Hi folks,
My 8 year old daughter has been expressing an interest in learning how to play D&D for a while now. I've read her The Hobbit, and she's seen both of the movies. She's also seen the Lord of the Rings movies (although she won't let me read the books to her yet, for some reason). She loves the movie Brave, and we recently showed her Willow. [Next up is The Princess Bride.] She is also enjoying Terry Pratchett's Tiffany Aching novels, which I've been reading to her, and she's recently gotten into the Harry Potter books, which she's reading by herself. I also let her play Diablo III for a bit before Blizzard went and messed it up.
So she's been primed and ready to go for some time, and tonight we finally had a chance to sit down and start making a character for her. I've talked to her about D&D over the past few weeks, and we'd already established that her character was going to be a wood elf girl who uses a bow, so it was just a matter of working out the details.
VITAL STATISTICS
Name: Thia Holimion
Age: 15
Height: 4' 6"
Weight: 90 lbs
Eyes: Hazel
Skin: Fair
Hair: Dark brown*
*and really long, like down to her ankles, although she apparently does it up in a bun so it doesn't get in the way]
----
We determined that her character would be a teenager whose mother is teaching her how to be a hunter, so I suggested the ranger class. She liked the idea of being able to fight with weapons and cast spells, so that was a win. It's also nice that the ranger has a built-in learning curve, so I can teach her the basics, and then she can learn the spells once she's leveled up after a session or two. I haven't discussed animal companions yet, but I was thinking I'd let her find and train an animal to use as a sidekick at some point.
I had explained the concept of the six ability scores to her earlier, and she seemed to understand them, so when it came time to determine them, I had her do it the traditional way ~ rolling "4d6, drop the lowest" six times and arranging to taste. She rolled 14 10 16 14 10 11. Beginner's luck, right? She immediately got that the 16 would become an 18 if she put it in Dex due to the elf racial bonus, so she did that, and then put one of the 14s in Wis to make it a 15 thanks to the wood elf bonus. She chose to put the other 14 in Cha because she wanted her PC to be good at making friends. [My daughter is quite the extrovert herself, so that came as no surprise to me.]
ABILITY SCORES
STR DEX CON INT WIS CHA
11 18 10 10 15 14
----
When it came to character development, I didn't think any of the backgrounds presented in the Basic Rules were all that fitting for a child PC who hasn't had a previous life of any substance, so I just read her some of the personality traits from the Folk Hero as examples. She picked a few but also came up with some of her own. It was fun to see her being creative right away.
ASPECTS
Personality Traits: If someone is in trouble, I'm always ready to lend help.
Ideals: Freedom. People should feel free to do stuff.*
*It was going to be "People should be allowed to do what they want", but she said there wasn't enough space on the sheet.
Bonds: I want to protect my people and family.
Flaws: I am easily distracted.*
*"Like if I'm hunting a bear and there's a pretty bird, I'll be like 'Oooh, look at that bird!'"
I'll come up with the rest of the background mechanics as we go along ~ eg. I'll probably just let her choose any two skills, and then give her a tool proficiency and some kind of RP benefit similar to the Folk Hero's or something.
She had to go to bed before we could finish, so I have yet to discuss things like alignment with her, and she hasn't picked out any equipment yet either. We didn't do skills either, although I'm planning on just working those in during the first session or two. We did talk a bit about the elven racial traits, though, and she thought it was funny and/or weird that elves meditate instead of sleeping.
----
Having her PC's mother be her teacher is perfect. If she's ever unsure of what to do next, I can just suggest that she have her PC ask her mother for advice. Once she's confident enough with the rules and such, I can also have something bad happen to the mother ... like maybe she gets captured by a hungry monster, and my daughter's PC has to rescue her before she gets eaten. 
For the first session, I'm going to start off with the traditional village fair with various activities designed to teach her the basics of rolling the dice and interacting with NPCs and the like. [Similar to the "tutorial" stage of games like Neverwinter Nights 2.] An archery contest is a given. I may have to crack open my old 2e Complete Book of Elves to see what other appropriate elf-themed activities I can include.
