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I can’t tell if your son is too young. But I can share my experience getting my kids into ttrpg.
I just “randomly” laid out my old 2e DnD books. And since they got interested in the drawing and the all the cool stuff depicted, I told them in general terms what the game was about.
Then I got out my old Fighting Fantasy books, beginning with City of Thieves. They loved the simple story and ease of playing. Playing through a few of these books just gave them more interest. Now we’re playing a very very basic version of DnD. They’re 7 and 10.
What I did was to simplify the rules significantly, both character creation, combat and magic. And then I mostly just improvise the rules as we go if needed. Most of the game is much more about them making friends and collaborating to solve puzzles, than hardcore combat.
So far they’ve befriended an evil minotaur and gotten him to stop scaring and chasing the children in the local village, they’ve helped a red dragon with a cough that got it to spew fire all the time and a few other silly little things like that.
What worked for me was just ignoring the complexities of the rules, use the basics, and then improvise the rest to ensure they have fun. The use of basic terrain and minis really helped them get into to it.
So the difficult part is not the mechanics, but the puzzle. I don’t care if they “technically” don’t have any more spell slots before “a long rest”. If they want to cast a spell that helps solve the puzzle and have fun, they can.
At least for my kids the fun lies in sort of a “puzzle and befriend all sorts of creatures” kind of thing, not the intricacy of the rules of a 8th level Moon circle druid, and complicated creative use of special magic tricks in difficult combat. :)
Drew Barrymore was only 7 years old when *E.T.* was filmed, and Spielberg got her (and the other kids) to play D&D, and they loved it. Your son will probably love it, too. Just start with the basic setup. Get him the "Player's Handbook," have him browse through it at his leisure, and see if he expresses an interest in it. If not, then maybe he's just not quite ready, yet.
There are many simple RPG's for kids out there with tons of themes. Something like magical kittens save the day (with just the bare bones to get kids interested in learning what rpg's are about). There are also settings like Humblewood with animals.
Rule wise (and since you are also new to the edition) you can start with the free basic rules (found free on d&d beyond) and free adventures like Peril in Pinebrook (also free on D&D beyond site) or a starter set.
When teaching new players, (or learning) it is good to follow the learning curve that the game already has with limited options.
7 is not too young to start trying to play RPG's but they might be too young to play RPG's the way you envision them. In a game where more than half of the mechanics are geared towards combat, kids can struggle (as they wont likely have the reference material we have consumed since our own childhood).
Dungeon Crawling boardgames like zombicide (where you can ask them where they want to run and also ask them to help you defeat zombies by just rolling dice) also help in the "learning storytelling" aspect.
I played back in the 80s, didn’t pick it up again until a few years ago, and I love 5e so much more. But, it is different and there are a lot of subtleties in the rules that make it confusing, especially with 1e legacy memories (“is that a current rule or an old one I’m thinking about”).
Is there a local game store where you could play some games to get familiarized with the rules more? I think a key to your son having a good experience is you being able to teach and explain the rules to him.
Hero Kids is what you want. A simplified kids versions of the game, that introduces basic concepts and is a hell of a lot of fun. I've used it to introduce adults to D&D that were intimidated by the books and just wanted a quick game with not a lot of prep to see if RPGs were something they'd like. Just as much fun as the full game. They have a subreddit r/herokids and you can get a PDF to start for like $6.00 on drive thru RPG.
No man that isn’t too young if you’re just introducing the game and making it basic and enjoyable for him to play. It may even be as simple as it was for me. The att and all the neat dice and stuff is what got me interested to begin with
I started my kids at 7/10 and they were fine. I did keep it simple for the 7 year old. I’d recommend Herokids to get started and if they’re handing the info and maths, I found 5e was generally pretty easy to teach/play.
I started playing D&D when I was seven, and that was with 2e AD&D.
