Whenever I finally caught up on season four of Stranger Things (rated M, for grown-ups, people!), it occurred to me that Dungeons & Dragons might possibly be, incredibly awesome. For those who don’t know, and no spoilers here, the protagonists of the television series play the game. I kinda knew about and was interested in D&D as an 80s kid, but didn’t know anyone cool like those cool kids, who played it.

I spoke about this with our resident frisbeeist Tom, and he was surprised it took me so long to get to season four, and proudly mentioned that he plays D&D and is in fact, a Dungeon Master! Tom immediately agreed that a D&D programme would be possible here at OSHC.

It turned out that our resident board game boffin Zoe also plays D&D and was in a Harry Potter themed campaign at the time. I couldn’t believe that we have two experienced D&Ders on staff! It’s the strangest thing..

The three of us put out heads together, discussed some ideas with children and families, and sought approval to start a club from our school’s community leaders. We had to make sure that the game and content was appropriate for school age children and that if it takes off, it remains an OSHC activity and doesn’t filter into and become a distraction during school time.

You can read a little more about our thinking on all of that stuff and other things here.

Children have been having a great time playing Dungeons & Dragons at OSHC! My observations of the campaigns at this stage have confirmed my hopes that D&D would engage groups of older students who are sometimes at a loose end at OSHC and would give them something extra to look forward to each week.

One parent’s feedback from a recent session was that her children had the best day they’ve ever had at OSHC. Other parents have either sat and waited with a hot drink while a session wraps up or have gone and come back later to collect their children from after school care. Like Eddie Munson’s rendition of the anthemic Master of Puppets in Stranger Things, this is music to my ears!

We’ve been running D&D sessions for two groups of children each week, one on Wednesday afternoon and the other on Friday afternoon. It seems that we introduce new players and characters each session! Both the stories and the Dungeon Master have been flexible enough to include new characters as plots evolve. Tom has been writing brief notes after each session and we thought that we’d leave a little teaser for you to read every so often. We also recently recorded a session with our podcast studio which will be posted in a seperate blog post soon.

If you have any questions or comments, please write your thoughts in the comments section below!

Aaron

Dungeon Master’s notes:

We used this template to create our characters for the first sessions. You can also check out D&D Beyond to create characters digitally and to explore online resources. *Please keep in mind cyber safety when exploring online links with your children.

Children were encouraged to be creative when designing their character. One can choose to create a character that demonstrates the preferences, dispositions, and skills that they may see in themselves, or something else entirely. Role playing is (clearly) distinct from real life, so why not choose a character trait that you would like to see in yourself? I imagine a child who lacks confidence take on a character role that enables them to experience leadership. Could these experiences have value in real life? Dr Jesse Olsen of The University of Melbourne thinks so: https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/why-dungeons-and-dragons-is-good-for-the-workplace

As per Ayrton’s suggestion, we’ve named our D&D club The Order of the Dragon! The Wednesday campaign is called The Lair of the Black Dragon and Friday’s is The Lost Crystal.

The following is the setting and a couple of notes from the first session of Lair:

The Lair of the Black Dragon begins at the Adventurer’s Guild in a small village. Our characters are busy working and hanging out with others. A soldier, dirty and covered in soot, bursts into the Guild and screams, “There’s a black dragon burning a nearby village!”. A group of responders assemble.

The group set out to investigate and can see from a distance a smokey village, but with no dragon in sight. The village appears to be mostly destroyed and abandoned by its residents. From a safe vantage point our adventurers can see at least three goblins looting ashen homes and stores. To defend what remains of the village, the group must devise and execute a plan to approach the village and attack the three goblins..

Each of the children were keen to take on the hero role, desperate to race into the village and square up against the three opponents, but they came to understand that it would be better to determine which of them had the best set of traits and skills needed to achieve the varied tasks involved in overcoming the goblins. They were able to negotiate and consider (after squabbles!) each of their character’s strengths to then assign roles to each other.

One student’s character is called Rogue and is the stealthiest of the group, and so it was decided that he would be the right person to sneak into the village to gather intel on the goblins. They couldn’t be sure if there were only three of them or if there were many more. A stealthy scout could help avoid rushing into a trap..

Another student who plays as a Paladin has the most comprehensive defensive armour. It was decided that a Paladin was best to safely guide the group into the village to protect them as they followed close behind..

Our resident Druid was also keen to lead the charge, but realised that as his character has magic powers, it was best for him to back up the group from behind ready to respond to anything that may happen..

Both groups can get a bit rowdy at times but are beginning to show a willingness to work together for a common purpose, rather than against each other. Like a referee, the Dungeon Master can manage behaviour of children and their characters by being creative with in-game consequences.

From the Dungeons & Dragons website:

In Dungeons & Dragons, one person serves as the Dungeon Master (or "DM"), the game’s lead storyteller and referee. The DM runs the adventure for the players, who navigate its hazards and decide which paths to explore.

The DM describes the locations and creatures in an adventure, and the players decide what they want their characters to do. Then the DM, using imagination and the game's rules, determine the results of their actions and narrates what they experience.

Because the DM can improvise to react to anything the players attempt, D&D is infinit ely flexible, and each adventure can be exciting and unexpected.

The children that have been involved in campaigns so far are Seth, Marius, Kelly, Ayrton, Owen, Adelyn, Harry, Aiden, Levi, Jonah, James, and Chloe.