As pandemic restrictions give way to more face-to-face activities resume, socializing can be a source of profound anxiety for many people. But what if, when meeting with others, we do not need to be ourselves? Or, if decision-making was done through a character we created and consequences determined by the roll of dice?
Since its inception in the mid-1970s, the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) has brought together a far more diverse array of players than its stereotypes suggest. Earlier this year, the game’s publisher, Wіzаrds of the Cоаst, released a report showing that, of its estimated 50 million players, 54% were younger than 30 and 40% identified as female. What it did not reveal was the rise in visibility of queer and neurodiverse players.
“It has always been a safe haven for folks who might not feel at home elsewhere,” said the game’s principal rules designer, Jeremy Crawford. “D&D is about a group of people with wildly different pasts coming together to create an intentional family and overcome adversity. A group of players are stronger because of their differences from each other. You don’t want four fighters; you want a fighter, a cleric, a rogue and a wizard. In other words, you want a group that is powerful because of its diversity.”
To play, a storyteller – known in the game as the Dungeon Master, or DM – takes a group of players through an adventure set in an imaginary world. It is their role to bring that world to life around the players, describe or enact the characters or creatures they meet, and to roll the dice that decide the outcomes of the party’s decisions.
Games can involve more than a dozen players, but most feature four to six players who gather around a table with books, dice, pencil and paper. Some may join via Zoom; sometimes miniatures, figurines and maps can be used to illustrate the adventure.
For people such as Shadia Hancock, the founder of advocacy group Autism Actually and Dungeon Master to a group of young neurodiverse players, the therapeutic potential of the game has always been clear.
“It’s about creating a sense of community,” Hancock said. “I work out the players’ expectations at the beginning of a game. Some get really into creating their characters, some are more interested in finding items and exploring the world, others are really interested in how the characters met. We all have a mutual love of gaming, but we all want something different from the session.”
Some characteristics expressed by some of Hancock’s players – social anxiety, increased empathy, difficulty adapting to change, feeling overwhelmed in noisy environments – have become familiar to many in the wake of lockdowns. Recent studies found that levels of social anxiety have increased over the past two years among all age groups, with neurodiverse youth even more likely to …….