Can playing a fantasy character improve your sense of self? Welcome to Gaining Advantage. 

Welcome to Gaining Advantage. We are using tabletop roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons to help you make lives better. We have a couple of new supplements that are available. First of all, the Gods of Andovir. This is a pantheon for our accesspunk world of Andovir. You can use it in your campaign as well and it is free. Instead of focusing on all different aspects of the world in different ways, it focuses instead on community and benefiting others versus selfishness and competition. Now, all the different spheres that are typical for a cleric and that are available connect with them. It is a different take on how to use a D&D Pantheon. I hope you like it. There is a link in the show notes so you can get it for free. We are going to expand on that in a future supplement. It is going to be a while before we get there. I encourage you to check it out and we would love your feedback. 
Also, we have a new character class available. This one is available to our patrons. It is called the Ardent. We were taking a look at the barbarian. It has some problematic aspects. The name itself is a racial slur. It is built on a lot of racist stereotypes of indigenous cultures. While the 2024 version has gotten rid of a lot of that, we wanted to start fresh with something new. It is not just a replacement of the barbarian. Rather, when we were creating Limitless Heroics, especially when we were discussing the emotional aspects of traits like bipolar experiences and depression, we talked a lot about how different emotions are not positive or negative since they are all important. Some are more pleasurable. Some are more uncomfortable. But they are all necessary. They all serve a purpose. We wanted to create a class that emphasizes the importance of each of the core emotions that all of our other emotions are built on. Those are anger, happiness, disgust, surprise, fear, sadness. So you create a character. We have a subclass for each one of those core emotions. There are other emotions that are built on that within the subclass. You can still rage with the anger one. Instead of rage, there are other emotional expressions. We took a look at that and said, "How are these beneficial and how would that play out in the game?" With that said, you can check that out, link in the show notes. 
Let's get on with our interview. 

Today we are talking with PhD candidate Alyssia Merrick about the real-life impact that Dungeons & Dragons can have on our mental health and sense of self. Alyssia's research explores how tabletop roleplaying games can be more than just entertainment, offering powerful ways to support well-being. Welcome, Alyssia. 

Awesome. Thank you for having me. 

What would you like us to know about you personally, specifically speaking to the tabletop gaming crowd? 

Well, I'd like to reassure everyone that while I am a researcher and an academic in this field, I personally love tabletop roleplaying games. I have been playing them for so many years, ever since I was in high school. I want to make sure that everyone, even if they haven't played or they have years of experience, gets to be able to advocate for this game in all sorts of ways. 

That's great. It's strangely important to say that. I've talked to a lot of academics in the field of game studies, and every one of them got into game studies because they love it. Yet, at the same time, I've also run into a lot of people that are skeptical. I imagine you may have encountered that as well. 

Definitely. At least with my coworkers, they basically stepped into this research not knowing anything going into it. It's been great to educate people and have them turn around and say, "Hey, can you run us a game? We want to play and understand what you want to do." 

Tell us about your research and what you discovered. 

My research is just starting out, I guess, fairly new. We're looking at specifically Dungeons & Dragons at the moment because it is the most popular game that is available. How we can use it as a non-pharmaceutical method to improve mental health? It's a big thing in Australia. We have a lot of regional communities, so not everyone has access to the internet or access to facilities where they can acquire mental health support. We're trying to at least provide a way that they have a rulebook that we can give to them and say, "Hey, look, this is how you play the game, and this is a way that you can help improve your mental health through this creativity that is easy to learn and easy to access." Our research has started laying the foundations to proving or at least giving some sort of evidence towards the fact that D&D has some sort of mental health facilitation. We can start seeing improvements in people's mental health, whether that be purely from these social aspects or whether there's something more in-depth that D&D is able to facilitate. 

Wow. Okay. You bring to mind for me a conversation I had a number of years ago with a teenager who, after we had started a multi-generational Dungeons & Dragons group connected with a mentoring program that I was involved in, and he said, "I really need a therapist," and he struggled with a whole bunch of different mental illness traits and diagnoses, but he said, "Because of our insurance, we don't have a therapist nearby whom our insurance takes. And so it's too far, so I can't get the therapy that I need. However, just knowing D&D night is coming," he said, "That's how I get through the week." And he said, "It's not the same as therapy, but it really makes a difference for me." 