Once she's had a bit of fun at the fair, I'll have some wild animals attack (like in Willow). Perhaps they steal something, and her PC has to help her mother track the animals back to their lair. After that, we can spend a bit of time with the mother taking her out into the woods and teaching her how to track and hunt animals, how to forage for food, how to make a shelter, etc etc. As we go through each task, we can finish filling out her character sheet (skills, weapons, class features, equipment, etc). When she levels up, her mother can then teach her how to cast spells.
----
I'm going to use this thread to recount my daughter's adventures in D&D land. Feel free to follow along and enjoy the ride!
If you've got any suggestions (or questions of your own!) for teaching children how to play D&D, feel free to post them in my advice thread in the DM Help forum.
Nice! I have a halfling character with a Wisdom of 9 who needs a tagline-- I think I'll borrow "Oooh, look at that bird!" 
Leugren wrote:
That sound awesome! What about gathering some of her friends down the road for a proper party?
Warder
Warder17 wrote:
pukunui wrote:
Be prepared for anything! I ran a game for my daughter when she was around 8, and opened the game by having her come across a baby unicorn stuck in a spider web. She felt spiders were too dangerous, so she left it to die!
I love reading this kind of thing. Look forward to hearing more!
Catoblepapotamus wrote:
Great idea on having mom teach the hunting, tracking stuff. Great.
Puk, I'm eagerly awaiting your reports. This is heartwarming. Cheers, man.
Great post! Keep up the good work introducing a new generation to the hobby. It sounds like you've got a good approach, too.
Arithezoo wrote:
This sounds great!
It'll be a number of years before my nephew (who is 4) is ready to start learning the game. I only hope that I get to help teach him alongside my brother when the time comes.
Aesome. Just awesome!
You could get characters from children cartoons, for example Sailor Moon, Shreck or a kentaurid version of "my little pony: friendship is magic".
You can give extra XPs if she writes fan-fiction about allies nPCs or future PCs.
More extra XPs if the class grades are good or she reads about History and Science or she learns a second languange.
Thanks for all the kudos, everyone!
It did occur to me after I'd gone to bed last night that a high Wis and being easily distracted do actually go together quite well. My daughter is easily distracted, and it is precisely because she is so observant that she gets distracted. I don't think she'll have any trouble roleplaying that aspect of her character. LOL.
We're hoping to get a chance to actually start playing later today. I'll post a recap afterwards if we do.
This is all kinds of awesomeness and I love it! I bet she is going to have a lot of fun with this campaign setting you have created for her! Terrific work and looking forward to updates on how it is all going. 
Akeisha wrote:
I read an article dming for your toddler that was cool and it might give you or others some ideas. It's not exactly D&D but it is an easy way of playing a RPG. I know I had a hard time with my 10 year old, but he is easialy distracted.
http://gygaxmagazine.com/2013/08/09/dming-for-your-toddler/
That's some good stuff and is just the sort of specifics I was looking for. Thanks FireballFace!
We got to play for about half an hour this evening. We kicked things off with a biathlon-style race, where all the young elves in the village have to run to various stations where they shoot arrows at targets. She quite liked that idea, having remembered the biathlon event from the recent Sochi Olympics. I told her all the youths would be competing but there were only four who would really be any competition for her: two boys named Rinn and Faen, and two girls named Mella and Naeris. (I randomly picked the names from the list of elf child names in the Basic Rules and then rolled a d4 for their Str and Dex scores.) She decided that all of them except Rinn were Thia's friends.
I had an adult elf wizard character fire a magical flare to start the race. Thia managed to keep pace with the two boys, while the other girls fell behind a little. Rinn hit the bull's-eye on the first target, but then my daughter rolled a natural 20, so I told her that she not only hit the bull's-eye as well but she also split Rinn's arrow. She knew what that meant since Merida does that in Brave, so she was super-chuffed.
She didn't roll so well for her next athletics check, and neither did the girl Naeris, so my daughter decided that Thia tripped over a rock and then Naeris stumbled into her. Mella won that leg of the race and then proceeded to win the shooting with the only bull's-eye as well. Mella won the third leg of the race as well, but then Thia got another natural 20 to hit the target dead center. Most of the others missed their shots ~ I had described the target as being high in a tree, so we agreed that they must have missed because it was a hard shot.
