Mark Seifter and Linda Zayas-Palmer are Paizo veterans who spent a total of nearly two decades on the design and organized-play teams. Now, they use their experience crafting fantastic and creative Pathfinder supplements with young players in mind. We got to hear from them about their nerdy childhoods, their experience developing tabletop RPGs, modifying Pathfinder for kids, and why they think the medium is so good for bringing young people together.

Finding gifts for Dungeons & Dragons fans can be tough, especially if you’re not a DND fan yourself! Lots of folks out there are wondering what’s a good gift for someone who plays DND or searching for a 2025 DND holiday gift guide to help them decide. But a lot of these recommendations end up looking very similar. Dice. Official D&D books. Gaming accessories. Many DND players have these things already! Plus, it’s always nice to put a little extra thought into picking out a gift that’s truly unique. With that in mind, here is Young Dragonslayers’ 2025 DND Gift Guide!

The Kids on Bikes RPG is a wildly popular tabletop roleplaying game inspired by the show Stranger Things. As more and more people hear about the game, especially from the world of Dungeons & Dragons, they have questions. What’s the Kids on Bikes RPG about? What age is appropriate for a Kids on Bikes game? What is the setting of Kids on Bikes? And, of course, how do you play Kids on Bikes? We’re a crew of professional Game Masters who run games like Kids on Bikes, XCrawl, and DND for tweens and teens, and we got to sit down with Jonathan Gilmour-Long, co-creator of Kids on Bikes, to hear more about how to play Kids on Bikes. 

For players of all ages, there are a ton of benefits to Dungeons & Dragons (and games like it). But this is even more true for young players, who are in a prime stage to learn social emotional learning skills. Unfortunately, not all kids are ready to play D&D proper. They may be afraid of the dark or monsters. They may have a hard time sharing the spotlight, taking turns, and tolerating failure. They may not have the cognitive or mathematical skills to grasp the rules and make meaningful decisions in the game. My toddler, for one, doesn’t have the alphabet all the way down; there’s no way they could read a D&D character sheet! But, with some clever modifications, I was able to get them in a game. Here’s how I did it, with help from fellow Young Dragonslayers Dungeon Master and writer of TTRPGkids Steph Campbell.

Teachers, parents, and others are wondering how to teach biology in a fun way. The game of Dungeons & Dragons has already been used to teach social emotional learning, sign language, history, and more. Why not use D&D to teach biology and conservation? Mage Hand Press, creator of custom D&D content, teamed up with the Center for Biological Diversity, scientific advocate of endangered species, to create a totally unique monster manual. In this book, you won’t find orcs, goblins, or kobolds. Instead, each “monster” is inspired by a real-world extinct animal. The Book of Extinction has two versions for each entry. One is the actual creature from our world: its history, biology, and the circumstances leading to its extinction. The other is a creature with lore, magic, and abilities that are inspired by the real-world creature but more suited to the world of D&D. As a team of educators, parents, therapists, and youth workers bringing D&D to young players, we’re always looking out for awesome D&D resources for teachers, and we fell in love with this one immediately. We got to chat with Lucas Zellers, the lead writer for the Book of Extinction, about his journey from D&D player to honorary conservationist.

More and more, young people are drawn towards the game of Dungeons & Dragons, and they’re desperate for a place to play. Some find friends or library groups to play, but many wish for an after school D&D club where they can play with their friends and be guided by a trusted teacher. I know, I’ve met them! I run games of D&D for after school clubs online, at libraries, and in community centers. Though getting things started is intimidating, I’ve seen just how beneficial these kinds of groups can be, and I’m here to help share DND educator resources, tips, and tricks to help teachers, youth workers, and other educators get a D&D school club off the ground – even if you’ve never rolled a die in your life!

Shows like Critical Role, Dimension 20, and The Adventure Zone are called “Actual Play” – shows where people tell a story by playing Dungeons & Dragons (and games like it). These shows, and plenty more like them, have become hugely popular, spinning off into live performances, production companies, and even animated TV shows. We already went over everything you need to know about actual-play shows in general, but today we wanted to address some questions about what shows like Dimension 20 are rated. Is it okay for a 12 year old to watch Critical Role? Should you let your child listen to The Adventure Zone? Are there actual play shows for kids specifically? We’ll provide you with everything you need to know to determine what D&D shows are good for kids in your family.

Many hopeful Dungeons & Dragons players struggle to find groups to play with in person – or, an all-too-common situation, they found a group, only to have it fall apart. This leaves many D&D players searching for D&D group finders, places to play D&D online, or even an app for finding D&D groups. While I do love playing Dungeons & Dragons around a physical table with my local friends, the vast majority of my games are online: whether through Discord servers, Zoom rooms, or Roll20 games. Not only are there lots of great tools to play online; sometimes, it truly is the best option to be able to find people to play D&D with. Here are some of the ways I’ve found people to play D&D online with and a few more I recommend from my experience running online D&D groups.

