Dungeons and Dragons for beginners sounds like a rulebook problem. Dean McKinnon says it’s actually a playing pretend problem, and once you solve that one, everything else opens up.

Dean is a professional Dungeon Master who runs eleven campaigns a week for kids on every continent, hosts a D&D summer camp, and takes bachelor parties through their first dragon encounter. He makes the case that D&D isn’t about the dice or the sword swings. It’s about what happens when someone who struggles to find the words in real life suddenly finds them at a table, in character, saying something that surprises everyone in the room, including themselves.

If you’ve ever felt more like yourself in a costume than out of one, this one is for you.

Topics: Dungeons and Dragons, Dungeon Master, tabletop RPG, neurodivergent kids, collaborative storytelling

GUEST: Dean McKinnon | http://dragonsloveparties.com | @‌dragonsloveparties

Originally aired on2026-07-02