Review of 15 Minute D&D by The Kid’s Table
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Age target for 15 Minute D&D recommended for kids about ages 5 and up
15 Minute D&D is made with the intent of being used by and for young players.
The adventures in 15 Minute D&D are tailored to fit a young first time player’s attention span, have parsed down mechanics (d20 and d6 only and simplified stats), and follow a fun dungeon exploration quest.
They have have a little bit of combat and some puzzles that will sometimes require players to think for a minute (or choose between a puzzle or combat), but they were at about a 5-7 year old level (this is dependant on the kid) and added a lot of the adventure by not just having one linear combat sequence. I’d recommend that players whould be able to recognize numbers and do addition just past 20 (possibly with help from a grown up) to be able to play, and they should be good to go!
Setting for 15 Minute D&D: classic D&D but made for kids
15 Minute D&D is set in a dungeon with your party adventuring for treasure! Players will need to choose between different doors, decide if they want to solve puzzles and riddle or dive into combat, and keep pushing forward to get to their prize at the end. You’ll have five sections of the dungeon to pass in order to complete the campaign.
It’s a classic medieval fantasy quest that’s sparked with enough kid-focused material (like some attitude between two elementals that gave me Heat Mieser and Snow Mieser vibes) to give the experience that a lot of people envision when they think of D&D… but still being for kids.
There are also options given in each of the 5 short sessions for making different choices, so there’s some freedom to explore and see impact of player choice on the adventure while still keeping it pretty easy to progress into the next section so the GM can feel comfortable with knowing pretty much where things will go as well.
Your character for 15 Minute D&D modified for kids with options to progress
15 Minute D&D comes with three pre-made characters to choose from for each one shot, and these characters have all of their stats nicely parsed down and packaged in a little box at the top of each adventure page for easy tracking.
These characters are based on level 2 D&D 5e versions of a fighter, wizard, and rogue, but they’re adjusted so that players can learn what they do and then use their character within the 15 minute timespan for the session.
There is also an option to use full 5e character sheets for each, which are included in the back of the game for reference. I really like that these full sheets were included because this means that different player experiences can be meshed (i.e. an adult or teen playing with a full character sheet and a kid playing with one of the pre-mades here within the same adventure instance) AND it’s a great way to show or experiment with mecahics progression. Players can get used to the parsed down version first and then see how it compares to a full character sheet, or slowly move into using a full character sheet, when they’re ready.
Mechanics for 15 Minute D&D made for kid players
We already talked a bit about how 15 Minute D&D has parsed down the character sheets, and we can see in the stat blocks above that all attacks (sword, fire, shortbow) use a d6 for damage only. The stats and “to hit” all use a d20 only. This means you only have two dice to track, and most of the modifiers are pretty straightforward to add. The most complicated roll to make and add up is probably either the 2d6+4 for the fighter attack, and that’s math that can probably be easily helped or explained with aid from a facilitator, if needed.
Other than that, it’s very much inteded to be intuitive and not take much time to explain (the 15 minutes in 15 Minute D&D includes the mechanics explination), and I think it did just that. It’s explainable, easy to help with, and it still leaves unique elements between different characters to allow for strategizing.
Overall thoughts on 15 Minute D&D
I thought this was great. If you’re excited about running D&D with your kids, these adventures are a great starting point to get a solid example of how to parse down sessions and modify them for young players AND they’re fun for kids to jump into as well. I also really liked that The Kid’s Table included a whole page of 1st time GM tips to help new or young GMs as well – if your kid wants to start GM’ing, this can also be a fantastic springboard for them to use as a 1st time GM experience.
Overall, I enjoyed getting to check this out and run through the story with kiddo, and I hope you have fun with it too!
Find a copy of 15 Minute D&D
You can find a copy of 15 Minute D&D by The Kid’s Table here on DM’s Guild!
Also, The Kid’s Table runs a D&D for kids podcast, which I reviewed here, if you’re interested in seeing how a 15 minute D&D session might play out!
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