From a library listserve – if you have any other suggestions can be posted to comments!

“A coworker of mine (who is not a programmer) wants to host a recurring D&D program for people to come and play on a drop-in basis. I have zero experience with this game, as I don’t play, and I’m curious to know if anyone else has hosted D&D programs on a recurring basis? Is it more efficient to host it often or more like once a month? I’m not sure how often to host this program, and I’m concerned because typically, recurring program series haven’t done well at our library.

Any advice/tips would be welcome!”

• • We’ve recently started hosting a weekly Tabletop Games night and the teens have, so far, been very responsive. Teens that I never would have thought would sit down and RPG are playing for 1-2 hours straight!
    The DMs are a couple of our youth staff who had an interest in/ already played D&D.
    Give it a try, you might be surprised by the interest.

  • My Library has been hosting D&D for about 9 years – started with teens – monthly on a Saturday afternoon – for 3 hours, and now we also do an adult game 2x per month on alternate Friday evenings – for 2-2.5 hours. This game attracts mainly 20 and 30 somethings, with a couple of older teens – 15-17 yrs. (We originally promoted it as a 16+ program, but got a bit of push-back from our teen dept. so we advertise it for 18 and up, with the original younger ones “grandfathered” in.)

    The teen group can get as many as 11-12 players – really too large a group – but our DM who was once on staff as a page – can handle this.

    The adult group wanted more games than the 2/month (and smaller groups) we schedule, so the programmer (different than the teen game DM) started hosting an additional invitational 2x per month game. This meets on the Monday before the formal Friday game at a players home, or a local coffeehouse, on the programmer’s own dime, to accommodate the regulars – with the Friday game open to both regulars and newbies. They typically get 5-8 players, sometimes up to 10, which is really too large a group for a good adventure.

    My advice is to get an experienced DM with a love for, and experience with, teens – put out the word and one will no doubt find you!! You may even have someone on staff already! You may find there is interest in gaming with the older crowd, too.

    Your choice as to whether you want to mix these groups – our experience is that the younger ones were less focuses, rowdier and at times, just too silly for some of the older players who took the game very seriously. (It’s amazing how quickly some folks forget what it means to be a teen!!)

  • We have Dungeons and Dragons and Pathfinder running weekly, and have had for years. Before that we had a drop-in style gaming session where teens could play other tabletop games (eventually older adults took it over so we changed it up). But It has consistently been a success. Each session lasts about 2 hours and is scheduled weekly. The adventure the players choose could go on for years or just over a few sessions.
  • We have a monthly D&D program for teens, one Friday a month for 4 hours. It is all teen run. There are usually two (teen) Dungeon Masters and they are great running the event as well as helping newbies to the game. All I do is provide the space, feed them and make sure they pick up after themselves.
  • We had a D&D program quite a few years ago; the DM was a volunteer. We had about 8-10 teens at the time, which for usis a large turnout. It ran for a couple years, until the teens aged out and moved away to college, etc. The staff person responsible for coordinating the program also left, so we ended up discontinuing.At the time it was highly successful though. Good luck!

  • I’ve been doing Dungeons & Dragons for about a year with my teens, ages 13-18. We average 12, sometimes up to 14 at a meeting. All of them except two were brand new to the game, and I had the only book (version 5), so I did a lot of work to steamline a bunch of character creation, how turns work in battle, and other little lists that were easier to distribute as handouts, if anyone is interested. Because they’re all new and loud and energetic, it’s a very homebrewed game we play and we don’t bother with a lot of the more persnickety rules.

    I’ve only got the staffing for one teen program a week, so we only play once a month. I was doing stand-alone adventures for each meeting, but they really wanted an on-going campaign. So far, that’s worked out well. When you have a group that large, it’s been working out better for us to do more puzzles and problem solving than battles.

  • I also have a monthly session with 12-14 teens and at first I split them into two groups with a volunteer to help me DM, but now that they have more experience we run a campaign together. We usually go for an hour but sometimes more if we have extra staff and I don’t have to worry about my coworkers getting overwhelmed!
  • I have 2 four hour sessions a month on a Saturday afternoon 12-4.
    It has been run by a retired TAB member for 4 or 5 years now.
    It isn’t just teens. though mostly teens, adult are allowed to.
    We don’t use D&D but Pathfinder which is, according to those who run it, harder to break.  AKA: create obnoxiously powerful characters that then just ruin it for everyone else.
    They are so enthusiastic about it and do a great job running it.  I do get occasional emails about new books that I need to buy.
    Some of the teens on the off weekends come and hang out in our snack area and play their own.
    The key for me was finding, or rather someone finding me who wanted to set one up.