For the last several years now, I’ve been running educational themed Dungeons & Dragons campaigns through my local library, as well as with student groups in a variety of settings. While you only need the core rulebooks to run a good campaign (and not even that if you use the free System Reference Documents) there are a few other source books that I find myself returning to, over and over.
So without any more fanfare, here are some of my favorite source books for teaching with D&D.
Candlekeep Mysteries
This is an obvious one. We run a D&D program through the local library, so of course stop number one in our journey through the Forgotten Realms begins with Candlekeep, a fortress library that archives all the world’s knowledge (with a snoozing ghost dragon in the basement). Candlekeep Mysteries is an anthology series of relatively short adventures that al revolve around books. The Joy of Extradimensional Spaces, its level 1 adventure, is one of the best way to introduce new players to the joy of Dungeons and Dragons and I use it to start all our new groups.
The standout adventure, however, is Shemshime’s Bedtime Rhyme, which combines a bit of light horror, some puzzle solving, music, a fantastically creepy villain, and some unforgettable characters. My party is a year out from the adventure and I still sometimes catch them humming “Shemshime, Shemshime”. Other standout adventures are Kandlekeep Dekonstruktion, Lore of Lurue, and A Deep and Creeping Darkness. I Depending on the story, I like to mix in elements of physics, math, and literature to create memorable adventures.
Humblewood
Whimsical woodland creatures travel across a massive forest to find the source of a raging fire that threatens Humblefolk and Birdfolk alike. This campaign comes with a ton of extras and add-ons and is a great adventure for introducing new Dungeon Masters to the rules. It’s heavy on roleplaying and offers tons of opportunities to mix in lessons about forest ecology and wildlife. I had the fun of playing this campaign with my daughter while my wife DMed and cannot recommend this setting strongly enough. Don’t sleep on the raccoons and their scroungecraft skills, we ended the campaign with a steam-powered big wheel made of cheese.
The Humblewood Starter Set has almost everything a new DM needs to get started.
Dungeons and Dragons Learning Adventures
If you looking for something a little more direct, Wizards of the Coast put out a series of free, learning standards-based adventures for teachers and students, along with a ton of guidance and advice for teachers interested in bringing the adventure into the classroom.
To be honest, I haven’t actually run any of these adventures, but I used the source material extensively when designing my own campaigns, including Last Hunt for the Jabberwock. I find myself revisiting these materials at the beginning of every semester.
Deck of Many Things and the Book of Many Things
Let’s get real: whether you’re running an afterschool program, incorporating D&D into a class lesson, or throwing together impromptu adventures, teachers rarely had time to run a full, 3 to 6 hour single session with their students. Being able to whip out a quick adventure and connect it to the lesson at hand is a critical skill. Two years ago, Hasbro put out what I still think is the absolute best D&D tool that they’ve ever made: The Deck of Many Things.
The Deck of Many Things is a legendary magic item within D&D and now it is one of the best adventure building tools you can get. It is a real deck of cards, that look like Tarot cards, themed with various monsters and mysteries and traps and treasures. Beyond that, it comes with a handy book that allows you to quickly throw together an adventure by drawing cards. I keep the deck and book in my DM kit for any moment where we need to put an adventure together quickly. I use it for thematic side quests while the players are travelling. I’ve even used it to put together big stories full of surprises (even for me). You can let you player draw the cards, so it’s almost like their telling their own fortune.
The Deck of Many Thing and The Book of Many Things is a really great and fairly underappreciated set and is usually my first recommendation for what to get after the core 3 rule books.
The Last Hunt for the Jabberwock: A Feywild Adventure in Ecologic Succession
Enter a magical forest full of delightful Rabbitfolk, angry frogs, strange mice, and a story of environmental change and community adaptation told through exploration and discovery. The Last Hunt for the Jabberwock is an adventure specifically designed for educators who want a deeper, more integrated Dungeons & Dragons experience in their classroom or environmental education program. It includes a 12 to 20 hour campaign set in the whimsical forests of the Feywild, where players must uncover the truth about the ceremonial Hunt for the Jabberwock as they explore a changing world. Also included are lesson plans, complete with learning standards, for a language arts lesson on Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky, as well as two environmental science lessons on Ecologic Succession in Fire Dominated Ecosystems, and Environmental Consequences of Building and Removing Dams.
It’s a ton of fun and I’m not just saying that because I wrote it.
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