Need help with a new player....

[Starchild7309]

So the group I play with just got a little bigger. Our one DM has introduced his kid to playing 5.0. They are in 5th grade. While I understand younger kids can have shorter attention spans and lack the attention to detail, some of what they do is disruptive and while I am sure they will be better with time at the table, they cause issue at times now. I have talked to the other players and while we don't want to discourage the kid, most of them feel the same. We don't want them not to play, but unsure of how to go about getting them to focus a bit more, or perhaps what can be done in game that would interest a 5th grader more so. Has anyone run in to this before? I spoke with their father and he assures me that its just youth and it will get better and I am sure it will at some point.

I should say we are not a super serious group of people. We chat and crack jokes between turns, playfully mock our DM when he does dumb things, and we want everyone to have a good time. We don't want to discourage the kid, but we aren't sure how to approach this without doing so.

Examples of problem behavior:
1. Paying zero attention when "our scout" is scouting and then reporting back with nothing. (strict meta game rules in effect)

2. Losing attention during story narrative and talking over people r/ping.

3. During combat paying no mind to whats going on and on their turn just calling out, "I'm attacking." Rolling dice and then having to backtrack because no defender was declared.

4. During combat, paying no attention to any abilities he has (DM has relaxed the Meta game restrictions to let us help the make smarter choices in combat) and when he is reminded ignores most if not all advice.


Maybe I am just bitching about nothing, maybe its a serious problem. I am not sure. The group I play with has been playing together on and off for over 15 years. This is the first time we had a kid play with us that was not "one of us."

[Mjolnirbear]

Kids are annoying.

Full disclosure: i don't like kids. I didn't like them when i was one and that view hasn't changed in adulthood.

Kids are childish. They are active. They are inquisitive. They have energy. They get bored. They talk when other people are talking and don't pay attention to things if they don't think it's important. Kids cheat, or fudge rolls, or get angry if things don't go their way, and they need parenting. They can be bullies, or whiny, and have no concept of personal space.

I quite obviously am not a parent and for a very good reason: i'd be *terrible* at it. I would never influct me on some poor child because i have very little patience, am easily annoyed and much prefer kids for a limited time frame after which it's time to go home and ket their parents deal with them.

Kids *should* be active, and inquisitive, and talkative, confident. And it is normal for them to get bored, or talk over someone, or not pay attention or have tantrums. But kids being kids is not a good fit for a game whose other players are all adults even if those afults love kids, unless the adults are prepared to run a game *for kids* where the rules are lax and it's better geared for a kid's attention span.

PS. There are great kids who are calm, who pay attention, who act mature enough for a more adult game. These kids are fine to play DnD with. For other kids, take them outside and play ball or let them play video games.

[Ruslan]

I have some experience DMing for kids and introducing kids to mostly-adult groups. From my observations, 5th grade is definitely too young to play with a group of adults. A group of 5th-graders could work, but a single 5th-grader in an otherwise all-adult group usually doesn't. I would draw the line at about 8th grade, give or take.

In your case, since the kid is the DM's child, the DM may be oblivious of the situation, and I don't have a good suggestion for an easy way to break it to him. Perhaps try to subtly hint to the DM to arrange a group for the kid and his friends?

[infinitum3d]

In 25 years, I have DM'd games for all adults, all kids around 12y.o., and for mixed ages. Almost all of the groups worked out well after 3 or 4 sessions. It takes a while to accommodate sometimes, but be patient.

One of the mixed age group was challenging though because one child "Jim jr." was over coddled by his father "Jim". The other one "Bob jr" was left to his own by his father "Bob" and he did fine (Bob was an excellent player I should add and his son must have inherited those genes). Jim was a good player too, but he became quite distracted once his son was playing and tended to focus on the boy too much. I think he was just very excited to have his son playing, but the boy was very much as you describe: "I'm attacking" and dice rolling, but no other interest in the game or story.

As DM, it was very frustrating because I spent hours on a campaign that seemed to be doomed to failure and anxiety. After the first night, I decided to rework the story a bit. I had to get 'buy in' from Jim jr somehow. He was playing a human fighter, so I figured that a magic sword might pique his interest.

Early in the second night, I had the group discover a treasure map which described a "left handed dragon slayer sword". I was going to use "goblin slayer" but I really wanted to catch his interest, so I went with Dragon slayer, knowing full well they wouldn't be fighting any dragons any time soon.

It worked. He really wanted that sword, so he listened to clues (mostly) and he asked questions (a few), and I frequently reminded his dad to loosen up a bit. As DM, I had to remember though that the game was not all about Jim jr. I still brought in encounters that engaged the skills of the Druid and the Paladin, and there were still traps for the Rogue. It wasn't the best campaign I ever ran, but it became a decent adventure lasting about 20 sessions (6 months).