Yeah. 

So for you to say, sort of a non-pharmaceutical, that was exactly his situation. And I commented, I shared that story with people, and some people got really nervous about that. "Now you're sort of stepping over the line there, you're turning it into therapy, and you're not a licensed therapist." 

Yeah. 

So yeah, I could see, and of course that's not what I meant, but there's that concern. So tell me more about what you've discovered, where you're going with it. 

Yeah, so at the moment we've worked out that about eight weeks of D&D's play, this was involving not a therapeutically designed intervention, this was just a base intervention that we created. After those eight weeks, we found participants were improving, so that their symptoms of anxiety, depression, and stress were all decreasing. And then their self-esteem and their self-efficacy were improving. So we found that mental health was going down, which is always good, we like to see that. And then sense of self was improving, which is really great to see. And so we're kind of continuing this field of research, trying to, I guess, look at D&D as a base product, rather than looking at it from therapeutically inclined modules, and seeing what this has to offer specifically. Our next research is kind of looking more in depth of how is it currently being used by community organizations to promote wellness. Basically, what is out there already for people to access, and what do those people need in order to receive more funding and be able to broaden these projects. And then we're also looking more in depth about the aspect of character. How important is the NPC or the PC, the player character, that they're playing to their mental health? Does it have an effect on the way that they're able to interact with the intervention? 

Well, it's fascinating to think about playing a fictional character that helps you improve your sense of self. 

Yes, definitely. One of the things we're looking at in particular is, you know, are people making characters that are like themselves, or are they trying to like completely subvert what their normal aspects are.

Yeah. So you just brought to mind, you know, with Halloween being, as we're recording this, it probably is for you right now. 

Yes. 

But, you know, we just watched, every year we watch Charlie Brown, The Great Pumpkin, and the line that just really struck me this year was when Lucy puts on the witch mask and says, "You should play, you should dress as something that's a direct opposite of your personality." And, you know, the irony of that. 

Yes. 

So, yeah, we just talked about, you know, what kind of character do you play, and how does that affect things? And, yeah, you know, I've played characters that were, I feel like all the characters I play have a little bit of me, whether intentional or not. But, no, absolutely. And it does make you think about who you are. 

Yeah.

Yeah. So, oh, that's so cool. Alright. So, did anything in the study surprise you about how mental health changed over time? 

Yeah. So one thing that I guess kind of surprised all of us coming into this research was we thought, you know, maybe only those people who have experience with the system already will get those mental health benefits because, you know, they're not having to learn new rules and those sorts of things. But we actually include a measure that assesses people's knowledge of D&D. So they can kind of say, you know, "Oh, I've been playing for three months," or "I've been playing for multiple years," or "I'm brand new." And we found that no matter their experience with Dungeons & Dragons, they all felt the improvements of participating, which was really good to see. So it is kind of something that, at least we feel a little better handing to someone fresh and being able to say, "Look, you might receive some benefits from this." But we can also look at people that have maybe played for, you know, plenty of years back in the 90s and say, "Hey, look, there's a couple changes in how this game runs. But we expect that, you know, you might receive some benefits from it." 

Yeah, no, that's an important test of control groups and things and helps kind of eliminate some of those questions. And it's interesting that sort of the benefit doesn't decrease over time. You know, it's not, "Oh, hey, this is so new and fresh and interesting," or something like that. But even though I've definitely found that as a player who's a long-term player, playing like the adult group that I play with right now, we've got someone who is pretty new to the game. And it's interesting playing alongside him and seeing the game through his eyes and recognizing what a different experience it is. And so to see that either way, you still get those benefits, even though you experience the game differently. That's really interesting. So how do you see games like D&D fitting into a bigger picture of supporting people's mental health? 

