Hooking your players

So you want to return to the world of Dungeons and Dragons that you remember from your youth.  Or perhaps you play in a regular game and your kids want to know exactly what you do at what my daughter calls my "geek nights".  Maybe you have just read about D&D and want to see what it is all about.  How do you interest your kids in playing?

I fell into the category of my kids wanting to know just how you play D&D.  They all play World of Warcraft with my Wife and I so they have been exposed to the idea of basic role play and the fantasy genre.  So it was not a huge leap for them and was not something that came out of left field.

Each kid is different and has to be approached in the way that makes the most sense to them.  If you remember the good player type breakdown on pages 8-10 of the Dungeon Master's Guide they give a nice list of the types of players you might have in your group.  Just because your players are young does not mean they will not fall into one of these groups.  However, you might need to understand their personallity to explain the game in a way that interests and excites them.

Welcome to the blog

I started playing Dungeons and Dragons when I was about 12 years old back with the original blue boxed set.  I still have the books and the squished box it came in.  My kids were facinated with my orignial dice set that came with the box.  I had to borrow my Mom's fingernail polish to paint half the d20 red to denote the 11-20.  I was introduced to the game when I was visiting my cousins during a summer vacation and I was hooked from the start.  In my folders I still have my first character I created, a halfling warrior named Lefto.  He got upgraded when my friends and I moved to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and then again as we moved to 2nd Edition.

I have many fond memories of long nights sitting around a table or on the floor of friends bedrooms running through endless mazes, dungeon crawls, Keep on the Borderlands, Tomb of Horrors and crazy adventures we created.  Tomb of Horrors: 4e has been updated for 4e and I can not wait to inflict, I mean, DM this for my kids.  The dungeons we created were more maze with rooms then a true dungeon.  We had rooms so stuffed full of mobs I have no idea how we actually moved around but in our minds it was fantastic.  We did not have minis to use and the rules were not as focused on the strategic movement of 4e.