I have been playing Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) since I was 8 years old and have been obsessed with the game for over 40 years. As a parent, I always look for opportunities to introduce my kids to my geeky pursuits, and D&D ranks highly among those.
So, when my daughter recently asked me to run a D&D adventure for her 12th birthday, I was ecstatic. Little did she know though - I had already been preparing an entire campaign for her.
What precipitated its creation - I discovered that there haven’t been many good approaches to building adventures for children.
It was a surprising discovery, as the game is profoundly educational - they’re learning new words, math, reading and social skills.
So, that is what we want to do - create a D&D game aimed at children.In this article, I’ll give some examples of the characters and the flavor text for a few encounters, as it demonstrates the sort of storytelling approach that I intend to take with the adventure. The focus of the encounters will be on imaginative roleplaying and social interactions, but there will still be opportunities for combat as well.
At the end, we'll talk about where we'll go from there (including a published module series and NFTs).
Familiar Things
This will be the first adventure in a series of D&D adventures made for kids. It will be a kid-friendly adventure with lots of handouts, battle maps, and visuals.In “Familiar Things”, they will play the magical creatures and companions to wizards who have gone missing.
In a cabin at the edge of Grindlebrier Forest, Nevermore the raven, Vayliss the owl, Erb the herb garden golem, Slink the ferret, and Ember the fire elemental have been patiently awaiting the return of their wizards.
When an unexpected message arrives telling them that their wizards are lost, they are forced to leave their home in search for the whereabout of their wizards.