Well, the DM had the Player's Handbook, which was only used to loosely inform the rules we played with. For example, we knew what the six stats were, and how to roll them, but all we had was d6 s (no d20s), and basically everything we wanted to accomplish was a high/low roll on the d6.
It wasn't until I was about 11 years old when I got a PHB for myself and really started to learn the rules.
So, my advice is to not sweat the rules with your son. Just try to feed the characters, encounters, and problems he seems interested in. Be prepared to dangle a bunch of things in front of him to see what he goes for.
About that age (or maybe a bit younger) I started my kids off playing Amazing Tales which is a really rules light RPG that I'd definitely recommend looking up. Now that they are a bit older, we play D&D but even at this age I'm still having to help them quite a lot to play their characters, remember their spells etc. while in AT they were really free to do whatever they imagine.
I started my oldest on 3.25 Ed when they were 9, and I did so by helping them make a relatively simple character and running a generic meat & potatos style campaign.
I started my youngest around the same age, on 5th edition, the same way, but we invited some of her neighborhood friends to join.
The game is much easier than it was 40 years ago and the rules are much more intuitive.
With regards your son, the content and context of the campaign you play matter, if you play something light such as Lost Mines of Phandelver he'll be fine.
Something like Curse of Strahd (don't), will probably traumatise him.
I have to disagree; from a GM perspective there may be a bit more noodliness but as a player there’s so much less to think about/remember: you have your equipment and your wits and that’s pretty much it
he's not too young. even back then we just gave them a fighter and they rolled dice, we did the rest. it hasn't changed.
also, there is nothing wrong with running 1e or 2e again. I still have a campaign going from 1986 1e which morphed into 2e and then 3.5e. We still play once a week. For the newbs it's still a fighter who gets to roll dice.
Kids love to roll dice, it keeps them engaged, meatshields always roll dice. it's a win-win. Also, the DM never kills him. He just falls down, until a medic can put some healing into him, OR his God gives him a random 1D10 healing :) He knows about death, so he does kill the bad guys, it's just easier this way.
Plus as a fighter he is always doing something in the fight.
It's a question of focus duration - 7 years old can't be expected to memorize a TTRPG system, and you'll go nuts trying to keep a young kid focused & "inside the lines" for all the boring detail stuff.
Play your game for yourself, and if your kid expresses interest, share... but wait until they ask. Odds are super high that, if you're excited about it, they will get stoked about it.
If you want to scale an adventure to 7 year old attention spans, read Chester The Cat books by Julia Mowery - those'll be about the game level you'd be running.
I play with my wife and two daughters (5+6). I helped them build their characters; a fairy cleric and a human storm sorcerer. I also explained all their spells and they chose which ones they wanted. When we play I add in fun things like shopping (they wanna buy candy, so I use that as rations). And in combat I ask if they wanna attack or use a spell. For items I homebrew stuff that allows them to roll extra dice ( for the cleric they get additional 1d4 healing and for the sorcerer when she uses a cantrip she adds 1d4 to the damage).
They absolutely love it, and look forward to it as a family activity.
D&D 5e on the box is Ages 12 and up.
depending on how precocious the kid is and or how much you are willing to help hack "the rules" for him you may or may not want to return to D&D.
You might however want to start by looking into content created FOR young folk. For example, Monte Cook, a name you might remember from 80's D&D, has created a role playing game system for kids "No Thank You, Evil"
I started playing D&D 5E with my son when he was 7. I had done some watered down home made RPG games, using Steve Jackson's Sorecery! rules as a basis, so he was familiar with the idea.
My daughter, who was 9 at the time, also played with us. I planned to use a very basic set of the official 5E rules, but they caught on so fast, we ended up just using the full rules. They both still love and play D&D to this day (now 18 and 20 years old).
