Goal: Share concrete advice for running games for kids aged 7-12.

I’ve been running tabletop role playing games for kids for a couple of years, and I’ve been running a summer camp (Camp Quest) even longer. For the most part, the kids respond really well to me, but not until I put myself in the right frame of mind first. I find that running successful games with this group means taking a minute to orient both my expectations and my approach.

As part of running my summer camp, I share with my staff a summary of these developmental characteristics of school aged children. It’s important to understand how kids see and experience the world so we can meet them where they are.

One source for characteristics: American Camp Association

Ages 7-10

• Beginning to socialize with children their own age.
  • Age can matter a lot at this point. I had a child of this age in a gaming group with an older brother and his friends, and the group dynamics did not work well. Beyond the sibling rivalry, the younger child had difficulty fitting in with the kids who were only 2-3 years older.
  • Advice: Try to form groups a close to the same age as possible.
• They want friendships and enjoy playing together.
  • Advice: Give them opportunities for inter-character play. You can set up encounters like a bazaar where the players have to form groups to play a game-within-a-game type scenario.
  • Do not create adversarial situations between the characters in the game. They don’t have the ability yet to control themselves from going too far.
• They have a longer attention spans than younger children.
  • You can start introducing larger story arcs that span multiple sessions or even a year long campaign.
  • Advice: Introduce a larger story plot, but do not expect them to keep notes or be able to put the pieces together. It’s okay to just remind them of what their characters know and put all the clues right in front of them. They will still enjoy the final bit of connecting those dots.
• They are aware of others and are willing to share.
  • Advice: Give them in-game opportunities for their characters to share. Give one character something that is slightly beneficial to themselves but greatly beneficial to another character. You can point this out, but let them work out the deal.
• They desire acceptance from their peers.
  • Repeat advice: Do not create adversarial situations between the player characters.
• They need close friendship with playmates.
  • This is something that playing TTRPG will provide, but it won’t happen overnight. It’s up to the adult to make sure the group doesn’t fall apart due to things like scheduling conflicts.
  • Advice: Create a parent group of email, text, or some other way to keep the parents invested in their kids playing the game. Scheduling is hard, but worth the effort.
• They are able to express themselves freely in art forms and play.
  • Advice: Be ready to listen. If you’re a long time GM, you may feel the need to “fill in the gaps” in conversation. Don’t. Allow them to express themselves.
  • Ask three questions when you need to prompt them:
    • How does your character feel about what just happened or what do they want to know?
    • What does your character want to do in response?
    • What is your character actually doing?
• They desire better skills performance are interested in group games and activities.
  • A lot of times kids in this groups see their dice rolls as a reflection of their own abilities. In fact, many times at the end of a session when I ask what they are most proud of doing themselves they tell me about a certain roll.
  • Advice: Give them many opportunities to roll dice and show off their cool abilities, even if it doesn’t drive the story forward. They will enjoy it.
• They want everyone to obey stated rules and regulations.
  • Advice: Be upfront and fair when applying the game rules. It is okay to tell a player, “No.” It’s good to be flexible but for this age the ruleset creates a comfortable environment for play.
• They strongly identify with own sex and age group.
  • Advice: Don’t try to force them into playing with people they don’t want to. Encourage, but don’t force.

Ages 10-12, the Tween Years

• They are not quite children and not quite teenagers, and are beginning to gain more awareness of themselves and their skills.
  • With awareness, also comes self doubt.
  • Advice: Make extra effort to point out the things they are doing well, especially things they come up with on their own.
• Making friends and being accepted by their peers is a growing concern.
  • Advice: One thing I’ve done during end of session wrap up is to go around the room and have everyone say what each person did well.
• They want to be together in groups and teams.
  • They will assert themselves in new and different ways, but keep in mind that they probably want to be part of the team.
  • Advice: Same as with the 7-10 age group, this is not the time to introduce intra-party conflict. Do not create adversarial situations between the players.
  • Advice: When the characters start to fight between themselves, look for as many ways as possible to diffuse the situation. Keep them moving toward a common goal and keep moving that goal if you have to.
• They have the patience to work toward short-term goals.
  • Advice: Do not give nebulous objectives. Make their goals concrete. “You must bring order to the Kingdom” won’t work. “You need to track down Joff the blacksmith and ask what he knows about dragon scales” will work.
• They form cliques and friendship with own sex and age group.
  • Be aware of this, and if you have a larger group make sure nobody is being left out.
  • Advice: If you see one player not being included as part of a clique that is forming, tailor your content to bring that character into the fold by making them work closely with one other player. You can even split the party and run one week with two smaller groups.
• They seek status through excellence in skills and knowledge of grown-up things.
  • Advice: Ask leading questions to help them make connections between the content you’ve prepared for them. They will be proud of themselves.
• They are fairly competitive in team and individual activities.
  • If your players are new, they won’t understand how to work as a team. I’ve even stopped one game mid-session and said, “Lets do a training session.” I went person by person and talked about their individual abilities and how each of those might impact the situation in front of them. I then started a discussion about how all of them could use their own abilities to play off of each other. We then “unpaused” the session and continued on. This was one of the group’s favorite sessions because when they understood how to use their abilities as a team, they were unstoppable.
  • Advice: Give them many opportunities to show off working as a team. When they do work together, go overboard in rewarding them the first few times.
• They have a growing concern with their physical size and appearance.
  • Advice: Be aware of this. It’s something that makes many of them uncomfortable, so I don’t make any of those changes be part of the content of my games. At my table, sitting down to throw dice should be a place of comfort and safety from everything going on in their world.
• They like to make, do, and collect things.
  • This is a great time to introduce out of game activities. You can challenge them to paint miniatures or to draw their characters. I enjoy getting text messages from my players (this age group has cell phones!) with art they’ve drawn of their characters.
  • Advice: Compliment every one of these they do. Find something you like about it and point out how good you think that is. They will be very self conscience about their art.
• They enjoy being mischievous and daring.
  • Advice: This is a great opportunity to do exactly that. Give them opportunities. Remember to lay out the scene and let them come up with the ideas, but be prepared to offer some up if they don’t.
  • Advice: Always have a backup plan for what will happen if their daring plot foils. Make sure you never back them into a corner they can’t get out of.

That’s it. These are all suggestions based on the last few years of working with kids and running games. I hope you’ve found them helpful.