Kids Clubs FAQs

What You Need to Know for a Fun Kids' Club

All Kids Clubs General Info

  • We will ask parents to sign/bring a waiver acknowledging Dogpatch Games policies when they drop participants off for Week 1, or to send it to us by email if you will not be there in person. You can find a link to the waiver here.

  • Most Kids Clubs starts at 3:30 or 4:00 every Monday, and runs for 2 hours. Parents, if you are running late OR unable to pick up your player by 6:00 pm, we ask that you call the shop to let us know ((415) 610-8590). We are located at 1095 Tennessee Street in San Francisco.

  • If you need to drop off earlier than 3:30, or pick up later than 6:00pm, please let us know. We have to assign staff specifically to facilitate this where needed.

  • For children under the age of 12, parents or designated pickups will need to sign out for everyone they are picking up. For children older than 12, parents have the option of letting them sign themselves out.

  • Kids can bring any cards for Magic, Pokemon, or other collectible card games if they want to play with their own cards when we do these games! We will have decks for them to play with, and they will also get a few cards of a game they choose as part of the club.

  • In addition to a small snack/drink selection at the front desk, the kids can bring their own food and snacks for the club. Please avoid peanuts, as we have a notable peanut allergy. Please let us know if there are any additional significant food allergies that other kids should avoid, so we can notify all participants to avoid those foods. 

Dungeons & Dragons Kids Club Info

  • A sense of adventure! Each player will use a set of polyhedral dice (d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20x2), whether their own or one from our shop collection. You can pick some up at Dogpatch Games if they don’t already have a set. We will create characters with them in the first week in conjunction with miniature painting. If they already have custom characters, they should bring their character sheets or have their characters ready in DNDBeyond. 

  • As mentioned above, we’re modifying the format for miniature painting to improve the connection and immersion! We will have a big set of miniatures across the main races and classes for kids to pick from. However, we can’t have every possible combination, which is a truly incredible number of combos. Our selection will include the main playable D&D races: humans, elves, half-elves, dwarves, halflings, gnomes, tieflings, dragonborn. If your player wants a very specific miniature, or one outside of these races, we recommend that they purchase/bring their own (you can create a custom miniature at a fantastic website called Hero Forge. They can still choose and paint one of ours to add to their collection! 

  • In this week we will pause the adventure to teach the players how to paint miniatures of their characters for the rest of the adventure. This painted miniature that represents their character will be theirs to take home as a token to remember the story later. Have them wear clothes that can survive a little acrylic paint :)

  • Players can make their own characters prior to showing up. If, however, any player prefers to just play with one of our pre-generated characters, then they simply have to show up on the first day with some dice, ready to play! This is the best option for new players. After Week 1, they'll be able to make their own characters online and then finalize them with their Dungeon Master at the beginning of Week 2.

  • Parallel to the painting activity, the Dungeon Masters (DMs) will engage with the kids, discussing and developing their characters. This involves asking the kids about their character's details and backstory. The DMs will use this information to create character sheets on D&D Beyond. ]

    We recommend that players make their character using the website DNDBeyond. DNDBeyond will massively help construct characters, and will give us access to the characters and be able to help construct and edit them as the campaign continues. Here's a helpful video to guide creating a character in DNDBeyond!

    Class  We have some suggested classes based on kids’ experience with D&D. Some classes can be hard for newer players to start with, as they can come with a ton of options and spells that are overwhelming! First-time players will have the most fun playing with the Beginner classes.

    Beginners: Fighter, Barbarian, or Ranger

    Intermediate: Rogue, Warlock, Paladin, Sorcerer

    Advanced (not for first time players): Cleric, Bard, Wizard

    Level: All characters start at Level 3 and will progress to Level 5 over the Kids Club.

    Background: Any available background is fine for the character.

    Alignment: Any Good alignment is fine for the character.

    Stats:  We will be using the “standard base array” of 15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8.  Players simply assign each one of those numbers to an ability stat (Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, Constitution and Charisma). Once that is done, they will choose a race and then add any race bonuses to those numbers (note: DNDBeyond does all this automatically). There will be social encounters and skill check based challenges. The party should have a mix of all six attributes (Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, Constitution and Charisma) to be successful.

    Starting Equipment: Standard starting equipment for the character will be fine