I'm DMing for my family and one of them is under 9 years old. I'm running Hoard of the Dragon Queen, but there have been some close calls. The younger member always wants to fight. It's gotten to the point where he almost broke the watchtower in the raiders camp as they were leaving (miraculously not caught). Then, when we were slightly more spread out IRL and were about to enter the cave in chapter three, everyone else had snuck past the dragonclaw guards. The young player, seeing that they weren't going to fight them, decided to fall asleep at the cave entrance and dream about fighting. Then, when they awoke the bats and stirges, he said that "he was punched in his dream really hard and woke up." He then proceeded to run into the cave to join the fight. But with his movement speed he won't make it in time before the fight ends. What do I do to deal with his want to fight?
It might be just having a conversation with the players outside of game. a conversation with the 9 year old trying to explain how working with the rest of the party/players can lead to better fights in the game working as a team. And a conversation with the rest of the party explaining to them to role play the characters to urge the 9 year old to work with the party. In other words, maybe work it into role play with help from the rest of the family/party.
Or. You let the situation have consequence. i.e. their actions lead to a characters death, theirs or another party member. Or you DM in a scenario to force the player to not have the option they want. It's a little bit of railroading, which is sometimes necessary.
He's 9, so you must expect him to act like a 9-year-old. I agree with SithLantern; use the power of consequences.
He won't make it to combat. Let him fail. When he balks, tell him, "This is why most D&D players try very hard not to split the party. It's more fun when everyone works together."
Don't tell him he's wrong; reinforce good play.
If he were an adult, I'd boot him. A 9-year-old needs time to learn and be reinforced.
I agree with what's been said already but I do want to add a tempering opinion: D&D is a game about getting in fights. The game mechanics are very, very heavily weighted towards the combat side of the so-called "pillars of adventure". A lot of older players get very heavily invested in roleplaying "heroes," to the degree that they avoid fighting as much as possible; that's perfectly valid as a play style if everyone is having fun, but it's kind of contrary to what D&D is built to do. The kid needs to learn patience and good teamwork, and he should be held back a little bit for those purposes; but he also is fundamentally understanding what the game is telling him, which is: fighting is cool and fun, and you should do it.
I would try to use his hunger for fighting to angle him into a more teamwork-oriented mindset. When he decides to sleep at the cave entrance because the party decided to avoid a fight, you can say; "Are you sure? If something goes wrong they'll need you." You can frame social interaction as gathering advantages for future fights. Basically I understand that working around the outbursts of a little blood goblin can be challenging, but I would try not to get too upset with him for simply picking up what the game is putting down.
You will probably need to a few "Are you sure?"s. I agree with Mdhe that the consequences should be presented. They don't have to be fatal and nurturing a young player takes some work when the rest of the party are older and experienced.
Just be happy it isn't a girl. Of all of my elementary school students that I have GMd for, the girls are the most vicious.
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"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
I wouldn't really make the consequences be in the game first. He might not understand that he is doing anything bad. Talk outside the game, yes. Maybe even with the entire group. But it is a child, as far as I can hear a very energetic one. Don't ruin his fun to "teach him a lesson". That includes talking about this situation. Tell him what would happen, tell him why, what led to what. A lot of people are more eager to listen if you tell them logically why things happen.
Talk first, please. It can be difficult for adults to work with the group and be considerate. Children have a problem with seeing other perspectives, that's something that has to be taught and develops with time.
Things I would mention in a conversation: D&D is a group game. He likes to fight more, but others also want to have their fun moments. He could try asking the others what they think is fun about the game (basically send him on a real life quest), so he sees their perspectives. Maybe you could even let him have that experience in the game. Look around, look how the others react. Is the situation tense? Are they happy? Why?
If he decides in the end that everything but fighting is boring, then the normal story might just not be for him. You could give the party a magic item that reacts to danger and summons his character, and then just call him over if a fight starts. If he is feeling left out ask him to make up encounters! Maybe he is left at an arena where they are so impressed by his strength that they want him to train others, how does he do that? (Also give him some advice there like what is part of an encounter, number of enemies, kinds of enemies, area effects, equipment, etc. Basically tell him how to build an encounter. Or show him future fights and let him make strategies with the other players in mind. Tell him what they can do and have him do a battle plan. See if he has fun with that) It's not awful that he just wants to fight, but as a DM you have to take care of your players. That means if 3/4 decide to sneak and one decides to fight and attacks that leads to 1/4 being happy with the outcome. He has to learn that the others also want fun, just please please please don't just go ahead and punish the behavior without talking to him and solving things there. You might make him hate the game forever otherwise.
