Your Brain on D&D

How Tabletop Role-Playing Games Support Mental Health

I had the astounding pleasure of getting to sit down with Shelly Mazzanoble, the author of the outstanding newsletter Middle-Aged Lady Mom and Senior Brand Manager at Wizards of the Coast, the parent company for the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons.

I started playing Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) for the first time last year, and I have been floored by the positive impact it’s had on my own mental health. I thought that maybe I wasn’t the only one who felt this way, so I sat down with Shelly to talk more about how role-playing games can benefit well-being.

What we talked about…

• How we both got started playing D&D as adults: “That is me in this fantasy world and I love her and I want to be her.”

• How role-playing games accelerate friendships and foster community: “The way that we're connecting on the storytelling level, that's how humans have connected since the beginning of time.”

• How role-playing lets us practice new ways of being and confront (real and metaphorical) demons: “It's been an incredible growth experience to just play a character who is just not about trying to make everyone happy all the time.”

• How to get started playing D&D: “Especially as adults, we tend to lose the opportunity to play and this gives it back to you.”

I finally know what all these dice are for. Photo by Joe Maldonado on Unsplash

How did you start playing Dungeons & Dragons?

Shelly: When I was working at Wizards of the Coast, I started at working on our other brand Magic the Gathering. And I knew the D&D people were somewhere in the building, but I didn't really know anything about D&D other than they’re probably conjuring spells. They use strange dice. They leave words with way too many consonants and apostrophes on the whiteboards. That's all I knew about D&D.

And then Wizards launched a children's book imprint, and I got a job on that team, and it was technically part of the D&D team.

But I still didn't play. And that was because I was still very resistant. I'm not a fantasy fan. I didn't read Lord of the Rings a hundred times. My coworkers did. The Princess Bride's not my favorite movie. I'm sorry, it's not. I know, it is shocking. I just was the opposite of what I thought a D&D player would be.

And eventually I had a manager that said, “I don't think you know how to play D&D.” So she set me up in a group with five other people.

All I knew was I wanted to be an elf and I want to blow stuff up with magic. Back then when you try to make a character and know nothing about D&D, it seems like it takes you days to make this character. And really the Dungeon Master [the game facilitator] was doing everything for me. And then at the end of that meeting, he handed me this mini [a figurine of your character that you use in the game]. I still have her. Astrid Bellagio, named after the Bellagio Casino in Las Vegas.

I thought, That's me. That is me in this fantasy world and I love her and I want to be her.

So it's been just a love affair ever since. I’m just dedicated to making sure other people know there's not a stereotypical D&D player anymore. Maybe there was in 1980 maybe, but there's not now. Everybody can play D&D.

Taylor: My entry point was video games. Last year when the Dungeons & Dragons video game, Baldur’s Gate 3, came out, I went crazy for it. And so that got me thinking, would I actually like to play the game this is based on?

And I was like, I have no idea where I would even start. I just had in my head a stereotype of who D&D players were, and I thought they wouldn't be people that would want me to come play with them. There wouldn't be other women my age playing this game.

And then I think I started watching some D&D games online. I started watching Critical Role, and Dimension 20, and that was when it hit me. I was like, oh, this is improv. I was like, oh, this isn't just combat. It is a storytelling game. It's a theater game. And so then I was just like, okay, I'm going to try. I'm going to do it.

I found a game online with a paid dungeon master. And I just showed up one Monday night, and now these people are among my closest friends. I will say we have a particularly magical group of people. And it's been one of the best experiences of my adult life.

How do role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons help with social connections and building community?

Shelly: Within 10 minutes of playing my first game, we were laughing so hard. These were people I barely knew, but I was already feeling this connection to them. We were just making up these really funny stories. We were coming up with funny backstories on the fly.

It’s so above and beyond, let's get together and have some drinks and let's get together and watch sports, all of which are great social activities, and I do those. It goes so far beyond that because of the connections that you're making at the table. You're having these amazing experiences that feel like, did that really happen?

The cleric in that game ended up being the officiant at my wedding. We were hosting each other's baby showers, and these were people that I just would not have really connected with and we're all still very connected.

I think especially as adults, it's just harder obviously for adults to make friends. When you're a parent, your world becomes very much centered around kids, as it should. But it's like your activities become, these are kid-based activities and your interactions become with other parents.

But in D&D, you skip a few steps in the whole, “how do I connect with these people?” It's like an accelerant to building a friendship. Because the way that we're connecting on the storytelling level, that's how humans have connected since the beginning of time.

Taylor: Yeah, and I think D&D provides that sense of a community where you're going to see each other regularly, you're going to interact regularly and you're going to do it in a way that is creative.

You're going to come together to create something. So it's not just coming together to hang out. It's coming together to build something new, which is not, I think a lot of other people have creative hobbies that are social, like they play in a band, but I had never had a hobby like that as an adult. For me maybe we'd go to the gym together or go to the beach together or go see a show. But coming together to create something builds a different kind of appreciation for the other person.

How do role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons help with personal development and mental health?

Shelly: Dr. Megan Connell is a great resource. She's a clinical psychologist and a therapeutic dungeon master. She formed a group of tween to upper teen girls, with the very specific goal of teaching them how to say no, how to build confidence and the importance of female friendships.

Dr. Megan also was the first one who told me that a lot of people create characters that are very much like themselves. It's just a fantasy version of you. And a lot of people create characters that are the opposite of themselves, and maybe you're doing it deliberately, but most of the time that's just what you're gravitating towards. And I did notice in the very beginning, Astrid, my first character was very much like me.

I'm not a risk taker. As an adult, I'm like, I don't need to do that. I did whitewater rafting once. I'm good.

And now, I have started playing these characters that are very impetuous that take lots of risks. They don't have good judgment. They're not thoughtful about what they do. They just go out there and this feels good. This feels right. I'm going to try to do this.

And as somebody who is a control freak in real life, and how much I feel like I have to manage everything all the time, it feels so good to just for two hours a week to just be like, I don't care. I'm going in guys. I'm just going to say the wrong thing to the guard. I'm just like, oops, I didn't watch my step, it's amazing.

To me it's like I don't really get to do that in real life and I shouldn't do that in real life, and that's fine, but it feels really good to just be able to take some risks and deal with the consequences. I think the real me is afraid of consequences, but I don't have those worries in D&D and being able to cut loose and just deal with wherever the cards may fall, it feels really good.

Taylor: When I made my first character, based on the things I was putting together for a backstory, she was kind of not always a people pleaser. She would say no and be rude and would disagree with other people and maybe not do what they wanted her to do sometimes.

And that shocked me. That is not me, or at least, it’s a part of me I rarely express. And this was, I don't know, it's been an incredible growth experience to just play a character who is just not about trying to make everyone happy all the time and who isn't afraid of conflict. It is liberating, and it really challenges me and pushes me. It's this character that I get to pretend to be, and in that character I can kind of test out different ways of saying no and not being nice and not doing the thing that someone wants me to do. And it's been amazing.

Shelly: It's just like D&D is, a lot of people use it as a place for self-discovery to try out, I mean, pretty major things like gender identity. They will see what it's like to exist in a world as a female-presenting character.

People will work through trauma. When you're confronting a creature, or any kind of opponent, it’s like they're learning how to confront--I don't want to get too metaphorical, but, confront their demons. The demons in the game and the demons in real life. But I've known a lot of people who have worked through significant trauma. They probably also have a therapist -- it's not just like, oh, I don't need therapy, I just need D&D. But taking some of those tools that they are learning in therapy and applying them to their character and game.

A lot of times it goes hand in hand. Roleplaying is not new to therapy and this is just a roleplaying game that a lot of therapists are now starting to incorporate, especially when working with kids.

How would someone get started playing role-playing games?

Shelly: So I would say if you ask around in your social group, you will probably be surprised that either A) somebody already has a group and they're like, oh, yeah, you should join us. Or B) there's another person who says, I've wanted to play too. Let's do this. Or C) you will find somebody who played in the seventies, eighties or nineties and will say, okay, I'll be your dungeon master [game facilitator].

If you have a local game shop nearby, they may also have D&D groups and they often have D&D groups for new people.

There are also many online resources, like Start Playing.

Taylor: Yeah that’s what I used.

Shelly: There's great tools like D&D Beyond where if you create an account for free, you'll have access to the character builder.

If you have kids, if you can find a D&D group for them, either at their school, at a local game store or other kids that are playing, even if they think they're playing it wrong, it doesn't matter. D&D is such a great tool for kids, for their social skills, for their social development, for keeping them off screens and interacting in person with each other and learning social cues. It's such a great teaching tool that they have no idea they're learning because they think they're just playing a game. But it's also a great confidence booster.

It’s such a good outlet. It's such a good release for people, and especially as adults, we tend to lose the opportunity to play and this gives it back to you.

***

Thank you for joining me for this conversation with Shelly Mazzanoble! I had such a blast talking about D&D, community and mental health.

What hobbies have supported your own mental health and well-being? Have you ever tried a role-playing game like D&D? I would love to hear your thoughts.

Stay curious,

Dr. Taylor Allbright