I started up a new campaign with some friends who have an 8 year old kid (let's say AJ). I've played with the parents before, but not him, and he's been dying to play, so I said why not. After the first session, he was hooked, and told his little friend (let's call him Ollie), also 8, who he knows has been wanting to play too. So now after a few more sessions, AJ asked me if Ollie could join. We all agreed, and now have myself (DM), three adults, and two 8 year olds. Ollie's parents are not playing.
Ollie is having the time of his life. And typical kid silliness aside, he's mostly a good player. The one thing I'm struggling with, is he keeps asking for specific items and magic powers. "Can I do a roll to see if I find something that lets me fly? Or breathe underwater forever? Oh! Are there any bears? Can I roll to find a bear and tame it?"
Most of the time, I just tell him something like: "no, your character wouldn't know where to find something like that. You can always ask around, it's not likely to be something these bandits would know about." And he's gotten a bit better realizing you can't expect the DM to just give you overpowered items in the middle of a fight, or just "decide" that his character remembered a spell that insta-kills any creature.
But now he's started trying to get "free" stuff in more clever ways. "I want to get some sticks and make them into javelins." Sure. Next time you rest you can make some improvised weapons. "Can I forage for food?" Sure. "Can I try to find any healing herbs?" Uh... Sure... but it will only heal one hit point.
Now it's gotten to the point where every time the party tries to move to the next location, he tries to jump in and grab some small free item. Even in the middle of social interactions with the king, last night: "hey, are there any sticks around the castle? Or pieces of leather? Do you think that frog guy would trade me his clothes if I went out and caught him a bunch of flies? Can I get some rocks to throw at people?"
I'm not so worried about him getting little freebie items, but more that his constant interruptions are heavily slowing down the game and distracting everyone. The adults have approached me out of game about this, as the game is "no longer fun", and Ollie's behavior is becoming especially bothersome to AJ who was really enjoying the story and now is getting vocally annoyed that it takes 10 minutes to do anything now.
I don't want to discourage Ollie from being creative or sour his experience with DnD, but I also don't know how to explain to this happy little kid that he can't keep interrupting every 3 minutes to see if he can find some rocks. Any tips on how to handle this type of player, especially being a kid?
Edit: added clarification that I am posting this due to complaints from the adults and the other kid. Everyone is helping where they can, but as the DM everyone is kind of looking to me for some solution.
Don’t worry about it.
If you are playing with adults and an 8 year old, it’s normal for the focus to be mostly on the 8 year old. Especially if the other people involved are his parents, they knew what they signed up for. In fact They probably are having a grand old time. Just let the kid play and try to steer him gently toward more generally acceptable behavior.
Double check with the adult players, but this doesn’t sound like a situation that needs handling.
Also 8 years olds interrupt you to see if they can find rocks IRL all the time. It’s wired into them in some weird way!
Ollie's parents are unfortunately not joining us. Ollie is just the friend of the kid (let's say AJ) whose parents started the campaign with me. I agree with you, if it were just me and Ollie and his parents that would be different. (Edited the original post for clarity)
However this case all three adults (both parents and a third adult) and the other kid (AJ) are becoming visibly more annoyed in each session, as the campaign was going smoothly until Ollie joined in a couple weeks ago. The three adults have gone as far as (in-game) tying him up so he can't grab things and (out of game) asking me if there's a way to handle this in the game because now that he's in, they feel bad kicking him out, but the game is no longer fun for AJ in particular who really just wants to explore the story. Hence my post.
Would talking to Ollie's parents in private and saying something like "We all love playing with Ollie, he is having a lot of fun and he is really creative, but he has a tendency to become a bit to hyper and than he interrupts a lot. This is especially affecting AJ, who finds it difficult to play and enjoy the story with the constant interruptions. So do you guys have any idea of how to best approach this problem with Ollie, so that we all can have fun together when playing. "
He's parents will most likely have a better understanding of how he works and has probably a way of handling this problem as its most likely have shown in other context. At the very least they should know better about how to talk to him than the friend of the parents of their child's friend, absolutely no offence to you.