Yes, ideally, we'd love to be able to provide enough research to the point where we can, you know, go out to communities that don't have access to either professionals or medications or whatever it is they need, and be able to hand them, I guess, a stack of paper and some dice and say, "Hey, look, we can teach you how to play this, and you just need to sit around the table," or even on the floor, just roll some dice, put on a silly voice, you know, just let go and be able to have some fun. Especially for adults, I find adults in particular don't know how to have fun a lot of the time. They don't think they can allow time for games. It seems very childish when we ask people to play, but play even for animals, right? It's beneficial for everyone, and so we need to keep encouraging it, you know? People need to clock off from their 9 to 5, sit down at a table for a couple hours, and pretend to be an elf, right? That's all we're asking. So I'd love to see people, you know, engaging with this hobby, letting down their barriers all over Australia and globally, if we can, and just be able to acknowledge that they need to take time for themselves, but also acknowledge that social aspect and the creativity that comes with the game, and see maybe it might have some benefits for themselves. Again, it took us eight weeks to see any changes, but that's two months to play a game. Surely it can't cause that much harm. 

You know, that's such a great point that it is hard in, I think, in a lot of cultures, certainly in our culture, that because we put so much emphasis on work and productivity and things like that, I mean, I can say that it's easier for me to play, even though it's like the thing that I love to do. It's easier for me when I say, "Well, I have to do it for work. I've got this company." And so finding ways to do that. Maybe if you go, "Well, I don't have time." Okay, you need this. You will be more productive at work. You'll be more, you know, all of the life in general. You take some time to play make believe. 

Yes, exactly. I run a community group up where I am, basically run out of the university. And it is so great seeing students, you know, have to attend lectures and write assignments all day. And then for a couple hours in the evening, they get to just be goofy and have fun. And you can see the stress basically just drop off or something. Yeah. So let's just explore that a little bit too. 

Now, I know you're still kind of early in the research and there's the whole sort of correlation and causation. But what do you think are the kind of the big factors that, like, where is that benefit coming from? 

So we're kind of, I guess, starting to bring, I guess, base psychological theories into the world of tabletop roleplaying games and sort of seeing where there's already commonalities. In particular, myself and other researchers that I've met in this field, we're sort of looking at, you know, self-determination theory and also flow theory. So flow theory is basically when you're getting in the flow with something, right? You're so engaged in what you're participating in that the outside world just doesn't seem to matter. You know, you're not thinking about politics or whatever's going on. You're thinking about what's happening in this game. You've got to slay this dragon, which people can find in a variety of games, but in particular, we found it with D&D. And then self-determination theory looks at, you know, how important, you know, relatedness is with other people and autonomy that you have in yourself and how those kind of boosts the way that you as a person are able to function. And so in D&D, you're able to, you know, interact with the game freely. There are some rules, but they're fairly, you know, lenient and you are kind of able to communicate with others, work as a team and also show that you're actively achieving goals, right? You're getting immediate feedback. And if things aren't working out, then you are in a team. There is a support structure in order to improve, which is really great to see. So I think with those two theories at least kind of combining and they do interlock quite a bit, although I could go on a complete tangent about that. We're seeing, you know, if we can kind of manipulate those aspects in just a regular game of D&D, like people don't even realizing they're participating in it, then we could potentially move towards some psychosocial benefits. 

Wow. That's so great. I've recently been thinking about what if business meetings could be run in a tabletop role playing structure? 

Yeah. I mean, I have a friend who runs games of D&D for like companies to do like team building exercises, that sort of stuff. It's great to see that it is becoming more normalized. 

Along with kind of all just speculative fiction and all that kind of all has that benefit of being able to take a problem and sort of step outside of it and look at it from a completely different angle and say, you know, how do we solve this? All right. So if this thing were this fantasy situation and we were warlocks and paladins or whatever, like how would we handle it then? And then to be able to then to just sort of step out of all of the, because we've got all these methods that we use and, you know, the standard and all of a sudden you say, okay, no, it's a completely different context. Now how would you do it? You know, and while they still are bringing your skills into it, but you're taking a fresh look at it and looking at it through a completely different lens. So that it becomes like, okay, just to be able to use those analogies. 

Yeah, I have had conversations with someone who's part of the community group that I run. And they sort of anecdotally said, you know, to them with some of their like past traumas, they weren't able to kind of properly process them. But they made a character that had those traumas sort of personified as enemies, and they were able to engage in a combat and sort of quantify their feelings. And then once they completed that combat and sort of seen that they as a character were able to defeat this enemy, they felt a lot better about their own like personal trauma looking back at it. You know, they'd already defeated it one way or another. 