I had Rinn start to get frustrated and angry when he rolled really badly on his shot and then rolled even worse on his next running check.
Mella won the final leg of the run, with Thia close behind her. I described the last target as being just a leaf on a tree branch [got the idea from 3e's Complete Warrior, which describes elves shooting at leaves under the "archery contest" rules]. My daughter got a 12 on her attack roll, but I'd set the DC at 20. So I decided to play the "easily distracted" card. I told her there was a brightly colored bird in the tree and asked her what she wanted to do. She said, "I get distracted!" So I explained that because she was playing to one of her traits, I'd give her inspiration. I explained the rule to her, and she chose to roll her shot again. I said that maybe it was a good luck bird. I think she ended up with a 17 that time, so still not quite good enough, but the others all got lower results, so I declared her the winner of that section since her arrow got the closest to the leaf.
I then totted up the winners for both the running and shooting segments and both Thia and Mella were tied with 4 points each. My daughter was happy enough having her PC tie with one of her friends, and she asked if they got gold medals. I said that they got special golden arrows as trophies instead, so she made a little box on the back of her sheet entitled "My Special Treasures" and wrote down her trophy in it.
We stopped playing there, but before she went to bed, I asked her to help me brainstorm some other ideas for things her character could do at the festival. She suggested a tree climbing contest, a jumping contest, and "trying out musical instruments to see which one you're good at". I suggested sword fighting with wooden swords, and my wife suggested hide-and-seek. So those are some of the things we'll do next time.
Aside from her automatic proficiency in Perception for being an elf, we haven't picked out any skills yet, so she's just been making straight ability checks. Well, I did let her add the +2 proficiency bonus to her attack rolls with her bow, but everything else was just an ability check. After the festival is finished, when her mother is training her, I'll let her pick one skill at a time and we'll roleplay the training of it.
I then totted up the winners for both the running and shooting segments and both Thia and Mella were tied with 4 points each. My daughter was happy enough having her PC tie with one of her friends, and she asked if they got gold medals. I said that they got special golden arrows as trophies instead, so she made a little box on the back of her sheet entitled "My Special Treasures" and wrote down her trophy in it.
That's so exiting. From your report I can feel your daughter's excitement. Great contest.
Very nice, and well done - both from the DM and the player! I am particularly impressed by how you encouraged your beginner daughter to narrate her own results, she will have a running start in roleplaying games from this alone.
A couple of years back I had the opportunity to introduce my children (then 8 and 11) together with two of their friends (6 and 7) to D&D (3.5). The first adventure involved a campfire ambush of six goblins, an intriguing imp with nefarious plans, a negotiating mission to the dwarven Temple of Thor for healing and silvered weaponry, and finally a showdown in a dropstone cavern over a poisoned trapdoored well that doubled as a potential gate to the Nether Realms. With 1 hp remaining, the elvish rogue princess balanced across the stalagmites, leaped across the well towards Ignatz the imp, caught the silvered longsword midair, and successfully beheaded him (if there ever was a more well-placed natural 20...).
Good times ... This eventually evolved into a proper campaign which we are now looking to conclude at level 7-8, playing on average twice a year we lived in different countries at the time which was a nuisance).
Best of luck to you and your daughter, and may you have plenty of adventures still before you!
OrwellianHaggis wrote:
pukunui wrote:
I love it! It sounds like the both of you had a great time.
My nieces and one of their friends joined in playing D&D with us when they were about 9, 10 and 10 (or there abouts). And they loved it. While, unfortunately, their friend moved out of state, the girls continue to play (playtesting Next, even) and the oldest one (now 14) is excited because she's going to DM the adventure from the Starter Set for the rest of us.
I look forward to more of your posts and hope the both of you continue to have a blast.
