The NCNS Youth team have done something a bit different this term with their Monday afternoon activity at our Youth Hub. Youth workers, Sami & Joe decided to start playing Dungeons & Dragons with young people as local young people had shown an interest and it is a great game for helping young people further develop team work skills, communication and imagination.
If you aren’t sure what Dungeons & Dragons is, it is a table top role playing game. So this term, the small group got together in person. One group member becomes the Dungeon Master, who then creates a storyline and describes what is happening in the game. The other players act out the characters that they are playing.
Each player creates their own character using a website called DnD Beyond, using guidelines of what they want their character to look like and what they want them to be good at e.g. fighting, magic, talking. The young people then wrote a back story for their character to help them to be able to act that character better.
The young people play as a mix of humans, halflings, goliaths and elf characters. Some are skilled in magic, others are skilled fighters and one is a skilled musician.
Most of the game relies on their imagination, creating a fantasy world where they have to think of creative ways to get out of tricky situations.
The first part of the mission was for the characters to work together to break out of jail that they had all been captured in. From here they are trying to figure out a way to stop themselves from being captured again. Along the way they collect some interesting tools, that each allow them to do different things.
Youth Worker, Sami asked the young people participating what their highlight has been and they responded “It’s D&D, what’s not to like?!” They also said that they have been enjoying the creative thinking and the adventure that the game requires.
Sami has really enjoyed seeing how much the young people have engaged so strongly with the game, watching their communication skills evolve, and watching them come up with creative ways to solve the problems they face in the game.
One massive highlight is also that the young people are enjoying playing so much that they are wanting to start their own games, so next term 2 of the young people will be hosting their own groups at the centre instead of me hosting it.
If you are interested in finding about more about the NCNS Youth Afterschool program please contact Sami on 0408 586 797 or Joe on 0417 498 918.