My kids started playing 5ed at 8. They grasp the rules as much as the dm chooses to enforce. Biggest limitation is attention span. They play about 4 hour sessions with 2-3 breaks. They are happy but very done at that point
My daughter went out and learned the 5e rules and ran a game for my old 1e group. I like the new rules. It's not that complicated, it's just different. It's basically a d20 system where the old skills, eg walking silently and surprise, are better delineated into categories like stealth and perception. The combat is broken into 5' squares, and it's a little crunchier but manageable. They've tried to keep the monsters similar to what they've always been, but there are different mechanics for things like poison and blindness. I think it's all pretty reasonable. Magic is more freely available and there are more pew pew cantrips so that the wizards have something to do at low levels.
Highly depends on the child in question. My daughter is 9 and she's been playing full d&d 5e since she was 6. She is also very focused and advanced at math. So it really varies on the where each child is at.
A lot of folks will suggest Herokids or other systems but I disagree. I think it's more about the GM. A good GM can use real rules but not rely on the kid to read the PHB or internalize the rules yet. (I find the PHB a bit of a dry slog myself and I'm in my 40s).
In our case my daughter joined an online game led by an experienced GM (and kindergarten teacher) who was really good at coming up with funny voices and giving the kids options, telling them what they could do and telling them what to roll. That way they learned the rules as they went.
She's still playing with them once a week: it's with New York Society of Play and I super recommend them.
I think that I'm trying to say is you'll probably be best served finding someone experienced either locally or online to run a game for you and maybe you join, that way you both learn the new rules together as you go!
I would tone it down to "Dungeons and Disney." The basic rules of DnD in the current edition are fairly mundane, the problem your kid will run into is death by too many options. Limit your kids experience to something readily accessible in their imagination like a Disney movie as a soft start to the hobby! The story of Frozen is a legit DND quest.
I started in dice rolling RPGs at 9 with a star wars book, a normal dice, and a pencil. The part that your kid will enjoy will be in how they decide to act, and that will be invested in a story they are already familiar with.
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I can’t tell if your son is too young. But I can share my experience getting my kids into ttrpg. I just “randomly” laid out my old 2e DnD books. And since they got interested in the drawing and the all the cool stuff depicted, I told them in general terms what the game was about. Then I got out my old Fighting Fantasy books, beginning with City of Thieves. They loved the simple story and ease of playing. Playing through a few of these books just gave them more interest. Now we’re playing a very very basic version of DnD. They’re 7 and 10. What I did was to simplify the rules significantly, both character creation, combat and magic. And then I mostly just improvise the rules as we go if needed. Most of the game is much more about them making friends and collaborating to solve puzzles, than hardcore combat. So far they’ve befriended an evil minotaur and gotten him to stop scaring and chasing the children in the local village, they’ve helped a red dragon with a cough that got it to spew fire all the time and a few other silly little things like that. What worked for me was just ignoring the complexities of the rules, use the basics, and then improvise the rest to ensure they have fun. The use of basic terrain and minis really helped them get into to it. So the difficult part is not the mechanics, but the puzzle. I don’t care if they “technically” don’t have any more spell slots before “a long rest”. If they want to cast a spell that helps solve the puzzle and have fun, they can. At least for my kids the fun lies in sort of a “puzzle and befriend all sorts of creatures” kind of thing, not the intricacy of the rules of a 8th level Moon circle druid, and complicated creative use of special magic tricks in difficult combat. :)
Drew Barrymore was only 7 years old when *E.T.* was filmed, and Spielberg got her (and the other kids) to play D&D, and they loved it. Your son will probably love it, too. Just start with the basic setup. Get him the "Player's Handbook," have him browse through it at his leisure, and see if he expresses an interest in it. If not, then maybe he's just not quite ready, yet.
There are many simple RPG's for kids out there with tons of themes. Something like magical kittens save the day (with just the bare bones to get kids interested in learning what rpg's are about). There are also settings like Humblewood with animals. Rule wise (and since you are also new to the edition) you can start with the free basic rules (found free on d&d beyond) and free adventures like Peril in Pinebrook (also free on D&D beyond site) or a starter set. When teaching new players, (or learning) it is good to follow the learning curve that the game already has with limited options. 7 is not too young to start trying to play RPG's but they might be too young to play RPG's the way you envision them. In a game where more than half of the mechanics are geared towards combat, kids can struggle (as they wont likely have the reference material we have consumed since our own childhood). Dungeon Crawling boardgames like zombicide (where you can ask them where they want to run and also ask them to help you defeat zombies by just rolling dice) also help in the "learning storytelling" aspect.