Wow, that's great. All right, so you just rescued djinni from the hands of an efreeti and it offers you three wishes to help you achieve your goals to improve lives. What do you wish for? 

Okay, I wish for more people to just give tabletop gaming and play a shot. People just need to take that one step. Just have one trial. And if you don't like it, that's okay. Like no harm done. No money wasted. So that's definitely wish number one. That's my main thing. Second wish. Oh gosh, I'm going to have to say I wish there was more sort of acknowledgement in this area. I wish people, I guess, kind of let go of past stigmas that sort of revolved around tabletop gaming and be able to acknowledge that yes, that is potentially some benefits. Even maybe put some funding towards it. That would be great. Because it is marvelous what we can start to do in this sort of world. And then wish number three. I don't know. Is it kind of a bit too much to ask that my PhD goes smoothly?

That is legitimate. 

Yeah, I mean, if all of this research pans out, then I'd love to see people being able to access this research, be able to read the benefits and then hopefully, at least myself, academically, I can move forward and keep outputting this sort of research that can hopefully benefit people in the future. 

Yeah, and you know, it's really important to say that is not a selfish wish at all. I mean, obviously, you'll personally benefit from it, right? But you're doing it for a reason. You're doing it because you're improving lives. You're trying to help people out. And we recently moved to the Colorado Rockies and all of the towns around here are just because you have to kind of snake around between mountains to get from place to place. The towns are very isolated. It's kind of like living on an island. And so, yeah, there's big chunks of town where there is no internet just because the mountains are in the way of the towers. And just plus there's a lot of isolation. And so, when you talk about people not having access to things, yeah, this is super important. But I mean, for that matter, you don't have to live in some isolated location for that to be true either. I mean, in a lot of ways, I feel more connected here just because of the small town people been really welcoming and stuff. Whereas you can live in a big metropolitan area and everyone's so focused on, you know, on kind of their own issues and stuff like that, that everyone's isolated, even though you're sort of shoulder to shoulder with people. 

There's so, you know, all the things you're talking about, you know, to be able to say, hey, this is just going to help everyone. And there's just so many benefits to say, really like to get some more research, more, you know, look, here's the proof. This is good stuff. We need to do more of this. Yeah, no, absolutely. That's just so important. So really appreciate the work that you're doing. 

Thank you. 

All right. So what one message would you like to give to someone who is new to tabletop roleplaying games, but curious about how they can improve their quality of life? 

I think the message that I give to a lot of people that are new is literally just let your walls down, give it a shot. No one is judging you when you play, especially not a new player. And if you find maybe the system that you start with doesn't work out for you, try something different. I know a lot of people attach to different systems because they each have their own benefits. And it is really just a try until you like it system. All of TTRPGs. It's a wonderful and for the most part welcoming community. And I do wholly endorse it. 

And that's a really important point. You talk about using D&D because it's the most popular, but there are literally thousands of different tabletop games out there. Some are really complicated and some are the entire game is on one side of a page. And it's that simple. And so, yeah, if you find too many rules intimidating, then there's stuff out there for you. If you really need a lot of structure, there's stuff out there for you too. And also, there's plenty of people in the tabletop gaming community that if you're not sure what you're looking for or where to find it, they'd be happy to help you do that. 

Yeah, exactly. There's one thing that our community group did where I think for about two months of the year, we do what we like to call Try A System nights where basically twice a week for a couple hours each night, we just do a different system. And it's a one-shot completely run in that system. It's premade characters. You just rock up at a table. You quickly learn the rules and you start playing just to see, you know, does this work? Does this not work? And it's been great seeing people's horizons just broaden and being able to say, you know, well, I thought I really liked D&D and then they play something new and they're like, no, this is the system for me. I actually really like, you know, slaying Cthulhu. This is what I want. So it's really great. I do encourage people to just try. 

All right. And so what one message would you like to give to longtime players who'd like to improve their own or a friend's mental health through tabletop roleplaying games? 

