Our #DnD game has to accommodate everyone from a distractable 9-year-old to a disabled dad. Here’s how we do it.

We’ve tried playing on the #Roll20 virtual tabletop (both with and without dynamic lighting, playing both locally and remotely) and also on the physical table. For us, the solution that seems to work best is a physical tabletop combined with Roll20 as character manager and site of GM resources.

Our nine-year-old is very into role-play. So much so that we have to use the initiative tracker during non-combat scenarios, so that others can also participate. He’s also very excited about his character, its abilities, its pet fox, and so on. But he has a hard time keeping focus when it’s other people’s turn. The thing that seems to help with that is the tactility of the D&D tabletop. So I’m working on finding ways to ramp that up for our game.

On the other hand, using Roll20 is particularly important for me, because I cannot sit up behind a traditional DM’s screen for long periods. Having the adventure text, character sheets, initiative tracker, maps, and everything else on a laptop screen means I can GM reclining. Or even lying down entirely, if I need to. I only have to sit up again when it’s time to draw a new section of the player map. I could presumably do much the same thing by pulling apart a PDF into different documents, but it’s helpful to me to have someone else have done that, then integrated any new rules and species into the searchable Compendium, created character sheets for the NPCs, and so on.

Our current physical setup is:

• A Chessex wet-erase mat.
• Characters, NPCs, and monsters as paper standees, created with the Silvervine Games Paper Mini Maker.
• Everyone having their own set of dice, for that glorious tactility (including as fidget objects).

My birthday is coming up soon, and I have three different dice towers on my wishlist. I’m hoping this will add another element of tactile tabletop drama. (Plus reducing the amount that people roll off the table.)

I also happen to know that a closeout-priced MP Cadet 3D Printer is on its way as a birthday present, and I’m looking forward to seeing what it can produce in the way of player-designed minis for our characters. I think it will be another nice layer of tactility and personal investment, even if the minis are not as detailed as we might get from another source. As for mini design tools that everyone can use, I’m taken with the flexibility of #TitanCraft. But unfortunately it doesn’t have as many animalfolk heads as #HeroForge. We’ll see how that falls out.

Assuming all goes well, I’m thinking our upcoming adventures will be customized versions of these Kobold selections:

• ”Three Little Pigs” (by Richard Pett, from City of Cats, 3rd level)
• ”Grimalkin” (by Richard Pett, from City of Cats, 4th-5th level)
• ”Under The Devil’s Thumb” (by Jerry LeNeave, from Eldritch Lairs, 5th level)
• Enigma Lost in a Maze (by Richard Pett, stand-alone book, 6th level)

Unfortunately the last of these isn’t on Roll20 yet, but who knows what may happen in the meantime.

I’d be very interested in hearing how other families, especially families with disabilities, play D&D — and what they might recommend.