Ah now I see it, thank you!

I might sound like an idiot but what is the thing in the center of the photo used in this article? At first I thought it was someone in a black robe and black veil making their case to the council which upon closer inspection can’t be true, then looking closer it looks like a filled trash bag in the middle of the council which makes even less sense.

What am I looking at here?

Yeah that’s fair. I figured since the kid is 11 years old that the figures and paper really help them visualize obstacles and enemy positions, etc. And my anecdotal experience with making it much easier when I was a DM to keep track of where everyone was, the graph squares making it easy to show how far they could move per turn in battle, if there was anything blocking ranged attack paths, if certain spells could reach their target, etc.

I’m no career campaigner though so I don’t know how hard and fast these things go when calculating if they can get close enough to a target to attack during their turn and all that. Would things like movement speed not matter so much in this instance and it would play more like a Choose Your Own Adventure book kind of thing? That does sound way easier. If keeping track of positions and stuff in combat is still fairly strict though I’d totally need paper and figs to remember the specifics.

I’m sure someone more experienced than me can give you more confident suggestions but I’ve been seeing the Starter Kit, Essentials Kit, and Core Rules Gift Set advertised more for the holidays. The descriptions make some of them sound like massive expansions on the bare basics and thereby possibly more overwhelming than you’d probably need at first. I think some include location books that may be different from the kinds of environments you want in your own campaign too so be sure to examine what’s included.

I’ve mostly only played and DM’d in homebrew groups so I’m probably too loose with it all but I will say you definitely need those two things you mentioned. Here’s what I found necessary to really get things started:

• Players Handbook
• DM Handbook
• Monster Manual
• DM Screen (don’t overlook this one, there are a bunch you can purchase that not only keep your players from reading off your game script but also have quick sheet information that is incredibly helpful on the fly. You can also print your own for free if you can create or find what you want, the DnD Compendium here has some free DM Screen images and files that you can print.
• Large Graph Paper (to draw your environments, and to measure how far players/NPCs can move per turn, etc.).
• Mini Figures (you can custom make some to fit your family’s characters at something like Hero Forge, buy different pre-made characters and monsters, or go the cheap route and print out pictures of characters that you can fold so they stand up on the board).
• Dice. Or, alternatively, I know some DM’s that run their own dice program code on their laptops so they don’t have to physically roll for monster and NPC actions and can just run it through their programs (but if you go this route, still get your family their own dice sets so they can roll for their own characters’ actions).
• A laptop with your game script and a darn good soundtrack playlist ready so you can set the right music mood for battles, taverns, etc.

You can also pick up a campaign book that interests you, or find some of the cool free one-shot campaigns right here in this very Lemmy community to cut down on the world and quest building! And of course, before I waste any more of your time, make sure to check out the DM Academy Lemmy community that’s all about teaching and learning how to DM!