How to Dungeon Master Parenting: A Guidebook for Gamifying the Child Rearing Quest, Leveling Up Your Skills, and Raising Future Adventurers

2024 Best Book Awards; Finalist - Parenting & Family

Gather your party, it’s time to level up your parenting game!
For years, millions of fans have looked to the beloved role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons for fun, friendship, and entertainment. And now parents and parents-to-be can use it to gain inspiration and how-to when it comes to their most challenging and rewarding role yet. Dungeon Masters are not just expert storytellers and arbiters of the rules, they’re compassionate, creative, quick-thinking leaders who embody the same traits that make a great parent.
Where do you find an adventuring party who will have your back? What must-have starting equipment should you own before venturing into babyland? How does your gaming style reflect your parenting style? You don’t have to know how to be a Dungeon Master to master parenting--just think like one. Kids may not come with rulebooks, but now their parents do.

Shelly Mazzanoble is coauthor of Welcome to Dragon Talk: Inspiring Conversations about Dungeons & Dragons and the People Who Love to Play It (Iowa, 2022) and cohost of Dragon Talk, the official Dungeons & Dragons podcast. When not writing about her life as a part-time sorceress, Mazzanoble writes about parenting, reality TV, and the humorous side of middle-age life in her weekly Substack, Middle-Aged Lady Mom (shellymazzanoble.substack.com). She lives in Seattle, Washington.