My advice is to try to engage the boy. Find out what interests him. If it's just jack and slash, then let him hack and slash. Make his character a barbarian. They have little patience for contemplating. Remember Bobby the Barbarian in the cartoon? It's a good start for kids.

Be patient. Talk to the DM again about your concerns, but come up with suggestions and ideas too, not just complaints. Your complaints are valid, but give it time. He'll grow up eventually. We all had to start somewhere.

To address the specific concerns;
Examples of problem behavior:
1. Paying zero attention when "our scout" is scouting and then reporting back with nothing. (strict meta game rules in effect)

Is he the scout? If so, role play it out. The scout reports nothing, then so be it. The group walks into a trap. It happens. If he is not the scout, then his lack of attention only affects him. Is his character 10 years old? If not, the character has to live with the results of his actions.

2. Losing attention during story narrative and talking over people r/ping.*

Politely remind him that someone is talking and he needs to be polite and wait his turn. Treat him as you would anyone else.

3. During combat paying no mind to whats going on and on their turn just calling out, "I'm attacking." Rolling dice and then having to backtrack because no defender was declared.*

This is for the DM to address. The DM needs to ask who he is attacking. If he rolls without declaring a target, it's a miss. He'll only stop doing it when he learns is an automatic failure.

4. During combat, paying no attention to any abilities he has (DM has relaxed the Meta game restrictions to let us help the make smarter choices in combat) and when he is reminded ignores most if not all advice.

If he wants to play a one trick pony, let him. He will get bored with it and look to abilities later on his own. Let him do what he wants but then he has to accept the outcome.


Is DMjr asking to play or is DMDad making him? If he wants to play, find out why. What does he want to get out of the game? If it's just killing things, tell him to sit quietly and when it's time to bash skulls, you'll let him know. If he wants to explore like Indiana Jones, then engage this interest.

Age is irrelevant to some degree. I've had very immature 30y.o.'s, and very mature 12 year olds. Take him under your wing and guide him to play the way you want him to play. If he's not up for that, or the DM is unwavering, then be prepared for the group to break up. It happens sometimes.

Maybe it's your turn to DM?

Good luck!

[hellspawnfish]

Well, ditch the strict no-metagaming rules for one. That won't work for a kid.

Don't have him play a class where he would have to pay attention to DM one-on-one for too long. (scouting is right out as you have learned)

Let him play something 'cool'. Even if it's not in the corebook. Have him play a ranger's bear animal companion (make him a talking bear, talking bears are cool) or a half-dragon (take the aracocra stats and add a breath weapon, ditch the ability modifiers, should be semi-balanced and he's not going to care about numbers), or homebrew whatever zany idea he comes up with.

Make his character for him. Give him the character sheet. To the top of the character sheet clip an index card with his possible actions and rolls he has to make to accomplish those actions. If you want to get fancy get another index card for non-combat situations, but that might be too much.

Describe things in a more colorful/enthusiastic way. Do 'replays' for the kid every time he's required to act. "So, Annoying Kid's Character Name, the Big Evil Moster just fireballed the room, cut down your cleric and is barreling towards you with his Bullpucky Gish Sword of Winning held aloft, wreathed in green flame. What do you you do? If his attention wandered, RECAPTURE IT before demanding he makes a decision.

Dispose of the idea that you're going to have a serious, thoughtful, immersive D&D experience. It's possible to play with young kids. It might even be extremely fun. Just... adjust your expectations.

[Coidzor]

Strict metagaming rules and a kid?

I don't like to tell people how to parent, but, wow, they need to rethink that decision and their reasoning for it.

[Takewo]

Well, ditch the strict no-metagaming rules for one. That won't work for a kid.

Don't have him play a class where he would have to pay attention to DM one-on-one for too long. (scouting is right out as you have learned)

Let him play something 'cool'. Even if it's not in the corebook. Have him play a ranger's bear animal companion (make him a talking bear, talking bears are cool) or a half-dragon (take the aracocra stats and add a breath weapon, ditch the ability modifiers, should be semi-balanced and he's not going to care about numbers), or homebrew whatever zany idea he comes up with.

Make his character for him. Give him the character sheet. To the top of the character sheet clip an index card with his possible actions and rolls he has to make to accomplish those actions. If you want to get fancy get another index card for non-combat situations, but that might be too much.

Describe things in a more colorful/enthusiastic way. Do 'replays' for the kid every time he's required to act. "So, Annoying Kid's Character Name, the Big Evil Moster just fireballed the room, cut down your cleric and is barreling towards you with his Bullpucky Gish Sword of Winning held aloft, wreathed in green flame. What do you you do? If his attention wandered, RECAPTURE IT before demanding he makes a decision.

