Gamification and Behavior Management

All D&D games go off the rails from time to time. It's part of the fun. A game that's always off the rails, though, that is chaos and not a game at all. DM-ing for kids is an art and a science that's similar in a lot of ways to my day job. I'm a Middle School Computer Science teacher, and I use a lot of different classroom management techniques, many of which center around gamification, which intrinsically rewards the behaviors you want, rather than penalizing those that you don't. So, I'm going to share some table management techniques, many of which deal with in-game rewards, which are totally legitimate and won't wreck your game, I promise. 

Before I get into this, I need to give a shout out to Mike Shea, whose podcast, The DM's Deep Dive, has provided the seed for a lot of the ideas presented here. 

The sandwich on the side

Before I talk about anything else, I want to talk about the Sandwich on the side. For most of the rest of this post, the name of the game is engagement. This isn't slick sexy gamification. It's not worked into the narrative. It's direct, efficient, and purposeful. This is for situations that go beyond distraction. Depending on your style this will either be your opener or your last resort. I use it as an opener. It's the old praise sandwich. 

1. Pull the player [s] aside.
2. Start Positive. (eg: "hey, I'm really glad that you're so excited and enthusiastic about the game.")
3. Give the specific behavior you want. (eg: "I need you to wait your turn to talk and stop yelling over top of everyone, which makes it difficult to play").
4. End Positive: I really like the character you made, and I want to see where his/her story goes!
5. Reward them with DM Dice (see below) when they catch themselves and either stop the behavior you don't want or exhibit the behavior you do want.

Initiative

Initiative is one of the more crunchy parts of the game, and while it's a pain to determine and track, it offers some cool possibilities for engaging your young players. On one hand, you can take a player who is very likely to be off-task / distracted / distracting and put him or her in charge of initiative. "You are my initiative tracker today. Make sure you know whose turn it is and keep people on-task in combat." Now, this distracted player needs to pay attention in order to keep others on task. In my experience, the kids that are most likely to interrupt / go off the rails / etc. love to jump in others' swim lanes and tell them what they should or shouldn't be doing. 

On the other hand, you can throw out crunchy initiative altogether. If your table agrees, you can do round robin initiative, determining where it starts and which way it goes with a quick engaging game. For example, you can have the player directly on your right and the one directly on your left roll off, adding their initiative bonus (or not... whatever you wish). Then, go around the table from the winning payer toward the losing player. Roll for the monsters and place them on the continuum. For example if Jack rolls 12 and Hope rolls 17, then we start with Hope and work around to Jack. If my monsters roll 11, they go last. If they roll 16, I stick them in right after Hope but before Eliza, sitting next to her. That's up to your discretion. You can use Rock Paper Scissors to do the same roll off and then have the tow players take you on to determine where the Monsters go. This solves a few problems. 

1. Determining initiative is faster and more engaging.
2. Tracking initiative is no longer an issue. Players can easily see whose turn it is and whose is next.
3. Combat just moves faster this way.
   

DM Inspiration Dice: In-Game reward

My wife loves the game Tenzi, and she bought a bunch of Tenzi Tubes super cheap. You can often find them on sale at book stores and such. Anyway, I have a lot of colorful D6's laying around. Nobody likes the camouflage set because they all look the same, so I've claimed that set.

Earlier, I noted that you should reward players when they catch themselves and either stop the behavior you don't want or exhibit the behavior you do want. Throwing a player a d6 from the Tenzi tube is an easy reward. They get one use out of it to add to a skill check or attack roll of their choice and then turn it back in. It feels like a powerful reward but won't break your game and allows everyone to have more fun. Yes, you could do actual "inspiration" by D&D official rules, but that's handing out on average +5's while the d6 should be on average handing out +3's. 

Roll less or Roll more

If your game is getting bogged down in checks, make fewer checks. Seriously, you are the DM. You decide when something requires a die roll. If your young players are overwhelmed looking up things on their character sheet and trying to decide if their proficiency bonus applies, then for the sake of keeping the story moving, ask for fewer checks, or make them more simple. For example, you might ask for a "Wisdom" check, which is right there on the top left of the sheet, rather than a perception or insight check. In 5e, there is a mechanic, referred to as "Passive Perception", where a number equal to 10 plus the character's Perception bonus can be checked against enemies stealth checks etc. Theoretically, then, it follows that you could have players work up passive scores for their three most used skills and put them at the top of their sheet. When a DC exceeds that, then have them roll. 

 

Sidenote: Another fun element of this idea is the joy that warrior classes have at watching their passive intimidation increase. If you've ever read "The Wheel of Time" series, you know how Jordan often points out how particularly skilled warriors just moved or relaxed with a grace and confidence that let you know they were dangerous. Describe that to your martial players and they will eat it up.

On the other hand, you may need more rolls. I have heard Mike Shea say on numerous occasions that this is a great way to bring distracted players' attention back to the table quickly. 

 

Draven, give me a constitution check with advantage [or disadvantage].

 

You don't even need to do anything with it. Nod when he gives you the number and act like you're noting something behind the screen. You're going to have his attention for at least a little while after this.

Edible Tokens

Sometimes you have to grid out a battle or maybe you just want to. I have 8 players in one game and 7 in the other. I like to keep track of where folks are. You can use just about anything for player tokens (I have a post on this coming soon!). One of the best token ides for Monsters to keep the kiddos engaged is food. Mini peanut butter cups could be orcs. Starburst could be goblins. Rainier cherries can be ogres. They're a lot cheaper than minis and they are a great immediate reward for players. Combat can get slow in D&D, particularly for newbies. Having edible monsters on the table quickly adds some tension and excitement...   

Learning from stupid side quests.

Sometimes a player or players have a stupid idea that they won't let go of. It doesn't matter whether you hint strongly that it's way off track and more importantly that the rest of the party doesn't want to do it. Maybe every one wants to move on with the story and one or two players want to go off doing something else.

• "We're going to fight right now to see who is the strongest!"
• "I'm going to follow that peasant woman because I don't trust her." 
• "I'm going to find apples because I WANT AN APPLE PIE!"
• "I'm attacking the innkeeper because his prices are stupid!"

Okay, fine. Knock yourself out. 

This player has essentially taken him or herself out of play. "Awesome, we will resolve that encounter later. The rest of the party has a lot ahead of them." Then resolve their fight with one simple roll off behind the screen and say such and such happened. If they did something really stupid, say that they got arrested or captured or whatever. Don't reward stupid side quests by allowing players to play them out. What makes a side quest stupid?

• Does it distract from what the whole group wants to do?
• Is it entirely evil / lawless / incredibly foolish if done IRL?

In other words, if all of your players may want to pursue something off the planned track, that's not evil or dumb, but just distracted, that's okay... Someone wanting to go off on their own, though, is usually bad for the whole group.

Letting Kids be Kids

Sometimes younger kids what to break off from the party for real... For example, I have a friend who brings his son and three daughters to my Wednesday night game. The youngest daughter is six. Usually she starts with us, but about five minutes in she decides to go play with our dog or maybe watch a Disney movie. That's fine. My friend just takes up his daughter's character and plays it. She's welcome to step in or out ant any time. My goal is that she enjoys the game and has good experiences from there. 

Parting Shots & Final Thoughts

As always, I welcome your thought and comments below. My goal here is to get folks started with some ideas for managing games for kids. I am not the final authority. I'm just some dude running D&D with a couple of groups of kiddos.