# The Power of Purple: DnD Design Lessons from a 4-Year-Old

I love DnD and I love my kids. Mush them together and your character sheet will turn into a rainbow Rorschach as your 4-year old patiently explains to you that min-maxing a Hexblade Warlock build breaks game balance and have you considered a Sorlock multiclass approach instead?

So I had to simplify. A lot.

What follows is the format that finally worked for us, where “us” is me and my two daughters (4 & 7).

**The Rules**
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The basic idea is to ask each kiddo what will be their power and what will be their weakness. No matter how weird the answers are, don’t correct them. The goal is to tap into whatever excites them and then use weaknesses to steer the story back on track if things get too unhinged.

Next you grab a D20. For everything they try to do, let them roll: If a 10 or higher they succeed. If a 9 or lower they fail. Except you don’t call it that, cause young kids hate failing. The way to cover it up is by letting something else cool happen instead of what they intended.

And finally, critically, they can’t die but everyone else can. At least, that was what my eldest insisted on with an endearing amount of murderous glee.

**Let Them Choose**
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Those weren’t the rules we started out with though. In the first attempt, I gave them a choice of three weapons, three armors, and three character sizes, each granting a “unique power.” We ended up with two tiny archers, one with a shield and one with a stealth cloak. My partner gamely volunteered to be a tank in heavy armor. The “dungeon” I improvised had a door, a skylight, and walls covered in fur (Brain, why?).

Their task was to escape.

My eldest climbed up to the sky light, my youngest wanted to be *thrown* up to the skylight, and my partner broke down the door.

Now the problem with this format was that the kids were not excited about their characters or the world. We played a bit and it was sort of fun, but my youngest lost interest and my eldest kept telling stories 16 steps ahead of where everyone else was at.

So at bedtime, I asked my youngest what would make the game better for her. She frowned and then said “Purple, I want to be purple. With purple legs and purple eyes.”

So that’s what we did.

**The Power of Purple**
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The next day I asked them each what one power they wanted. My eldest said she wanted to grow 10 meter high trees on demand. My youngest wanted the power to turn things purple. I asked what happens when things turn purple and she glanced at her sister, and then declared *plants* would grow around whatever is purple.

Then I asked them each what their weakness would be. My eldest was baffled. A weakness? Who wants that? What is that even?

I suggested it could be anything. Maybe something she hates? Something she super dislikes?

“Peanuts,” she said.

“You hate peanuts? Why peanuts?”

“A kid at my school can’t eat peanuts. That’s like a weakness.”

Can’t argue with that, so my kid got an in-game food allergy.

I turned to my youngest who promptly said, “peanuts”.

Now I’m a big fan of yes-and, and I think that’s the way to go when playing with young kids, but also just pick your battles and consider what might make for interesting story arcs for them to play with. I realized if they both have the same weaknesses, they wouldn’t be able to compete or cooperate in more dynamic ways. So I suggested swapping it out with something my youngest dislikes in real life.

“How about showers, and rain is sort of like a shower outside?”

She agreed.

I turned to my partner, and he wanted the power to talk to animals and his weakness was heights. By this point, we had a nice almost-rock-paper-scissors thing going: My youngest could grow peanuts to mess with my eldest, my eldest could grow high trees to mess with my partner, and everyone could sprinkle water on my youngest.

Thankfully, no one under the age of 10 realized this.

**Story Time**
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This time I came prepared. Everyone is at magic school and it’s the first day, and you are standing outside with 15 other classmates. The headmistress splits you in teams of three and tells you there is a chest hidden somewhere out on the grounds. The first team to find it wins!  
  
My eldest got the first move. She grew a tree under the other 15 kids. Chaos ensued, one team got away, but she hamstrung the other 12.

My youngest got the second move. And … she announced she has found the chest!

Jee golly gosh.

I asked her where she found it.

Apparently it was behind a tree.

“Wow!” I said, “You totally found the chest! It’s beautiful, it’s huge, and when you open it, it’s full of plushies! There is also a little note, that says it’s the chest from *last year*.”

Her face lights up. My partner and I are dying silently.

Then it was my partner’s turn. He wanted to talk to the animals and find out where the chest is.

Now so far, everyone had been rolling their D20 and getting a success, but he rolled his and got a natural 20.

So the squirrels declared him God and explained the chest was at the bottom of one of the three lakes on the school grounds. With a new congregation in tow, he shared this knowledge with the kids.

Then their opponents were up. One guy sprouted wings and flew off the top of the tree my eldest had spawned, straight in the direction of the relevant lake.

So my eldest made another tree to knock him out of the air, breaking his wing.

Brutal.

Then it was back to my youngest, who walked up to the last tree and … turned it purple!

Finally. Our hour has come, right?

Wrong.

She flubbed her role. No purple tree for the four-year old.

But oh no, this won’t fly at all. Something else must happen!

How do you make a fail that feels like a win to a small child, dear reader?

Here was my guess.

The tree turned yellow instead, and started glowing, and then a magical wave spread out from the tree, and the wave felt *amazing* as it passed through each of them. Especially the boy with the broken wing. He slowly got up, stretched his wings, and found them entirely healed! He jumped for joy and then took off.

My youngest was glowing with pride, my eldest was grumbling in frustration, and me and my partner were sharing grins of barely contained laugher.

**The End**
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And that was our first session. It was a smashing success. Turns out letting kids invent one single power for themselves can work. And we didn’t even need the weaknesses! Though I did discover mine, unfortunately. Apparently it’s keeping a straight face.