Akeisha wrote:
We played again briefly this evening. She wanted to have Thia compete against her friends Mella and Naeris climbing trees. Both Mella and Naeris are a bit stronger than Thia, so they had a bit of a stronger start, but thanks to the dice, they both fell out of the tree on the way back down (Naeris hit the ground hard enough to knock herself out). Thia, however, struggled on the way up both times, but managed to get down quickly (and safely). Then Rinn, the boy who is not Thia's friend, wanted to race her. Just before they started, Thia spotted him surreptitiously sprinkling some sparkling dust on himself that she recognized as pixie dust. He was cheating! 
But rather than call him out on it, what does Thia do? She tells him she won't tell on him if he gives her some. Admittedly this was one of several suggestions of mine, since she wasn't sure how to respond, but she added that Rinn gave Thia most of the powder and only got a pinch for himself. I decided it would give them advantage on their rolls and if they fell, they wouldn't hurt themselves ~ and I was thinking that if Thia fell, she would get into trouble for cheating and Rinn would play innocent since she took most of it and only left him with a pinch. However, she made it down safely, so no one was any the wiser.
In fact, while Rinn made it to the top of the tree first, Thia beat him back down, so she was declared the winner. I had her prize be a climber's kit (although, to be honest, I think the usefulness of the kit's current incarnation is somewhat dubious; I might change it so it grants advantage on climb checks instead of (or in addition to) the "you can anchor yourself" benefit).
This is priceless stuff. My daughters are now 21 and 15, with the older now moved off to start her own life/family, but there are so many memories we all share in our household from our occasional RP nights (the eldest, to this day, still talks about how a Giant Frog swollowed her character whole on the first day she ever played - and we won't even go into the time where they tricked a friend, the only boy in our campaign, into eating lizardman because the girls used Prestidigitaion to give it both the aroma and taste of chocolate - I think he's still a bit peeved about the laugh they got from that, heh). It also reminds me of what it was like when me and my friends all started out too many years ago at 8-year-old+
I am with the others in saying that I can't wait to read more of the adventures of Thia!
Excellent! Hopefully my daughter and I will be able to create some lasting memories together. I must admit that while I didn't get my start with D&D until I was in my early teens, I don't actually remember much about the games we played back then. I vaguely recall having the PCs face a dracolich only to have it collapse on the paladin, who had gone to attack it from underneath.
pukunui wrote:
Akeisha wrote:
We finally got a chance to play a bit more tonight, although not for very long. I was getting a bit bored of the festival, to be honest, so I announced that goblins had stolen the grand trophy (yes, she those formulaic rainbow magic fairy books by Daisy Meadows). Thia and her mother, Meriele, were in charge of tracking the goblins back to their lair and getting the trophy back. Meriele's animal companion, a cooshee, went along with them.
For this part, I decided I'd just use the opening scenes from Lost Mine of Phandelver, starting with the goblin trail. I had my daughter make a Perception check to find the trail with advantage, thanks to her mother's help in pointing out the various signs (broken twigs, footprints, etc). She had no trouble there. She also had no trouble spotting the snare, and when her mother warned her to keep an eye out for more traps, she paid very close attention indeed, getting a natural 20 on her check to spot the pit trap. Her mother was quite pleased.
Soon, they came to a stream issuing out of a cave, with a "blind" in the thickets to the east. The elves spotted the two goblin sentries in the blind and snuck up on them silently. Thia nocked an arrow to her bow and took a shot. Her arrow hit the goblin right in the heart. Her mother shot the other goblin before he even knew what was happening.
And, unfortunately, we had to stop there because it was bedtime and there's school tomorrow. Hopefully we'll get to play again soon, though.
For the record, I'm going to use the Cragmaw Hideout cave layout, but I will have there be not as many goblins in it. I think I'll also skip the bugbear and just have there be goblins. I might replace the wolves with spiders, too.
