Help getting kids to work together!

[beldar1215]

Hello All,
I run a game for kids at a local game store in my area. The group ranges in age from 10-13. They seem to have a hard time working together as a group and I'm looking for some suggestions about how to get them to work as a team. Here's an example from the last game. They had a player get knocked down to -6 hp. Each PC had healing potions but did not want to give them up for the player how was down. They kept saying they wanted the PC to die so that the player would have to make a new character. The party has no cleric, so they wanted him to make a cleric.

How can I get them to work together better? Any help would be great!!!

 

[Anabstercorian]

Put them in situations where team work is vital to success - Without teamwork, they might squeak through, but not with style. Reward teamwork with results, not with XP, and accept that they're going to do silly metagame things like wait for a party member to die so they can get a cleric in the party. Kids will be kids.

 

[Mark]

I'm not usually one to suggest long plots that arrive at one, and only one destination or outcome, but for a first campaign it might be worthwhile.

Set up a "prophesy" that tells of how they all need to be together at one final destination at some time (perhaps a soltice or equinox) with a number of items in their possession. Each of them has a particular item associated with them, and only their own, actual voices each reading a line of the prophesy will open a final portal. Make it so that they all need to be there and alive to "win" this short campaign. Perhaps five adventures (or however many players there are plus one final scenario). Have each of the adventures leading up to the final one be to collect one of the items for each of the characters. You may have to fudge things along the way to make sure you don't kill them yourself, but for an introductory campaign that's not such a problem.

After they manage their way through this initial campaign, they may find that working together all the time is more beneficial than being selfish...

 

[MerakSpielman]

Have a little talk with them about alignment and staying in character.

LOL. Seriously though, bribe them with something they understand: CANDY.

Give out candy to whoever does the best job staying in character the whole time. This is entirely subjective, so just give a different kid a piece of candy each time until they start competing to be the most in-character. After that, let them each have a piece of candy after each game, unless they did something particularly out-of-whack, then you can withhold candy as puishment.

It doesn't even have to be good candy. Cheap $2 / bag candy should work fine. The fact that some kids get it and some don't leads to it becoming desireable, just be default. You could probably pass out "special D&D" rocks and it would work almost as well.

If you really want the kids to start liking you and listening to you, whisper to them consperitorially that if their parents knew you were passing out candy they wouldn't let them come any more. Then the candy becomes forbidden fruit - something to be kept a secret from parents - and gets the kids to be much more responsive to your playing suggestions. An even trickier version of this is to get the parents on your side, "Hey, could you mention to your kid you don't want them eating candy while they're out? That it's a very bad thing to do? Thanks." The kids'll love you forever, and you don't have to worry about irate parents if they're in on it. Dads work best for this. Moms might actually have a problem with the candy (go figure).

If they don't fall for the candy (13 year olds are more savvy these days then they used to be) give them "points" they can use to buy D&D stuff - 8 points for a mini, 6 for dice, 10 for a spiffy new dice bag, whatever. (if you need to be harsh, subtract existing points for misbehavior).

-Merak "All My Nephew's and Niece's Favorite Uncle" Spielman

 

[Angcuru]

Decimation worked for Crassus, maybe it'll work for you.

 

[Believer]

NPC a party cleric. Not a powerful one, but one to keep them from killing off their friends.


Oh and candy.

 

[BrooklynKnight]

OK. First things first.
The main problem above wasnt just that they refused to work as a team, but it was that they wanted to force their friend to be a cleric.

So lets deal with that first.

Before anything you have to explain to them that a vital part of the game is making due with what you have. Forcing other people to solve your own problem is WRONG. In that situation you (in my opinion) should have pulled a rule 0. Saved the other player desipite the other PC's. Then docked them XP for not roleplaying what their characters would have done. THEN explained to them that if they wanted a cleric on their journey so badly they could have hired a henchman from a local church to adventure with them and provide healing in exchange for part of their treasure to be given to their church. Thats part one.

Part 2. The actual teamwork. For players this young its a situation that in my opinion requires a bit of metagaming. First take all their characters sheets and familarize yourself well with their abilities. Now for each character write a small summary of the other characters and their abilities to give to them. You can insert this into the game via some black out roleplay. Say they spent a month training and become familar with one anothers skills. Make the card a narration of thoughts, not a list of skills. Perhaps even put in an event that may have happened to illustrate.
Ok, So now they know what they can each do, and they have a healer. So on to part 2.5

The second half of part 2 is actually getting them to work together. This may be the hardest part. This is why you made yourself familar with their abilities to begin with. Write out or find an adventure that utalizes all their skills. Success is MUCH easier when they use the proper skills or tools to procede. Make sure to put emphasis on succeses and failures so they plainly see what they did our should have done.

Eventually it will become second nature for them to start doing this on their own. At that point you'll have to teach them NOT to metagame so much and to learn about one another in game. But one step at a time. heh.

 

[The Blue Elf]

The simple way to do it is that they have to figure it out on there own as a team you could just scare them by sending them harder Challanges to face so they could learn through failer they can learn as a team.

 

[roguerouge]

Success AND candy gets cooperation

You know, I had a similar situation to this a couple of years ago. I taught four classes of Dungeons and Dragons at an academic summer camp for talented students in 4th through 8th grade. (There was also a chess class, a military history class, a computer programming class....)

It was like herding wolverines. Perhaps that's because three of them had been there the year before and all hated each other. Perhaps it's because one of them was taken off their ADHD meds by their parent as an "experiment." Anyway, during the first few minutes of the class I realized that there could be serious trouble here. (Wait until the player that died designs his next PC to be able to kill other partymembers...)

What I did that saved my bacon and kept the feud at a simmer was... set the adventure at a Hogwarts' rip off!

Essentially, their adventure is final exams, it's all an illusion. So if you die, you miss a round, are healed by the deans, then poof! teleported right back in. Die again, and you're out for five rounds. Die three times in one session and you're out until the next game. The game became the candy.

In addition, these kids were high achievers, as a significant percentage of roleplayers are, I've found. (Smackdown suggests this trait, I believe.) So their "team" was being graded against other teams. Party deaths lowered their grades. Heroic efforts were made to save characters, not because they liked the other players, not because they were roleplayers, but because roleplaying meant that you could win! And what were they going to win? Absolutely nothing. No piece of candy. Just the knowledge that they were the best. And really, isn't that what heroes want more than gold or magic?

This scenario probably doesn't fit for you. But the lessons I've learned and tried to apply are:

1. Make the game the candy.
2. Deaths should be time outs, not game overs. (Why can't the DM roll the stabilization chance, hm?)
3. Teamwork leads to winning and winning is GOOOOOOD.

Best wishes,

roguerouge