D&D for kids

Yesturday I ran a game of "Dungeons and Dragons" for a small group of junior high students. It was part of a library program and they needed someone to run the game and I volunteered.

It was really strange. I don't spend much time around kids at all and wasn't sure what to expect. As far as D&D went I didn't know if they would be familier with the rules or not. I'd met with the Librarian about a month ago and she said most of them would not know the rules.

I was also told that we should use the basic rule set. This is a box set with the most basic rules for the game as compared to the three core books (Players Guide, Dungeon Masters Guide, Monster Manual).

I ended up making 6 characters from those core books and prepared a short adventure. Nothing too complicated. Basically the characters were suppose to be part of a small town which they were to protect.

I left in a hurry but ended up about 5 minutes late (5:05). Luckily the librarian and her husband were describing the game to the group of four players, 2 boys and 2 girls. Here I found out they didn't have any experience and started telling them what a roleplaying game was. We then went over the character sheets using the stuff from the basic game.

We then auctioned off a set of dice and I let the others pick out some dice that they could keep. By this time it was almost 6 and two kids had to leave. Parents kept sticking there heads in saying "we'll have to leave soon" and I was thinking did they actually sign them up or did they stick them in to keep their kids busy while they do their taxes.

By the time we started playing I only had two players and they had a great time. I expect both of them to be back and they were kind of bummed that I only ran on Thursdays. Another thing was that what I normally plan for in a rpg had no value. Sticking to the basics was key. Such general concepts as what is an elf or a cleric and how to decipher a d4 and what does 2d4 mean were all important and we had to go over them.

Can't wait until next week.