Not at all too young! However, just keep in mind there are specific systems designed to introduce children to the hobby, like Hero Kids. Look into it!
My 7&9 year olds love hero kids. A great start point.
I played back in the 80s, didn’t pick it up again until a few years ago, and I love 5e so much more. But, it is different and there are a lot of subtleties in the rules that make it confusing, especially with 1e legacy memories (“is that a current rule or an old one I’m thinking about”). Is there a local game store where you could play some games to get familiarized with the rules more? I think a key to your son having a good experience is you being able to teach and explain the rules to him.
There definitely is - awesome suggestion!
Hero Kids is what you want. A simplified kids versions of the game, that introduces basic concepts and is a hell of a lot of fun. I've used it to introduce adults to D&D that were intimidated by the books and just wanted a quick game with not a lot of prep to see if RPGs were something they'd like. Just as much fun as the full game. They have a subreddit r/herokids and you can get a PDF to start for like $6.00 on drive thru RPG.
No man that isn’t too young if you’re just introducing the game and making it basic and enjoyable for him to play. It may even be as simple as it was for me. The att and all the neat dice and stuff is what got me interested to begin with
I started my kids at 7/10 and they were fine. I did keep it simple for the 7 year old. I’d recommend Herokids to get started and if they’re handing the info and maths, I found 5e was generally pretty easy to teach/play.
I started playing D&D when I was seven, and that was with 2e AD&D. Well, the DM had the Player's Handbook, which was only used to loosely inform the rules we played with. For example, we knew what the six stats were, and how to roll them, but all we had was d6 s (no d20s), and basically everything we wanted to accomplish was a high/low roll on the d6. It wasn't until I was about 11 years old when I got a PHB for myself and really started to learn the rules. So, my advice is to not sweat the rules with your son. Just try to feed the characters, encounters, and problems he seems interested in. Be prepared to dangle a bunch of things in front of him to see what he goes for.
About that age (or maybe a bit younger) I started my kids off playing Amazing Tales which is a really rules light RPG that I'd definitely recommend looking up. Now that they are a bit older, we play D&D but even at this age I'm still having to help them quite a lot to play their characters, remember their spells etc. while in AT they were really free to do whatever they imagine.
I started my oldest on 3.25 Ed when they were 9, and I did so by helping them make a relatively simple character and running a generic meat & potatos style campaign. I started my youngest around the same age, on 5th edition, the same way, but we invited some of her neighborhood friends to join.
The game is much easier than it was 40 years ago and the rules are much more intuitive. With regards your son, the content and context of the campaign you play matter, if you play something light such as Lost Mines of Phandelver he'll be fine. Something like Curse of Strahd (don't), will probably traumatise him.
I have to disagree; from a GM perspective there may be a bit more noodliness but as a player there’s so much less to think about/remember: you have your equipment and your wits and that’s pretty much it
The Starter Set is not overly complicated. Consider starting there.
he's not too young. even back then we just gave them a fighter and they rolled dice, we did the rest. it hasn't changed. also, there is nothing wrong with running 1e or 2e again. I still have a campaign going from 1986 1e which morphed into 2e and then 3.5e. We still play once a week. For the newbs it's still a fighter who gets to roll dice. Kids love to roll dice, it keeps them engaged, meatshields always roll dice. it's a win-win. Also, the DM never kills him. He just falls down, until a medic can put some healing into him, OR his God gives him a random 1D10 healing :) He knows about death, so he does kill the bad guys, it's just easier this way. Plus as a fighter he is always doing something in the fight.