I think for a lot of people that are experienced with the system and might call themselves, you know, veterans in the gaming community, there needs to be a bigger sense of camaraderie. We need to be able to adapt to new technologies and new ways to play the game. I know a lot of new people that try out the system for the first time want to break the rules. They want to sort of, you know, push outside the box and we need to encourage that because that is sort of where they're almost challenging their own brain and being able to reap those benefits. And I do also think, you know, just being able to offer someone you or someone you're potentially friends with that may not have been as experienced in the system, being able to offer them the chance to engage with the games and be able to play, that is just beautiful to let it happen and to see that person evolve. And like realistically, we're trying to show that the game as its core can improve mental health. So just allowing people that space to sort of play with maybe their past trauma in a more safe environment and allow them to connect with you in a particular way is that's what we want to focus on. You know, we don't need a rules lawyer or anything. We just need to like let everyone have their fun, have their moment and just, I guess, encourage that fun that people are having. Yeah, really foster it. 

Fantastic. All right. So what projects are you working on that you can talk about? 

What I can talk about very soon, we're starting on basically looking at community organizations and the like and psychologists who are using these programs and, you know, what they need support in for promoting these programs. And also, you know, any advice they have for those that wish to run these programs and then their own, I guess, observed benefits. So we want to, you know, kind of quantify, you know, who's getting the benefits already, who they think could be receiving these benefits. So how can we broaden, I guess, the impact that this is already having. And then also, you know, what, I guess, governmental support structures that are out there to encourage these programs. While this project is mostly like Australia based because that's where I am, we're really hoping to see this sort of research kind of trickle out globally, so that we're able to support everywhere. Ideally, I'd love to see the globe kind of all unify on this one thing. So that's a big project that's kind of coming up very soon. And then we are in the future working on a, I guess, like randomized control trials, we are getting a control group in there. And then two active groups to play some D&D and really kind of assess the nitty-gritty about how it is affecting mental health, not only through statistics, but also through interviews, so that people can have more freeform discussions about the benefits they had, and also how they think their characters that they've designed have sort of influenced the benefits that they got. So that we can really outline for practitioners and also for community members what might be the things that are specifically correlating with mental health improvement. 

Yeah, and with all of the role play therapy that's being done, I mean, we've got therapists that are on our team and I've heard from so many others that are using it. So yeah, to be able to say, look, here's some data to help you streamline what you're doing and maybe tweak things so that, yes, what you're doing is already wonderful and effective. Here's how you can do it even better. 

Yeah. 

I've had community organizations reach out to me and one member on the team has suggested D&D, but no one else knows what it is. And so I've kind of been brought on to be like, hey, can you actually tell us what this is and what the benefits are? So I'd love to be able to put together even just a couple pages, like a flyer of, hey, someone on your team wants you to play D&D. Well, here's actually all the reasons why they want you to do this so that we can kind of reach a lot of people all at once. It would be great. 

Yeah. All right. So we will have all your contact information in our show notes. Where's the one best place you'd like people to start to learn more about you or to contact you? 

I think Facebook is usually my best spot to reach out to me. I do have a Facebook page, which I've linked across. We will be advertising our studies up there for anyone who is Australia based that's listening in. But definitely if you have suggestions for me and my research, that is the best spot to reach out to me. I also am in a bunch of Facebook groups and Discord and Reddit pages. So if any, if my name or my research gets mentioned anywhere, it usually gets tagged along to the site. We'll probably see whatever is said. But I do honestly really encourage people to reach out, whether it's to offer advice or even just to say the benefits that D&D has had. If you can have any anecdotal stories, I really appreciate it to be able to promote this research. I really target those people that might be interested in assisting with the research, but need that proof that I'm trying to quantify. 

Yeah. All right. Well, Alyssia, thank you so much for coming in our show. This is fantastic. And check out those links in the show notes. 

Alyssia, thank you so much. That was just such a fun interview. So glad to have you here. And I hope that everyone enjoyed that as much as I did. Like a huge thank you to all of our patrons, especially our new ones. I appreciate you so much. Big thanks to Sheryl Knowles & Craig Schwalenberg. Your ongoing support gives us the encouragement that we need to keep up this work. And because of the support that we get from our Patreon, we are able to give away over $500 each month in free products to those who can't afford them, making our work accessible to everyone. 

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