Running Your First Session: All The Things I Screwed Up

Описание: Our First Time Playing Dungeons & Dragons (What I Got Wrong — and Why It Still Worked)
Our first time sitting down to play Dungeons & Dragons together didn’t look like the version I had built in my head.
I expected the magic to start the moment the dice hit the table. What I didn’t expect was how much time the setup would take. Character sheets, rules, books, explaining what a turn even is — all of it took longer than I thought, and it immediately shifted the pace of the night. I realized pretty quickly that I hadn’t prepared as well as I should have, especially when it came to organizing the materials from the starter set and understanding how they fit together.
Because of that, the first campaign moved fast. Too fast. Scenes felt stilted. Transitions were clumsy. Combat and interactions were mostly me reading aloud, stopping often, flipping pages, and trying to keep things moving while figuring it out in real time. From the outside, it probably didn’t look like “good D&D.”
But here’s the thing that surprised me most: none of that really mattered.
Once I stopped worrying about running the campaign I had imagined and started paying attention to what my kids were responding to, everything changed. The moment I let go of trying to control the story and instead followed their curiosity, their questions, and their ideas, the game started working. The fun didn’t come from perfectly executed rules or smooth pacing — it came from shared imagination, laughter, and the simple fact that we were building something together.
That was the real lesson of our first session.
You don’t need to run the campaign you think you’re supposed to run. You need to run the one that’s forming at the table in front of you.
If you’re a parent thinking about playing D&D with your kids, my biggest takeaway is this: just get started. Use the starter set. Accept that it will be awkward. Accept that you’ll make mistakes. Preparation helps, but perfection isn’t required. The story will find its footing as long as you’re willing to listen and adjust.
Our first game wasn’t polished. It wasn’t cinematic. But it was ours — and that made it worth every clumsy moment.

Amazon link for Heroes of the Borderlands D&D Starter Set: https://amzn.to/3O3tuyC