One of my players wants to play a kid wizard like Harry Potter. Should i allow it?

[Dannyalcatraz]

One word: stowaway.

 

[Nevvur]

You have reservations about letting this character into the campaign, and the majority of posters in this thread are suggesting you permit it, anyway. I'll be one of the few to go against the grain and suggest you listen to your instinct. You didn't even have to justify it with your lengthy explanation. You know your GM style, the other players at the table, etc... better than the resident "Yes, and..."ers, and your gut is telling you this is a bad idea.

 

[TheSword]

Yeah, take a walk on the wild side and let the child character in.

They can be a stowaway that sneaks out at night to steal food and water. As for why haven’t they caught her... we have the rest of the party catch her. Give her a plausible reason why going back to her city would be Realy bad, then roll with it.

The Neverending Story, Aliens, Treasure island, Talon from David eddings book to add to the previous list. There are lots of examples of children triumphing in the face of danger. If they die, they die. If players have a genuine problem with it then discuss that as a group but there’s no obvious good reason not to permit this.

 

[Coroc]

Yes and no. It depends upon your world view, playstyle and thresholds of your group. IRL in the middle ages 12-13 years old meant grown up, ready to marry / go to war etc.
Working like grown ups eventually started much earlier, there were children as young as six working in coal mines. So it is not that unlikely that a group of adventurers would see a capable and useful companion in some 13 year old wizard.
But:
Some DMs come up with graphic descriptions what happens to the monsters and characters during combat etc. For some people that is ok, for some people it is not and for some people it is ok, as long as there are no children involved. If you keep it abstract all the time i do not see any problems though.

 

[Unwise]

It occurs to me that in my groups it would be good to ask the other players if they are OK with this. Are the players OK with children being hacked into by orcs with swords? Before I was a dad I might have been a little more OK with it in narrative, but now I have a very low tolerance for any reference to kids being hurt.

Also, it really affects how other people play their characters, you are sort of forcing everybody to add "Is OK with teenage girls getting hurt and does not feel a need to protect them to a normal extent" onto their character concept. I have played many characters where that would have been a real issue, where I either adulterate the character concept, to take up too much "screen time" RPings the difficulties it makes.

 

[SirGrotius]

Certainly a yes. I think it's fair to have second thoughts as a DM, but players usually have a good drive, and she seems motivated. I'd let her flow.

 

[Beleriphon]

Also, does it have to be a small child? You could go with a character as young as say 13 and still have them be treated like a child without being as weird about having an small actual child casually murdering the locals.

 

[fjw70]

Using the 1e age by race and class tables, a human fighter could start as young as 16.

I don’t see the big deal. Let them play a kid. I think it would be interesting and I want my next PC to be a kid (maybe 13) now.

 

[Savage Wombat]

Why not get the new player together with another player, and have them come up with a reason why the second is bringing a tween along? There's less of an "other players' reactions" problem there.

 

[Wiseblood]

No. They don't want to play a child. They want to be taken seriously like an adult adventurer but they also want permission to behave like a spoiled brat.
Sound about right? It's what my character would do. That way madness lies.