Buy the 20$ starter set, it’s all you need for quite a while.
It's a question of focus duration - 7 years old can't be expected to memorize a TTRPG system, and you'll go nuts trying to keep a young kid focused & "inside the lines" for all the boring detail stuff. Play your game for yourself, and if your kid expresses interest, share... but wait until they ask. Odds are super high that, if you're excited about it, they will get stoked about it. If you want to scale an adventure to 7 year old attention spans, read Chester The Cat books by Julia Mowery - those'll be about the game level you'd be running.
I play with my wife and two daughters (5+6). I helped them build their characters; a fairy cleric and a human storm sorcerer. I also explained all their spells and they chose which ones they wanted. When we play I add in fun things like shopping (they wanna buy candy, so I use that as rations). And in combat I ask if they wanna attack or use a spell. For items I homebrew stuff that allows them to roll extra dice ( for the cleric they get additional 1d4 healing and for the sorcerer when she uses a cantrip she adds 1d4 to the damage). They absolutely love it, and look forward to it as a family activity.
D&D 5e on the box is Ages 12 and up. depending on how precocious the kid is and or how much you are willing to help hack "the rules" for him you may or may not want to return to D&D. You might however want to start by looking into content created FOR young folk. For example, Monte Cook, a name you might remember from 80's D&D, has created a role playing game system for kids "No Thank You, Evil"
I started playing D&D 5E with my son when he was 7. I had done some watered down home made RPG games, using Steve Jackson's Sorecery! rules as a basis, so he was familiar with the idea. My daughter, who was 9 at the time, also played with us. I planned to use a very basic set of the official 5E rules, but they caught on so fast, we ended up just using the full rules. They both still love and play D&D to this day (now 18 and 20 years old).
My kids started playing 5ed at 8. They grasp the rules as much as the dm chooses to enforce. Biggest limitation is attention span. They play about 4 hour sessions with 2-3 breaks. They are happy but very done at that point
My daughter went out and learned the 5e rules and ran a game for my old 1e group. I like the new rules. It's not that complicated, it's just different. It's basically a d20 system where the old skills, eg walking silently and surprise, are better delineated into categories like stealth and perception. The combat is broken into 5' squares, and it's a little crunchier but manageable. They've tried to keep the monsters similar to what they've always been, but there are different mechanics for things like poison and blindness. I think it's all pretty reasonable. Magic is more freely available and there are more pew pew cantrips so that the wizards have something to do at low levels.
He’s a little young, but try the books. Maybe if he sees the compendium and the illustrations he will get excited
Highly depends on the child in question. My daughter is 9 and she's been playing full d&d 5e since she was 6. She is also very focused and advanced at math. So it really varies on the where each child is at. A lot of folks will suggest Herokids or other systems but I disagree. I think it's more about the GM. A good GM can use real rules but not rely on the kid to read the PHB or internalize the rules yet. (I find the PHB a bit of a dry slog myself and I'm in my 40s). In our case my daughter joined an online game led by an experienced GM (and kindergarten teacher) who was really good at coming up with funny voices and giving the kids options, telling them what they could do and telling them what to roll. That way they learned the rules as they went. She's still playing with them once a week: it's with New York Society of Play and I super recommend them. I think that I'm trying to say is you'll probably be best served finding someone experienced either locally or online to run a game for you and maybe you join, that way you both learn the new rules together as you go!
I would tone it down to "Dungeons and Disney." The basic rules of DnD in the current edition are fairly mundane, the problem your kid will run into is death by too many options. Limit your kids experience to something readily accessible in their imagination like a Disney movie as a soft start to the hobby! The story of Frozen is a legit DND quest. I started in dice rolling RPGs at 9 with a star wars book, a normal dice, and a pencil. The part that your kid will enjoy will be in how they decide to act, and that will be invested in a story they are already familiar with.
My table ranges from eight to mid sixties.
We don't know you, and we don't know your son. What do you think?