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.
If the problem is more the time-wasting and less about him doing anything unfair, perhaps the best way to handle this is the way some DMs handle shopping: do it offline.
First, explain to him that this is a collaborative/group game, and unfortunately we can't spend all of our game time on one character's individual adventure. If necessary, explain to him that he is not the main character, and that is not fair to everyone else who is trying to play if their game gets constantly stalled when they have things they want to do, too.
Next, tell him to keep notes of all the things he is hoping to gather and craft as the adventure goes on. He can then bring these to you at the end of the session, and you two can work it out retroactively. Or alternatively, you can set aside designated time in-game for him to negotiate this with you (maybe once an hour instead of every 3 minutes).
I'm impressed with how patient and understanding you've been about this. You recognize that he is embracing the free-form nature of the game, and you don't want to smother that. It's a hard thing to balance with the rest of the table, especially when his parents aren't present. Good luck!
Yeah, hes a surprisingly good player, getting really into the roleplay and trying to find creative solutions. He even has his own PHB he bought with his own money when he was 5.
I'll talk to him about lumping some of his crafting into a downtime period to try keeping the distraction down to a less distracting level. I like that idea, a lot.