With the release of the Lego Dungeons & Dragons set (not to mention the huge crossover between Lego fans and D&D fans), a lot of people are wondering how they can use their Legos to play D&D. How are Legos good for D&D games? What can Legos be used for in D&D? What are the best Lego minifigures for D&D? How do you come up with ideas for a Lego D&D adventure? We’re Young Dragonslayers (an online D&D club for tweens and teens), and we’ve teamed up with Infinibrix (a D&D-style game that uses Lego pieces to create epic, zany adventures for any age) to tell you how you can best use Legos in your D&D games and beyond!

For years, people played Dungeons & Dragons at tables in homes, libraries, and convention centers. But with the dawn of the internet, many started playing online and, particularly around the height of the pandemic, switching to more robust tools like Discord. We started Young Dragonslayers during the pandemic and have exclusively run games online, several of them using Discord, so we have a few tips and tricks to share about how to get started playing D&D on Discord. 

If you know and want to get birthday gifts for a D&D fan, fear not! We have 10 unique D&D gifts that are sure to enchant any Dungeons & Dragons enthusiast.

The game Baldur's Gate 3 is about as close as you can get to Dungeons & Dragons in video-game form. Players create a party of adventurers, choosing from the D&D classes of barbarian, bard, cleric, druid, fighter, monk, paladin, ranger, rogue, sorcerer, warlock, and wizard. They cast D&D spells, like Fireball and Polymorph, use D&D items, like a Potion of Healing or a Sword of Life Stealing, and fight D&D monsters, like owlbears and mimics. Even the world itself is D&D, from organizations like the Harpers and the Flaming Fists to the eponymous city of Baldur's Gate itself. So many young people play D&D and have heard about Baldur's Gate 3, which has many parents asking if this game is right for their children. We're here to help you answer that question! 

Creating a Dungeons & Dragons campaign from scratch is a lot of work. Not only do you need a good grasp of how the game plays, but you need fun ideas for characters, plots, encounters and more - plus the chops to put them all together! If you want to be a Dungeon Master but don’t want to spend hours crafting a custom campaign, there are plenty of pre-made campaigns that you can use.

No matter what tone of game you’re looking for (wholesome and cozy? traditional fantasy? dark and spooky?) there’s a D&D campaign on this list for you. Drawing from both official and indie sources, here are a few campaigns we recommend for beginner Dungeon Masters and D&D players alike.

This back-to-school season has a lot of students thinking about how to make the most of this school year. Starting a Dungeons & Dragons club at your school could be a great way to play a game you love - and make some friends along the way! We run our own D&D clubs online, so we know a thing or two about getting them together - here's are some steps to take to do the same thing in real life.

D&D (owned by Wizards of the Coast, owned by Hasbro) is more than just a game—it’s also a brand and a business. There are endless tools, accessories, and add-ons available for purchase, and you can spend quite a pretty penny when it comes to buying books, constructing intricately scaled landscapes in the middle of your living room, and/or developing a crippling dice addiction.

However, one of the best things about Dungeons and Dragons (in my humble bardic opinion) is that you can absolutely play for free. Whether you’re a first-time player or the forever DM, there are countless official and fan-made resources that won’t put you out a single copper piece.

This list could very well be endless, but here are a few of my personal favorites.

There are a multitude of reasons people love playing Dungeons & Dragons. But one that I see over and over is the way you can tell a story through the game. By creating characters, describing actions, rolling dice, and going on adventures, players and the Dungeon Master can build a story together. Some ambitious players have even recorded their characters’ adventures in the form of a book! If you’ve ever considered making this leap, now is the perfect time; November is National Novel-Writing Month, where thousands of writers of all ages make it their goal to write a novel-length story in thirty days. If you feel you’re up to the task, read on to learn how you, too, can create a novel from your Dungeons & Dragons campaign!

With Halloween coming soon, many Dungeons & Dragons players are in the mood for one thing: spooks, scares, and skeletons (or your monster of choice). Fortunately, the game contains loads of fun monsters and creatures perfect for the season. But newcomers to the game can find sifting through all of the available materials intimidating; luckily, there are many adventures out there that have already been put together. We’ve selected three great starter adventures for beginning Dungeon Masters that may be just the thing to get a Halloween one-shot together this spooky season.

As the world becomes increasingly digital, the ways in which all players, especially kids and teens, engage with these games has expanded beyond the traditional tabletop. This piece is meant to unveil a fraction of the plethora of methods for young adventurers to embark on epic quests, emphasizing online play while also delving into the enchanting realm of play-by-post. Whether you're a novice or a seasoned player, there's a mode of play waiting to whisk you away into a world of wonder.

In a game fueled by boundless imagination, music and ambience can take your Dungeons & Dragons campaign to the next level. As such, you’ll need to be prepared with only the best sounds, ambience, and music. Get ready, for I shall guide you through a quest to create the greatest D&D Playlist of them all!

Howdy, partner! Welcome to the wild west of Dungeons and Dragons. To best get you going on your tabletop game, you’ll be needing some fine dice. There are all different colors, styles, shapes, and sizes, so you’ve got a lot of options to choose from.

We’ve compiled the information you need on everything dice-related. We’ll tell you what dice you need, cool specialty dice options you might not have heard of, and where you can find them. We’ll also share our top 10 recommendations for online stores that sell dice and other D&D supplies.