I had a similar situation- my son was about 9 when he started getting interested in D&D so I started DMing for him. He was also pretty combat-focused, and would sometimes "sit out" for the less-exciting parts of the game. What I found to grab his attention, was adding in some minor encounters centered around a riddle, puzzle, or magical trinket - like very short sidequests, to ease him into the idea of interacting with the setting in other ways. It makes an easy way to point out that there's more to D&D than just combat, and worked pretty well when I added in a more immediate reward - basically "hey I solved a puzzle and got a neat thing!" (And that's a pretty central concept to D&D too, right?)
The "hook" might just be two farmers arguing over what to do with a mysterious locked box that they found while clearing a field, or an innkeeper trying to catch some horrible critters that are scaring the horses in the stable-- something simple that wouldn't derail the story too much. And the reward could be just a handful of coins, or a pendant that casts dim light for 5 feet, or boots that leave a short trail of illusory flaming footprints, or a ring that lets you conjure flowers out of thin air-- nothing that would unbalance the game, but could get the player to wonder, "what else is there to find here?" And that's a good step toward getting them to interact with the campaign in other ways than fighting.
I don't know much about HotDQ but from what I've seen the tone is pretty "serious" and it may not have a lot of this kind of thing built into it. You'd probably have to write the encounters yourself, and that would be more work for you.
Similar situation here too. My son started playing about the same age, and has pretty bad ADHD on top of just being an action focused kid. Anytime we weren't in combat he was never paying attention, always playing with his mini or with his dice or just getting up and leaving the table to play with something else in the room. When we did enter combat, we never knew if he was going to run full tilt into the fight Leroy Jenkins style, or decide then was the time he would roleplay and do something completely random up to and including running away from the fight. We all, (players, characters, and DM) talked to him and tried to encourage him but we had to let him make his choices and sometimes that meant he lost out on all combat and eventually partially led to the death of his character. (i know that seems harsh on a 9 year old, I wasn't the DM then, and there were other issues that led to that outcome as well. Issues that don't pertain to this topic)
After that, I noticed that his love for this game was dying in a painful way, and is when I decided it was time for me to make the switch from player to DM. To re-ignite his love for the game, the first thing I did was write a backstory one shot for his character that had just died. The one shot was for him and him only and was filled with puzzles and tons of baddies for him to beat up. Not only did it completely resurrected his love for DnD and spark his imagination and creativity, but it also focused his mind on more than just combat. He is 11 now and is one of my players in my current campaign and pays much closer attention to all aspects of the game, looking out for plot hooks, clues pertaining to his character's personal quests, contributing to the team in productive ways and now understand that actions have consequences.
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I'm DMing for my family and one of them is under 9 years old. I'm running Hoard of the Dragon Queen, but there have been some close calls. The younger member always wants to fight. It's gotten to the point where he almost broke the watchtower in the raiders camp as they were leaving (miraculously not caught). Then, when we were slightly more spread out IRL and were about to enter the cave in chapter three, everyone else had snuck past the dragonclaw guards. The young player, seeing that they weren't going to fight them, decided to fall asleep at the cave entrance and dream about fighting. Then, when they awoke the bats and stirges, he said that "he was punched in his dream really hard and woke up." He then proceeded to run into the cave to join the fight. But with his movement speed he won't make it in time before the fight ends. What do I do to deal with his want to fight?
It might be just having a conversation with the players outside of game.
a conversation with the 9 year old trying to explain how working with the rest of the party/players can lead to better fights in the game working as a team.
And a conversation with the rest of the party explaining to them to role play the characters to urge the 9 year old to work with the party.
In other words, maybe work it into role play with help from the rest of the family/party.
Or. You let the situation have consequence.
i.e. their actions lead to a characters death, theirs or another party member. Or you DM in a scenario to force the player to not have the option they want.
It's a little bit of railroading, which is sometimes necessary.
He's 9, so you must expect him to act like a 9-year-old. I agree with SithLantern; use the power of consequences.
He won't make it to combat. Let him fail. When he balks, tell him, "This is why most D&D players try very hard not to split the party. It's more fun when everyone works together."
Don't tell him he's wrong; reinforce good play.
If he were an adult, I'd boot him. A 9-year-old needs time to learn and be reinforced.
I agree with what's been said already but I do want to add a tempering opinion: D&D is a game about getting in fights. The game mechanics are very, very heavily weighted towards the combat side of the so-called "pillars of adventure". A lot of older players get very heavily invested in roleplaying "heroes," to the degree that they avoid fighting as much as possible; that's perfectly valid as a play style if everyone is having fun, but it's kind of contrary to what D&D is built to do. The kid needs to learn patience and good teamwork, and he should be held back a little bit for those purposes; but he also is fundamentally understanding what the game is telling him, which is: fighting is cool and fun, and you should do it.
I would try to use his hunger for fighting to angle him into a more teamwork-oriented mindset. When he decides to sleep at the cave entrance because the party decided to avoid a fight, you can say; "Are you sure? If something goes wrong they'll need you." You can frame social interaction as gathering advantages for future fights. Basically I understand that working around the outbursts of a little blood goblin can be challenging, but I would try not to get too upset with him for simply picking up what the game is putting down.
