Roll up: role play for your mental health

Regular players of Dungeons & Dragons are afforded a range of psychological benefits, a very slightly biased study finds.

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It’s a sign of old age and lack of touch to dismiss videogames as a childish pastime, when they form a quarter-trillion-US-dollar industry that dwarfs film, television and music combined.  

Speaking of dwarfs, it’s similarly silly to dismiss TTRPGs and LARPing – that’s tabletop role-playing games and live-action role-playing – as an outlet only for those slightly odd-smelling nerds you avoided in first-year uni.  

You know: the kind who dressed up as warlocks at the drop of a pointy hat, carried excessively-sided dice around, thought living in the Middle Ages would actually be fun, made their own weapons and spoke in archaic English, addressing girls who allowed them within speaking distance as “milady”.  

Given role-playing games are worth an astonishing $US23 billion a year, chances are a few of these types are now having the last laugh. 

Another thing your Back Page scribe finds mildly surprising but probably shouldn’t is that RPGs are being investigated and used therapeutically.  

There exists an extensive literature on the mental health benefits of RPGs, we learn from this Irish study published in the International Journal of Role-Playing, which found playing Dungeons & Dragons provided a range of positive experiences.  

*Brake screech* – yes, there is an International Journal of Role-Playing, brought to you by Sweden’s Uppsala University. In its open-access pages you may read about the role of Nordic LARP in mental health care and substance abuse work, learn what a ludeme is and find all manner of explorations from the fairly esoteric (“Towards the Post-Modern Art Week: Anthropophagic Reflexes in the Brazilian Larp Scenes”) to the prosaic (the legal liabilities of allowing LARPing on your land).  

Reported benefits, the authors from University College Cork say, include communication and conflict resolution, perspective-taking, enhanced social abilities, collaborative creativity, personal development, resolution of identity confusion, working through challenges, increased self-efficacy and self-esteem, and more.  

And it’s not just academic. Groups are using D&D therapeutically “worldwide”, the authors say.  

For their study, they undertook in-depth qualitative interviews with 10 committed players recruited from the D&D subreddit.  

(They do acknowledge this raging selection bias as a limitation: “Although the players came from three countries and ranged in age from their twenties to fifties, it can be assumed that all players who volunteered to speak about D&D were passionate about it. Therefore, those who were interviewed were more likely to have had a positive experience playing, which may not be representative of every player.”) 

They identified as major positive themes escapism, exploration of self, creative expression, social support (forming friendships) and routine (a consistent weekly schedule of games nights), with subthemes of providing for others (i.e. creating entertainment for others if you’re the Dungeon Master) and providing a safe space (e.g. for queerness and coming out). 

No negative themes emerged from the interviews, though the authors do acknowledge the dark side of escapism if it equates to avoidance of what is causing stress.  

Several players describe what is known as bleed, bleed-out, bleed-in and ego bleed – the ways a self-created character can influence a player’s real life and vice versa. For example, one who lacks confidence creates a more assertive character and then handles a real-life situation the way that character would. 

We suppose a chaotic-evil Lizardfolk Rogue could really liven up a dull sales meeting and a half-Elf sorcerer would have ways of turning around a negative performance review – but ahem, we’re falling into our old, disrespectful ways here.  

It’s not impossible that bullying contributes to the need for mental health care among this population, after all.  

Somewhat conversely, characters can also form a medium through which to process grief or other difficult emotions at a distance with lower stakes, they find, while for others, gaming has helped ward off loneliness or come out in a safe environment.  

“As demonstrated, D&D can be a transformative experience, bringing a myriad of benefits,” say the authors, the lead of whom later admits being personally “submerged in the world of tabletop board gaming for several years” and not an entirely arms-length commentator. 

The therapeutic D&D groups mentioned above are primarily in the US, the authors say, so “there is a need to create more of these groups in locations across the globe. There is potential for these groups to assist with skills development, emotional exploration, and problem solving.” 

We therefore hereby declare Wednesday to be the TMR D&D night, attendance compulsory, BYO dice. We know this will come as a delightful shock to our colleagues, who will be dead keen to work on their mental health under the benevolent therapeutic guidance of a Dungeon Master such as yours truly.  

We assemble in the tavern tonight, loyal comrades …  

Send spells, dexterity rolls and story tips to penny@medicalrepublic.com.au.