Sounds great! I agree that switching out the wolves for spiders is a good idea. After all, wolves are just big puppies, and we don't want to hurt puppies! (I actually do this with my "adult" players too. I love wolves, and couldn't stand them being mauled by PCs!) 
pukunui wrote:
Thanks guys. I forgot to mention that I also gave her the set of dice that came with the starter set. She was pretty jazzed about that. I suggested she find a special bag to keep them in (if there's one thing my daughters have in abundance, it's bags of all shapes and sizes - she knew right away that she had the perfect little bag for her new dice).
pukunui wrote:
Akeisha wrote:
We finally got to play for about 30 minutes this evening. Continuing the mission to recover the stolen trophy, Thia and her mother crept into the dark goblin cave. They slipped down the passageway as it curved to the right (I decided just to improvise rather than go with the LMoP cave after all). They came upon a larger cavern with three goblins hanging around a fire. The trophy sat on a flattened stalagmite on the far side.
Thia and her mother both successfully surprise attacked the goblins, with each of them killing a goblin with a single shot. The third goblin immediately surrendered and obligingly gave back the trophy when the elves demanded he do so. They returned to the elf village and the festivities continued long into the night.
The next day, Meriele decided to take her daughter hunting. Thia wanted to hunt a spider, so they tracked one down and killed it. This was Thia's final test of her wilderness survival and tracking skills, so I had my daughter add Survival to her list of trained skills, along with Stealth, which she'd used to much success in the goblin cave. She also wanted to add Athletics as her third ranger skill, so I decided she'd more than earned it with her success in the festival competitions earlier.
Next time I will have Meriele teach her about favored enemies and terrain, so we can add those ranger abilities. Then I might let her level up to 2nd level so she can learn some spells. I'm guessing (although I'm not positive) that she'll want an animal companion at 3rd level. I'm thinking since she's adventuring solo that I'll ignore the bit about having to give up an attack to let your animal companion attack.
pukunui wrote:
Thanks Akeisha. She enjoys every precious second of it.
pukunui wrote:
Akeisha wrote:
pukunui wrote:
My PHB arrived today! My daughter has already decided that the female elf ranger on page 89 is "her" character.
pukunui wrote:
Well, I had a nicely detailed post about tonight's session, but I accidentally hit refresh or something and lost it all, so I'll just keep this short.
I'd been putting off running another session of D&D for my daughter for a few weeks now, in part because I honestly had no idea where to take the game next. This morning, though, I remembered the old free 3.5 module, A Dark and Stormy Knight, and thought I could update that. It didn't take long, and I recruited my wife to play Meriele. I decided to pull out the maps and minis for this game, which my daughter really enjoyed. I picked out the halfling ranger with a bow mini to represent Thia, since she's still a child.
They made it all the way through the dungeon, successfully defeating all the monsters and evading the traps and such. They took a bit of damage but never seemed to be in dire danger.
The most standout moment was my wife opting to use speak with animals to find out why a swarm of rats was panicking (their nest was getting flooded by rain). My wife did get a bit frustrated with the dice towards the end. She was also finding Meriele's NPC statblock a bit confusing. If I get her to play Meriele again, I'll have to make sure I do a proper PC character sheet for her. My daughter seemed to really enjoy it though. She wanted to shoot all the baddies with her bow, and unlike my poor wife, she kept rolling really well. That d20 from the 5e Starter Set looks to be a pretty lucky one. I'm glad I gave it to her, and I'm sure she is too.
One other thing I'll note is that I recently made a new PC of my own for another game. She's a MC rogue/ranger, so I'm a lot more familiar with all the rules for the ranger class, and I felt like the Favored Enemy and Natural Explorer abilities might be a little too confusing for my daughter, so I've decided to ignore them for now. I think now that we've played through a whole starter module, I'll let her level up, and she can pick a fighting style (which I'm sure will be archery) and some spells. And we'll continue on from there.
Cool, I am running my 12-year old nephew through a solo 2nd Age (more magic and monsters, that way) Middle-Earth campaign, the last big fight was against an offspring of Ungoliant.
He is playing a Noldor (gnome) Paladin.
pukunui wrote:
Akeisha wrote:
Brock_Landers wrote:
Good for you! I've recently started running a game with my 10-year-old twins. My son is autistic, so D&D makes him engage verbally (he has disordered speech), and it makes him socialize. It's also about the only time I can get him and his sister to work together as a team!
Sounds like your daughter is enjoying your efforts greatly!
KaribouOfDoom wrote: