Gotta love the title of this paper: “A critical hit: Dungeons and Dragons as a buff for autistic people“. Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is a tabletop roleplaying game where a small group of people each play characters adventuring in an imaginary world run by the dungeon master (DM). (That explanation was probably not necessary for the majority of readers here, but just to be thorough.) The game has just celebrated its 50th anniversary, which was even commemorated by official US stamps.

The game certainly has a very different reputation today than it did in the 70s and 80s. Back then it was seen as the exclusive domain of extreme geeks and nerds, mostly males who needed a distraction from the fact that they had no chance of finding a girlfriend. This was never true, but that was the reputation. In the 80s things got even worse, with D&D being tied to the “satanic panic” of that decade. The game was blamed, mostly by fundamentalist religious groups, for demon worship, witchcraft, and resulting in suicides and murder. I still remember when the school board in our town had a debate about whether or not the game should be banned from school grounds. The adults having the conversation had literally no idea what they were talking about, and filled the gaps in their knowledge with their own vivid imaginations.

In reality D&D and similar roleplaying games are perfectly wholesome and have a lot of positive attributes. First, they are extremely social. They are especially good for people who may find social interactions challenging or at least very demanding. While roleplaying you are in a social safe-space, where you can let aspects of your personality out to play. The game is also mostly pure imagination. Other than a few aids, like dice for random outcome generation, maps and figures, the adventure takes place in the minds of the players, helped along by the GM. The game can therefore help people develop social connections and social skills, and to learn more about themselves and close friends.

When you get deeper into the game (and for older players), especially when you DM, the game is very creative. It can involved various knowledge and skills sets, such as history, literature, geology and geography, culture, language, art, and whatever science you want to use to add depth and flavor to your game. For example, I learned a great deal about the nature and structure of language from an article in Dragon Magazine, written by a linguist, designed to help DMs write more believable and realistic fake languages. The game can also be very tactical – literally simulating combat in any scenario imaginable.

Over this same time psychologists and therapists have realized the potential benefits of roleplaying in the therapy setting. Roleplaying can be used to do cognitive behavioral therapy, teach new skills, identify negative patterns, build confidence, and even treat trauma.

So it is no surprise that today roleplaying, including games like D&D, are being studied for their potential therapeutic benefits. The autistic population also makes sense as a target for this approach. The study essentially had autistic subjects play D&D with a researcher acting as DM for 6 weeks. They were then interviewed to explore their experience and any potential effects. Study author Dr Gray Atherton, says about the results:

“There are many myths and misconceptions about autism, with some of the biggest suggesting that those with it aren’t socially motivated, or don’t have any imagination. Dungeons and Dragons goes against all that, centering around working together in a team, all of which takes place in a completely imaginary environment. Those taking part in our study saw the game as a breath of fresh air, a chance to take on a different persona and share experiences outside of an often-challenging reality. That sense of escapism made them feel incredibly comfortable, and many of them said they were now trying to apply aspects of it in their daily lives.”

This simultaneously confronts potential misconceptions about autism and roleplaying games. Many autistic people are very social, they just find it very demanding and challenging to navigate social interactions. So they have a desire they find hard to satisfy, which can be frustrating and isolating. Roleplaying games gives them the opportunity to have the social interaction they crave, in a manageable small group, in a semi-structured format they find easier to handle. This gives them the opportunity to build social skills and confidence they otherwise would not have.

Of course, these potential benefits can apply to everyone. Public speaking really is the number one fear in the world, affecting up to 75% of people by some surveys. Roleplaying can build confidence in performing in front of others, and not panicking when the spotlight is on you. Live action roleplaying (LARP) games can give you this experience in front of larger audiences, with the “protection” of playing, not yourself, but another character. I have experienced this myself, and attribute part of my ease with public speaking to my LARPing experience.

Having lived through the 50 year arc of roleplaying games as an active participant, I am happy to see it now being celebrated for its many positive aspects, and having shed much of the shame and stigma previously attached to it. This is probably largely because today’s adults likely played the game when they were younger. The simple fear of the unknown is no longer very relevant. Also, D&D has benefited from the overall rise in geek culture. There are extremely popular shows like Stranger Things, which features a group of kids, bonding over D&D, translating skills they learned in the game to deal with real-life monsters and mysteries.

I also hope that studies like this one will increase the application of roleplaying games to help the autistic community deal with the challenges they face.

Side note: In this article I refer to “autistic people” rather than following the more common format of “people with autism”. This is at the request of people in the autism community, who see themselves not as “typical people with autism” but “neurodiverse autistic people”. It is not something they have, but central to who they are.