You will probably need to a few "Are you sure?"s. I agree with Mdhe that the consequences should be presented. They don't have to be fatal and nurturing a young player takes some work when the rest of the party are older and experienced.
Just be happy it isn't a girl. Of all of my elementary school students that I have GMd for, the girls are the most vicious.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
I wouldn't really make the consequences be in the game first. He might not understand that he is doing anything bad. Talk outside the game, yes. Maybe even with the entire group. But it is a child, as far as I can hear a very energetic one. Don't ruin his fun to "teach him a lesson".
That includes talking about this situation. Tell him what would happen, tell him why, what led to what. A lot of people are more eager to listen if you tell them logically why things happen.
Talk first, please. It can be difficult for adults to work with the group and be considerate. Children have a problem with seeing other perspectives, that's something that has to be taught and develops with time.
Things I would mention in a conversation:
D&D is a group game. He likes to fight more, but others also want to have their fun moments. He could try asking the others what they think is fun about the game (basically send him on a real life quest), so he sees their perspectives.
Maybe you could even let him have that experience in the game. Look around, look how the others react. Is the situation tense? Are they happy? Why?
If he decides in the end that everything but fighting is boring, then the normal story might just not be for him. You could give the party a magic item that reacts to danger and summons his character, and then just call him over if a fight starts. If he is feeling left out ask him to make up encounters! Maybe he is left at an arena where they are so impressed by his strength that they want him to train others, how does he do that? (Also give him some advice there like what is part of an encounter, number of enemies, kinds of enemies, area effects, equipment, etc. Basically tell him how to build an encounter. Or show him future fights and let him make strategies with the other players in mind. Tell him what they can do and have him do a battle plan. See if he has fun with that)
It's not awful that he just wants to fight, but as a DM you have to take care of your players. That means if 3/4 decide to sneak and one decides to fight and attacks that leads to 1/4 being happy with the outcome. He has to learn that the others also want fun, just please please please don't just go ahead and punish the behavior without talking to him and solving things there. You might make him hate the game forever otherwise.
I had a similar situation- my son was about 9 when he started getting interested in D&D so I started DMing for him. He was also pretty combat-focused, and would sometimes "sit out" for the less-exciting parts of the game. What I found to grab his attention, was adding in some minor encounters centered around a riddle, puzzle, or magical trinket - like very short sidequests, to ease him into the idea of interacting with the setting in other ways. It makes an easy way to point out that there's more to D&D than just combat, and worked pretty well when I added in a more immediate reward - basically "hey I solved a puzzle and got a neat thing!" (And that's a pretty central concept to D&D too, right?)
The "hook" might just be two farmers arguing over what to do with a mysterious locked box that they found while clearing a field, or an innkeeper trying to catch some horrible critters that are scaring the horses in the stable-- something simple that wouldn't derail the story too much. And the reward could be just a handful of coins, or a pendant that casts dim light for 5 feet, or boots that leave a short trail of illusory flaming footprints, or a ring that lets you conjure flowers out of thin air-- nothing that would unbalance the game, but could get the player to wonder, "what else is there to find here?" And that's a good step toward getting them to interact with the campaign in other ways than fighting.
I don't know much about HotDQ but from what I've seen the tone is pretty "serious" and it may not have a lot of this kind of thing built into it. You'd probably have to write the encounters yourself, and that would be more work for you.
Similar situation here too. My son started playing about the same age, and has pretty bad ADHD on top of just being an action focused kid. Anytime we weren't in combat he was never paying attention, always playing with his mini or with his dice or just getting up and leaving the table to play with something else in the room. When we did enter combat, we never knew if he was going to run full tilt into the fight Leroy Jenkins style, or decide then was the time he would roleplay and do something completely random up to and including running away from the fight. We all, (players, characters, and DM) talked to him and tried to encourage him but we had to let him make his choices and sometimes that meant he lost out on all combat and eventually partially led to the death of his character. (i know that seems harsh on a 9 year old, I wasn't the DM then, and there were other issues that led to that outcome as well. Issues that don't pertain to this topic)
After that, I noticed that his love for this game was dying in a painful way, and is when I decided it was time for me to make the switch from player to DM. To re-ignite his love for the game, the first thing I did was write a backstory one shot for his character that had just died. The one shot was for him and him only and was filled with puzzles and tons of baddies for him to beat up. Not only did it completely resurrected his love for DnD and spark his imagination and creativity, but it also focused his mind on more than just combat. He is 11 now and is one of my players in my current campaign and pays much closer attention to all aspects of the game, looking out for plot hooks, clues pertaining to his character's personal quests, contributing to the team in productive ways and now understand that actions have consequences.