Free resources for school D&D clubs
Roleplaying games including D&D can have a huge positive impact on the lives of children, helping them develop social skills, problem solving and creativity. School D&D clubs help kids realize these benefits in a safe space.
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Unfortunately, budget to support school D&D clubs is often limited.
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Fortunately, there's a range of free resources out there from charities and creators that support school D&D clubs.
DanDMadeEasy
I make print at home products that are designed to make play easy and more immersive. I offer all of my paid products with a free limited license for use in school D&D clubs. I'd also be thrilled to support the use of my products for school D&D clubs by providing any training needed.
To learn more and arrange your license, contact me.
Check out my Resources page for links to resources that are free to everyone, including custom paper minis and accessible rules reference cards that can make it easier for kids and educators to understand the D&D rules and jog their memory quickly.
"We used DandDMadeEasy reference cards in our school D&D club for 14-18 year olds and the players loved them! They were super helpful for an easy reference guide, especially for our novice players. It's time consuming for anyone to flip through the Player's Handbook to find an answer and the reference cards cut that time out so they could play more and search less."
Danielle Cozzolino, D&D school club facilitator at an American school in Germany
Charities and funding
The following charities provide free resources to school D&D clubs such as copies of D&D books, dice and other resources:
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- Let's Quest After School is a charity that provides free resources for school TTRPG clubs including D&D in the USA.
- Mike Shea (Sly Flourish) runs sponsorships to provide TTRPG books and resources to school clubs periodically. I highly recommend that you sign up to the Sly Flourish newsletter for weekly advice on running great games.
- Wizards of the Coast®, the developers of Dungeons and Dragons, have a scheme to provide free educator resources and licenses that runs periodically.​​
TTRPGs and adventures
The following TTRPGs and adventures are free for educators (you may have to reach out for a license):
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- Hatchlings Games' Inspirisles is a TTRPG that aims to teach players the basics of sign language. You can reach out for free digital PDFs of the game here.
- The Call of Starsong Tower is an adventure path for 1st level characters by Sly Flourish.
- The Night Blade is an adventure path for 2nd to 5th level characters by Sly Flourish.
- NASA released a free space-themed adventure, The Lost Universe, designed for a group of level 7-10 characters. ​
Other resources
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Wanting maps?
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Dyson's Dodecahdron has a huge archive of line drawing maps you can use in your games.
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DnD Shorts makes their maps available for free for school D&D clubs. Maps come in a range of styles and include gridded and non-gridded versions. To request access, contact DanDMadeEasy.
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Need minis? Printable Heroes creates printable paper D&D minis including adventurers, monsters, terrain, props, and map pieces. You can get access to their library of over 800 minis, most of which have free versions, on their website.
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Looking for more monster variety? Conflux Creatures has over 1700 homebrew creatures designed to be fun and tactical that can be accessed for free. Find out more by getting in touch.
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Wanting GM resources? Sly Flourish is well known for providing top notch advice for GMs including their Lazy GM's Resource Document and 5E Monster Builder Resource Document.
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Looking for pre-generated characters? Sly Flourish has a set of pre-generated characters for the 12 core Dungeons and Dragons classes - players choose their name, personality and appearance, with fixed mechanical stats. The included character sheets helpfully include features gained up to level 5, so kids just have to mark the abilities available when they reach each level.
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Geeky Tendencies has a range of free resources in their Hidden Room, including a large print character sheet for new or neurodivergent players, and a guide for new Game Masters.
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TTRPGKids provides a ton of helpful resources to support running D&D and other roleplaying games with kids, including educational resources.
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Nicole (Game Master Mom) makes content centered around running games with young children. She runs games for her two kids and shares some great guidance on YouTube and Instagram about what works best.
Want help getting started?
Want help getting started setting up a club?
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You can find some great advice in the following blogs:
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How to propose classroom tabletop RPGs to your school by TTRPGKids
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How to Start a D&D Club in your School by Lifehacker
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How to start a D&D club at school by The RPG Guild
Find your community
Want to ​meet others that run school D&D clubs and share tips, tricks, and inspirational moments?
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Meet fellow facilitators shaping the future of children like you are on my Discord server.
Can you help?
If you are aware of or can provide free (or licensed for free use) resources to support school D&D clubs, please let me know.