Personal Growth Through Roleplay

Over the past 7 years I have grown through gaming.

Pardon the pun but it has been an unexpected journey. Often what I do to process past events is use personal reflection and think about what happened. Upon reflection I can say without a doubt that tabletop roleplaying games have helped me be a better human.

This post will not be framed as advice, but more-so a personal story that you may or may not relate with. Primarily to showcase how tabletop roleplaying games can not only be fun, but can help you to grow as a person.

The beautiful thing about D&D and other roleplaying games, is that you can (if you are able) completely immerse yourself in a completely different individual to your normal self. Think different, behave differently, and make decisions in situations that you would otherwise never encounter in your day to day life.

As a Therapeutic exercise. 

This aspect was one of the major inspirations of my seniors therapy game that I was commissioned to design. The intent was to give seniors the opportunity to practice and hone skills of setting boundaries, practicing self care, and being assertive. In this case, the seniors who would be participating in this program were victims of elder abuse. This program would give them tools to use in their own lives and would also be given the opportunity to practice with these cools in the safe environment of roleplaying games.

In real life, the words you speak to another human being have immediate effect, and unless you are communicating via email or text, you often have only a few seconds to respond in a polite time frame. Additionally, intense circumstances are often forced upon you, and there is no warning when a confrontational situation might happen.

I was told in their traditional program with these vulnerable seniors, that they would roleplay, but it would be in situations where they were involved themselves. By using roleplaying games, people can separate themselves, their feelings, and their own ego and place that onto a character instead. The character is being affected in this situation, not me personally so there is some separation that can then lead to understanding and growth.

In my own experience, I often create my characters with a little piece of myself. It makes it easier to assume the role. Now craft the character with the intent of exploring an aspect of myself and how I can learn to deal with that aspect. For example, a recent concept I was working on was a character that learns how to experience feelings and emotions more. In my own life it has always been a personal roadblock for me, not knowing how to respond in certain situations or how to feel in a healthy way.

Through running and playing tabletop roleplaying games, I've come to realize how many hidden social aspects are involved in it. I could write or speak at length on this topic alone. I'll need to sit down some time and break it all down, the aspects are nearly endless.

A "gaming story" I tried to be as succinct as possible. I know they can be bad at times...

The longest campaign I have participated in thus far, was one that lasted about 2 or 3 years that was Co-DMed. Originally, my good friend was wanted to get into DMing, but wasn't  overly confident with roleplaying NPCs and some of the more mechanical components. He did really enjoy the worldbuilding and plotting aspect forever, so we gathered a group of 6 players together and started off. Once we resolved a significant arc, another player showed interest in DMing and she Co-DMed again with another player in a similar situation. She enjoyed the roleplaying and storytelling, and he was more familiar with the mechanics and worldbuilding. In both cases I felt that it worked out really well over our time together. 

It was in the latter instance when I was given the opportunity to play a character for a long period of time that I learned a major life lesson. While playing, I took on the role of an assimar light cleric, a good-natured being who sought to restore the balance to this new world. Over the course of the story, we met an NPC who had experienced significant trauma, but had masked it and did not let it show. Later on, she suffered more, and the party eventually rescued her. 

Our DM communicated the experience that NPC had and how traumatizing it was. And personally, I have never encountered such a scenario, nor have I provided care for someone who had experienced something this traumatic. I had experienced something similar in my life, but at the time I was not equipped to deal with it effectively.

Through this experience, of someone that was not me but was me acting, and roleplaying, it gave me the opportunity to experience this situation, and learn how to help someone who has recently experienced significant trauma.

(I will be revising and adding more of this in the future... It's been an exhausting week)