Critical Roleplay: Using Your D&D Character for Therapy // Steven Pope

As part of our guest-edited month, “D&D and Creativity,” Steven Pope has shared an essay about the strange therapeutic nature of role play.

Since its release in the 1970s, Dungeons and Dragons has asked its players two very important questions: What do you want to be, and what do you want to do?

The game’s goal has walked an existential tight-rope, running between the ideas of“you hero, dragon bad, go fight big monster” to “how much of yourself do you plan on investing in your fictional elf?” The self-proclaimed World’s Best Roleplaying Game has been a major investment for players and storytellers alike. The biggest draw, though, comes from the idea of playing your character.Everyone has to grow up, everyone has issues, everyone needs a little bit of therapy, and that’s exactly why everyone should make a character in Dungeons and Dragons.

I’ve been playing Dungeons and Dragons for over a decade now. I showed up at my college’s gaming club and sat down with some strangers and, for five hours, proceeded to fumble through making aHalf-Elf Paladin. His intelligence was low, his charisma was high, and he was capable of healing and hurting in equal measure. I was in love. We played into the wee hours of the morning and I staggered into my dorm room bleary-eyed and excited to play the following week.What I didn’t realize was that I had built myself an escape.

At the time, I was dealing with an ill family member, along with my own mental health issues and being a closet-case in a pre-Obama America.I didn’t know what I was doing. But, my Half-Elf, he knew exactly what he was doing. He was unabashedly romantic and brave—two thingsI certainly was not—and believed in something bigger than himself. In order to comprehend something complicated, I created something simple: the hero I desperately wanted to be.

Jungian psychology isn’t necessary to see what’s going on here. We make a character, a mask, in order to cope with things in a safe space. If my Half-Elf got hurt or rejected, I’d be fine, because that was him, not me. Having that barrier let me grow as a person at the gaming table and away from it. It was a crash course for me on bravery and hard decision-making that, to this day, I don’t think I could’ve gotten without that character. Fake it til you make it, as the saying goes.

Character creation is an incredibly vulnerable and revealing process. This isn’t to say that there’s always something deeper—sometimes a cigar is a cigar and an orc is an orc—but the logic behind the choices is endlessly fascinating. Sometimes, people make characters who intentionally don’t go with the party. They make characters who are wounded and hurt and slow to trust. Some people make wise and brilliant people, who are lauded and listened to. Others make charismatic leaders who love and are loved in return. Everyone makes something that they want to play, and in a sense, want to be. You want to be this kind of person, or at least walk a mile in their shoes. No one makes a character that they don’t want to embody for several hours.

Making the character, though, is only half of the process. Playing them is where you start to learn about them and yourself. You learn how some situations don’t sit right with you, and you learn to empathize with those that have different viewpoints. Of course, the game does a good job of making it clear that there are some things that don’t deserve your patience or empathy, going so far as to have some creatures literally labeled as Chaotic Evil with gleeful descriptors of their misdeeds. Despite that, you can still learn why some people do genuinely despicable things. It’s a transformative experience, realizing that the character you made, the character you love and think so highly of, could be the villain in another person’s story. One could argue that these are all basic skills of empathy a person picks up as they grow, but where can you find a completely safe space to do such a thing?

The intimacy of your character coupled with the safety of the gaming table creates a magic that can’t really be replicated. People leave gaming tables with life-long friends and an understanding of themselves that they simply didn’t have when they started. I have seen people realize their gender, sexuality, and more at the table. The game is revelatory and healing at the same time.

Right now, I’m playing a Titan-blooded Barbarian. He’s a supporter of the downtrodden. He acts before he thinks and has a big heart. He honestly believes that love can save the day and that throwing a punch isn’t always an evil act. In short, he’s the guy on Twitter throwing lots of money at people’s GoFundMe’s while punching Nazi sympathizers on the Metro. I began playing him at the beginning of the Trump presidency, and he has acted as a moral guide and goalpost for my own actions over the past several years. As he has levelled up, I’ve gotten better. That’s the power of character creation.

Steven Pope was born outside Sacramento, California, only to escape to Savannah, Georgia and then escape again to the Los Angeles area. He’s on several podcasts including Uncanny Valley and Games We Never Play, and streams on Saving Throw Show. He still defends 4th Edition D&D.