive. Even though you may have years or even decades of experience under your belt, your way of playing is not necessarily The Right Way. Kids will guaranteed veer off the rails in ways both unpredicted and wonderful. Let that enthusiasm reignite your own passion for the game. Play together.