Is Dungeons and Dragons Kid Friendly?

The role-playing game Dungeons and Dragons has gained in popularity recently thanks to the show Stranger Things and social media trends. The release of the movie by the same name, Dungeons and Dragons brought more eyes to the fifty year old game. The movie is great fun and worthy of a family movie night.

With the increase in attention, the books traditionally sold in comic book shops can now be found in Target and Walmart. But is Dungeons and Dragons kid-friendly? Yes, Dungeons and Dragons is whatever you make it to be. It’s completely up to you. There are books that walk through pre-made stories, but they are all more appropriate for kids than the show Stranger Things, which boosted the recent surge in popularity.

I played once when I was eleven, but I didn’t understand what was going on. A friend handed me a piece of notebook paper with numbers and writing. The group guided me through what to do, and dice were thrown—I never played again until recently.

My wife bought a DnD starter kit for $11. It came with a book including a campaign or a story to play through, a set of dice, some blank character sheets, and instructions. If you don’t want to spend that much, everything you need to know is clearly explained on their website. There, you will also find pre-made character sheets as well as fillable PDF character sheets. Brief videos walk you through the setup. You still need to purchase dice, as regular six-sided dice stolen from another game won’t do. There are different dice for different occasions, but the game heavily relies on a twenty-sided dice. Paper, a pencil, and dice are all that’s necessary to play.

If you choose, there are books available for purchase. The player’s handbook is the most useful. The information is available online, but my kids enjoy the artwork and sitting at the table with an open book while creating a character with pencil and notebook paper. I like the analog nature. The monster manual is great if you want to create your own stories, or, in DnD lingo - campaigns. If creating stories is not for you, books of prewritten adventure can be purchased. I checked the player’s handbook, monster manual, and a few adventure books out from the library to try before committing.

I had a lot of fun taking my kids to a local comic book shop, where we all picked out our own colored set of dice. These can be ordered online, of course, but I like to support local businesses, and I would recommend doing so because it’s fun, and people there can be very helpful. We also learned of a kid’s game held at the shop each week where kids and parents play together.

I believe Dungeons and Dragons is not only kid friendly but also a great family game that involves imagination, teamwork, and problem solving. The tone of the game is set by one player, the dungeon master. The term dungeon master just means the storyteller and the one letting you know what happened as a result of the roll of the dice. So, if you are kid friendly and you are the dungeon master, the game is kid friendly. This means that not only will the content be appropriate, but you can simplify things as much as needed to keep everyone engaged.

We played with another family with ages ranging from four to fifteen, with everything in between. Everyone, from the youngest to the adults, had fun and asked when we were playing next when it was over.

The first order of business is to build a character. Like all things DnD, this can be as simple or as involved as you choose. I like to keep it very simple. My kids are more interested in drawing a picture of what their character looks like than anything else. The player’s handbook explains all the different races and classes. This means what are you, and elf? A human? And what do you do? Are you a fighter? A wizard? 

My four year old wanted to be an owl. A snow owl specifically. “Do you want any magic powers?” I asked.

“No.”

“Do you want to carry any weapons? Or have high intelligence? Be able to speak?”

“No.”

“You want to be just a regular snow owl?”

“Yes.”

No problem. The DnD website has pre made character sheets for the super lazy. I just selected one for a human fighter with no magic and replaced human with owl. I replaced sword and pike as well as the dice rolls associated with those attacks with beak and talons. I then printed a picture of a snow owl flying through the mountains. Done. Perfect. The older ones enjoy reading through the guide, and creating a new character is a large part of the fun and immersement. A friend of mine has a magic taco as a character. You really can tailor things as you wish and ignore any rules or math that would kill the fun. Dealers choice.

I do enjoy writing stories for my family to play through. We can go off the rails in a very fun way, and their ability to work together by combining each of their character’s unique abilities impresses me. I’m also surprised at the solutions they come up with, and one of the things that I love about the game is the answer to even ridiculous requests (of which there are many) does not have to be no. The answer can be “roll for it.”