I have played Dungeons and Dragons for thirty years, including a game with my own kids, ages 12 and 15. I have also listened or watched hundreds of hours of actual play games. I have read most of the published adventures for Fifth Edition.
With D&D, the age depends on the Dungeon Master (DM). The best age to start, using the published adventures, is 15. While this age can vary based upon many individual factors, the published adventures have elements that are dark. With a less mature child, the DM may need to alter or change some content in the adventures.
Playing with middle to older teens is very fun. They can get into all three pillars of play in D&D. The three pillars are combat, exploration, and roleplaying. Combat is almost self-explanatory. The party of heroes has to fight their way through a situation created by the DM. Exploration means finding your way through a dark dungeon full of traps or a vast forest. Roleplaying means acting out your character to negotiate your way through social encounters.
With kids of any age, you can use fantasy tropes that may seem tired to adults familiar with the fantasy genre. But with teenagers, this is likely the first or second time they have encountered such tropes. Also, if you’re all learning the game together, they will be less judgmental because they don’t know any different.
Most play sessions are 3 to 4 hours, with a couple of breaks. But with kids this age, you could certainly go with even a longer, full-day session! You’ll want generous breaks throughout the day for such a marathon of gaming.
What if I want to play with my 6 to 9 year old?
There is nothing wrong with playing D&D with your young school-age children! Their imagination is limitless. But their ability to read and follow complex rules may be limited. Game sessions should be shorter, certainly less than one hour, to match their attention spans. Don’t worry too much with the rules, just teach them about basic weapons and simple spells.
A great starting point for kids at these ages is using some D&D products designed for them! There is a series of books called The Young Adventurers’ Guides. I would start with Monsters & Creatures that has great art and descriptions of the creatures your child’s character can hunt or befriend! After that, you can buy either Warriors & Weapons or Wizards & Spells. Finally, there is the book that will show you the places where the adventures take place, Dungeons & Tombs.
Playing with this age emphasizes the interactive storytelling that makes D&D so fun. Some newer DMs try to treat their games like a novel. But the fun is the improvisation, reacting to what your players do in response to the situations you’ve created. With kids between 6 and 9, you’ll have no choice but to improvise! With their limitless imagination, you’re just along for the ride as you “yes and” their wonderful ideas and actions.
Don’t forget about the dice! No D&D game can happen without pretty dice. The secret sauce of playing D&D with your kids is it teaches them math. Role a die, add your modifier or subtract your penalty, and tell me the total. Sometimes its single-digit numbers or two-digit arithmetic.
Playing with a 10 to 14 year old
Children this age are better able to understand the rules and complexities of D&D. Your child, at this age, is more likely to be drawn to two out of three of pillars of play. I have three boys and they definitely prefer combat and exploration. They get bored quickly with roleplaying and social encounters. My home group also has two teenage girls. One of them gets bored in combat, but enjoys exploration and roleplaying. But her older sister really enjoys all three elements!
Remember, role playing games like Dungeons & Dragons is all about the interactive story telling. While you will want to have a story that you’re interested in, you also must leave room for the stories the other people around the table want to tell too. Sharing the spotlight with the others will help everyone have fun. Unless you’re playing a one-on-one game, no single person at the table is the sole hero of the story.
With this age group, their attention spans are longer than the 6 to 9 year olds. However, I would not run a game longer than 2 hours with a table full of this age group. Even so, you’ll likely want a couple of 10 to 15 minute breaks during the session.
Regardless, you should buy the Player’s Handbook. It gives you all of the rules of how to play D&D for the DM and the Players. The Dungeon Master Guide gives the DM great advice and additional rules for crafting adventures. The Monster Manual has a complete set of monsters and creatures the DM can use to weave hours of adventure.
Playing with kids 5 and younger
As we move down the age ranges, you should still play with your children! But with dice being a choke hazard, I recommend not including them. At these ages, you’re really just playing pretend and telling stories. There is nothing wrong with that!
Sitting with your child and paging through the Young Adventurers Guides will always be excellent bonding time. When telling your stories, use the language of Dungeons and Dragons. Talk about heroic paladins and holy clerics protecting the village against scary skeletons. Tell stories of smart wizards, with their books of magic spells like fireball, magic missile, hold person. You just may want to stay away from the especially scarier monsters that are ok for older children.
Regardless of the age of your players, Dungeons and Dragons is a game you can play for years, if not decades! I have. Literally, the only limit is your and your fellow player’s imagination.
If you want to read more of my posts about Dungeons and Dragons, then click away here! If you want to start to learn on how to paint miniatures, click already! Or maybe you want to explore the wilder (and wider) world of tabletop roleplaying games!
