I’ve been a Dungeon Master since 1980. The vast majority of the games I’ve run have been with adult players. Since late 2023, however, I’ve run the teens D&D group at my local library, with players aged 11 through 17. I still run the occasional one-shots with a small group of adults, however.
This article is a collection of observations and contrasts between teenagers and adults around the D&D table. Some of these differences are really interesting, so be sure to read to the end.
Teens Tend to be More Creative Than Adults
In the broadest and perhaps most obvious sense, teenagers are going to be more creative and random in their approach to D&D, while adults will be more pragmatic.
Grown-ups will be much more likely to pay attention to the stats of their weapons and armor, and fret a bit more about their character’s ability scores. The teens, on the other hand, would rather have a sword that looks cool and has a creative name than worry about whether it actually does more damage than some other weapon.
For example, one of my teen players runs a bard in 5th edition. He wanted his character to wield a squeegee as a weapon. I’ve described this moment in a YouTube video where I was caught off guard by this request. And, being an adult myself (most of the time) my first reaction was “There are no squeegees in D&D!” But, I realized it didn’t matter to the kiddo, so I made a ruling at the moment that a squeegee will act like a club, and assigned its damage to be the same. The player was happy, I had some stats to go by, and life was good.
To the kiddos at the table, what looks or sounds cool seems to be far more important than what works or doesn’t work in actual game-play.
Teens Tend to Show Up More Reliably Than Adults
Being dependent upon their parents or other adults for rides, teens are more at the mercy of others to make it to game night. You’d think this dependency would make them less likely to attend on a consistent basis, yet my experience has been the opposite. It’s rare for the kiddos in my group to miss a session.
Conversely, as many of us have experienced, getting adults to show up to D&D on a consistent basis is about like herding cats. One is hungry and meowing like crazy for their role-playing num-nums, another got out and hasn’t been seen or heard from for a week, a third is in the corner licking itself and a fourth shows up for three games in a row, eager and enthusiastic like they’ve got the litter box zoomies, only to ghost everyone a week later and never be heard from again.
Teens and Adult D&D Players are Very Non-judgmental
This next point is more about commonality than differences between teenagers and adults in D&D. In my experience, D&D players are very non-judgemental compared to the general population, but I think teenagers are even less judgy than adults and worry less about what others around the table think of them.
This makes sense since adulthood makes most people develop a heightened focus on the opinions of other. Teens don’t give a rat’s ass, at least at the D&D table. In fact, I’d wager that teen D&D players are one of the least judgmental and most accepting group of individuals I’ve ever known.
In the high school halls and shopping malls, teenagers can be judgmental and harsh with each other to the point of cruelty, but around the D&D table, they are super chill and accepting with their “you be you” attitude.
Adults that play D&D tend to be the same way. There just seems to be this lack of judgmentalism when it comes to D&D players, and table-top role-playing gamers in general — at least in my experience. This makes me wonder: Are non-judgmental people drawn to table-top role-playing games like D&D? Or does playing D&D make you a less judgmental person?
Adults are Quieter Than Teenagers
Let’s talk about volume and energy.
Adults are quieter and more subdued. Teens are boisterous and loud. There’s not much more to say about this particular point.
Teens Tend to be More Creative Problem-solvers
This next topic is about problem-solving. There are six stats on a D&D character sheet: Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, Constitution and Charisma. If there was a 7th stat for Creativity, the teenagers would have natural 18s across the board compared to adults.
With age comes wisdom, generally, but as we get older we seem to lose our ability to grab that element of raw creativity that kiddos have. Every game, I am surprised and amazed at how random and creative these kids can be with their approach to problem solving.
When faced with a challenge, the adults will be a lot more pragmatic and practical. They will often make an inventory of what they know and what they have in terms of gear, equipment, spells, and so forth. They will usually weigh out the pros and cons of different approaches to the problem. This doesn’t necessarily mean they come up with the best solution, or that they’ll notice every possibility, but they do tend to take the safest and most likely to succeed approach.
Teenagers, on the other hand, especially the younger ones, will come up with ideas that the adult DM would never be able to imagine. They also are drawn to what I call “the epic” approach. Even if it will lead to assured death and destruction, teens are inexplicably drawn to more dramatic and epic-sounding and epic-seeming actions. As long as it looks cool, they don’t care if it ends in a TPK. In fact, that would just make it all the more memorable.
As a dungeon master, when I present a challenge to the players, I usually have an idea for the possible ways it can be overcome. I’ve seen more adults fail to grasp the obvious solution, while kids will come up with an idea that is completely out of left-field. I’m put on the spot as the DM to find a way to run with it, sort of like the squeegee as a weapon situation.
Teenagers Think Outside the Box
As a Dungeon Master, I don’t usually pull my punches. I throw the same kind of challenges and opportunities at my teens group as I do my adults group. If anything, I’m less worried about wondering what the possible solutions are because, as I stated a moment ago, the kids are able to tap into creative problem solving energy more directly than I am.
I have found that when writing adventures for adult players, I need to make the challenges they face just that bit more straightforward to overcome than I would for teens. This doesn’t mean the grownups are playing on easy mode, it’s just that I can’t get as clever with their obstacles as I can with the teens.
Adults Are More Serious
I have found that because the kiddos are more into creativity than pragmatic play, I can behave as a DM more like a kid than I can when running a game for adults. This means I can be silly and say off-the-wall things and use funny voices and behavior, whereas I very rarely do any of that with adults.
This goes back to what I was saying earlier about how, as adults, we worry more about what others think of us. This even takes place around a D&D table where everyone is accepting and non-judgmental. This may be my own personal experience, but I can honestly say I worry a lot more about what my adult players think of me, and I check my behavior accordingly, way more than I do when I’m DM’ing a teens group. When the kiddos are at the table, practically anything goes. It’s quite freeing, actually.
What is Your Perspective?
My journey as a dungeon master has encompassed a lot of different players of a wide range of ages. Every player is a unique personality and the combination of personalities you get around your table can vary widely, even when just a single individual in that group changes.
If you’re a teen player, what has been your perspective about playing with other kids your age versus playing with adults?
If you’re an adult, have you ever sat at a D&D table with teenagers in the party? What have you noticed about the contrast and similarities between kids and adults in table-top role-playing?