Dispose of the idea that you're going to have a serious, thoughtful, immersive D&D experience. It's possible to play with young kids. It might even be extremely fun. Just... adjust your expectations.

Also, if he has fun but can't keep attention for long periods of time, you don't need have him play the whole session. If he is more attentive at the beginning than at the end, maybe it's because he loses interest and you can free him for the last part.

[AvatarVecna]

In my bimonthly IRL game, one of the players brought in his older child as a player, presumably to keep her out of her mother's hair while he was gaming, since she had some vague interest in the game. She ended up making a Moon Druid who was raised by wolves, and is convinced that she's one of them. It's interesting having one of our party members basically in permanent dire wolf form, and when she's roleplaying in between texts/youtube videos, the character comes through fairly well (unapologetic, carnivorous, CN wild child) without being a pain in the ass.

Last time the game met, her phone died about halfway through the game, and I slowly learned to hate that kid. She almost never stopped talking at just the right volume to overpower normal speaking voices, making other conversations almost impossible to hold without straining your voice and sensibilities. And she talked about nothing but what she wanted her character to do, when her character was incapable of casting spells or speaking while in wolf form. I had no idea that a person could be so convinced that all problems encountered in a dense and dry forest could be solved by setting the entire forest on fire. When she wasn't considering actions that would result in a party-caused TPK, she was talking about using Conjure Animals to summon some horses...for the sole, express purpose of devouring them. She never did either thing, mostly because we continually talked her out of it, but she never gave up on either idea. She never paid attention to what else was going on in the game unless it was time for her to bite something, so she never knew what things we weren't supposed to kill, when killing things for no reason was all she was concerned with. It's getting to the point where I've convinced myself that my LN Warforged Fighter would totally shoot her if she starts actually trying to eat the other party members...which she has been seriously considering OoC. I was at my wits' end after a measly two hours of this; her only hope of surviving the next session is if she either tones it down or brings a phone charger, because next time...it's my turn to DM.

A kid who's invested in both their (interesting) character, the campaign, and the teamwork aspect of RPGs is a force to be reckoned with, because nobody sets higher stakes and comes up with crazier plans than a kid playing pretend.

A kid who's invested in their (one-note) character, but who has zero interest in the story or the other player's place in the game is a nightmare player. As far as they're concerned, they're playing a single player game where they're the sole hero, and no alternative is acceptable. Even worse, where this kind of behavior gets you chastised or even kicked out as an adult, a kid doing it just means they're cluelessly cruel, and you can't really call them out on that without being a jerk.

Unless you can find a way to politely explain to them that they're part of a team, and they have to not be as disruptive when other people are doing stuff, they're get upset at not being the star attraction and, regardless of how much they may agree with you, the parent will have to either defend their kid, or deal with the problem some other way, and both ways likely involves at least temporarily leaving the situation; meanwhile, that's two players you're now missing (or worse, a player and the DM), which makes things either difficult or impossible to continue until the issue is resolved.

[KorvinStarmast]

Maybe I am just bitching about nothing, maybe its a serious problem. I am not sure. The group I play with has been playing together on and off for over 15 years. This is the first time we had a kid play with us that was not "one of us."
You need to have a conversation with the parent and the child together. Either he tries to fit in, learns to fit in, or he isn't welcome at the table. They both need to be there for this conversation. If the parent supports you, this might work. If the parent doesn't support you, this situation will not be fixed.

There are other people at that table who want to have fun. Their needs MUST be considered by this adult (parent) and this child.

I don't bring rude kids golfing with me, but I do bring kids who can behave themselves.

Some other points:

2. Losing attention during story narrative and talking over people r/ping. Parent has been playing with you guys for 15 years, and can't figure out how to teach kid some of the basics of table behavior?

3. During combat paying no mind to whats going on and on their turn just calling out, "I'm attacking." Rolling dice and then having to backtrack because no defender was declared. Parent has been playing for 15 years, and won't / can't teach their kid the basics?

4. During combat, paying no attention to any abilities he has (DM has relaxed the Meta game restrictions to let us help the make smarter choices in combat) and when he is reminded ignores most if not all advice. Parent has been playing 15 years and won't teach mentor the kid and give the kid some tips?

You need to have a separate conversation one-on-one with the parent. Not about raising kids, but about how other people are having their fun degraded. This game is played to be fun for everyone at the table.

Maybe I am just bitching about nothing, maybe its a serious problem. I am not sure. The group I play with has been playing together on and off for over 15 years. This is the first time we had a kid play with us that was not "one of us." I'd expect the parent to prep the kid, and you may need to allow some modest meta-game nudges by parent to keep the child in the flow.