Just because DnD has an adult setting, doesn’t mean that it is not suitable for children, or in this case, a teenager.
if you go by the FSK/USK 12 rating things movies Psycho, Inception or even Schindler’s List are totally fine for 12 and above even though they concern themselves with very adult things.
And especially with role playing games (video or table top) the idea is that it is a good way to learn how to adult without the risk of serious consequences.
Caring for a familiar or a pet, helping poor villagers or simply overcoming challenges like escaping from the underdark all have an inherent teaching in them, even if it sometimes requires you to web a bad guy and set him ablaze only to then resurrect his corpse and make him your summon xD
I think, if the legal guardian, the DM and I guess the other players at the table are okay with a 14 year old being around, I don’t see the issue.
And it is not unreasonable that knowing all this, the DM doesn’t specifically pick out a one-shot full of body horror and psychological trauma to run at said table.
Oh, this is all true, but I posited that a kid-version of DnD is no longer DnD because it’s missing the ingredients / would be too far removed to be called the same. At that point you could just call it a different game.
Endless arguments pro and con can be made, I am not here to debate anyone on that - it’s fairly useless - the question was always “is that then still DnD or another game entirely?”. I think it would be, if so much had to be removed that it can barely be recognized from what it was before. What do you think?
We can make endless games that are similar. Rolling dice? Monopoly. Comparing stats? Card games.
It really ceases to be DnD when a children version of it is made in order to keep the mood appropriate. Horror becomes toothless, it’s meant to seem scary but be incapable of actually harming anyone, and so on. Suddenly you automatically exclude a whole grocery list of concepts and evergreens (like Mindflayers for example, that’s a famous one). You adjust and adjust and…eventually you will have made an entirely different game that, yeah uses the same game system, but isn’t the same game at all.
Point is: you would have to do something to DnD first and then it becomes presentable. We would all do this instead of delivering a session raw. We don’t even think about it, we just make the adjustment. Funder asked whether or not DnD was child-friendly…
No, it isn’t. Because we first have to change what DnD is and then, later deliver a revised version that is approved. I wonder why we call it the same, then. We could just be honest about it and say that DnD is adult, but another version can be made that is very much kid-friendly.
Even more to the point: “Invincible” and “Teen Titans” is not the same show just how “child-friendly DnD” and “Dnd” is not the same game.
I think there are really two separate questions here. As to whether D&D is intended to be kid-friendly by design, yeah, I think it’s safe to say so. When the guy who wrote the original rules ran his very first session, the playtesters at the table were thirteen and under. And for a long time, the game was marketed heavily toward kids, sold in toy stores, etc. The intent seems pretty clear, and kids have always been involved in D&D.
Whether D&D is suitable for kids or not is a different question and a lot more subjective, but I think you might be selling kids a litte short. Have you taken a look at YA fiction these days? Some of that stuff - including some of the most widely-read stuff - revolves around subjects far harsher than anything I’ve ever encountered in D&D. Kids can handle a lot.
I think there’s an interesting example here in John Bellairs, listed in Appendix N with The Face in the Frost and probably second only to Vance in influencing how we think of magic in D&D. After writing that adult fantasy/horror novel, he turned to kid lit, and … not a lot was lost. If anything, I think some of the stuff in books like Figure in the Shadows is creepier than anyting in his writing for adults. And he doesn’t shy away from concepts like mind control/possession, either.
I think that’s a really interesting question. I also think that if you were to follow up on it, you’d probably conclude that by 3rd edition, it’s already an entirely different game anyway.
In any case, I do appreciate your points. I especially agree that a game is more than just a system. I just think that the next time any of us casts Melf’s Acid Arrow, it’s worth keeping in mind that the person who created and played Melf was all of seven years old.
