This article by TTRPGkids is part of a parallel shared guest post with Thomas Wilson, a Neuro Diversity Specialist, who has written another article on “Keys Elements of Crafting a Sensory-friendly Game Space: From the View of Point of a Sensory-Friendly Game Master”.  You can find both articles on TTRPGkids [here] or Thomas’s website [here].

TTRPGs repeatedly break down the fear of making mistakes

A year or so ago, kiddo started to get a bit upset when trying to draw art from a kid-focused art video because it didn’t match what the person in the show had made… kiddo saw the “mistakes” and got upset and, for a while, didn’t really want to draw.   While no one said the drawing was bad, kiddo got in their head and heart that it was wrong somehow, and, despite talking about the feeling, I think kiddo still needed time to process and feel that. 

I noticed that, after this period kicked off, kiddo also started to get frustrated when not getting the roll they wanted in one of our TTRPGs and became hesitant to make decisions because they didn’t want to make a mistake or have to risk getting another “bad roll”… and I really think it was linked.  Kiddo was working through a fear of making a mistake and having something not come out the way they wanted. 

I slowed down some of our games and gave space for kiddo be a bit more observant and not make decisions while I used NPCs to start taking more action.  I actively showed them making decisions that, quite often, ended in a “failure”.  And I let kiddo, much to their delight, describe this character’s misfortune.  Then the story would continue with all of us dealing with that consequence… and it was fun!  I asked kiddo if we were all OK after the event happened or if anyone had any concerns about it or if we needed to do a check in… and there was never any issue, but kiddo thought about it.  

Slowly, they started to get more involved in the games again, and started doodling up a storm, and, now, a year or so later, our new concern is how to keep up with kiddo needing more notebooks for drawings of their favorite characters or story ideas.  

Being able to observe and experience failure and resilience in the game provided a safe and comfortable space where kiddo could take time to let the gears turn and work out that making a mistake wasn’t going to be the end, so… it became less scary, and kiddo became more confident in the face of something having a possibility of not turning out just the way they wanted.

TTRPGs teach the skill of practicing

Continuing with that time period where kiddo was having some concerns about drawing… another reason that I think a lot of people may lack confidence in something is from not feeling prepared enough or not seeing the path to improvement.  I know I have felt this in my life, especially when starting something that I didn’t have prior experience with (like becoming a parent… and then handling 1 year old parenting concerns… then 2 year old parenting concerns… and so on… it ALWAYS changes).  With kiddo, I think they were also feeling like they wanted their skills to match what was in the video and didn’t have the life XP to really deeply understand how practicing something works. 

While playing TTRPGs may not fully prepare me for what to expect when kiddo is 7 years old OR may not directly teach kiddo how to draw the webs on Spider-Man’s costume perfectly, it does teach the skill of practicing. 

You practice the rules, you practice math, you practice reading, you learn your character by playing them, which is like practicing that character… and all of those skills AND your character’s story, grow over time in front of you!  Iit helps players to understand how to practice something using something very fun, and I think this is REALLY important for young players who are still working on developing that deep understanding of how skill building works and being able to both see and feel it.  This builds confidence by knowing that continuing to try does work and that our process of practice (which includes lots of mistakes and failures) helps us.

TTRPGs promote healthy confidence (versus overconfidence or surface confidence)

I used to teach an intro to engineering course at university, and, for most students, it was during their first semester straight out of high school. 

One of the first assignments was a paper about some of their goals for the class, and quite a few focused on describing their many successes and awards they’d earned before then getting into how they would succeed at this too.  Later in the semester, I would overhear them talking about grades in other classes… and going through a whole slew of emotions when they didn’t always get the academic success they expected on a particular assignment.

For some of my students, they were returning to school after having worked for some time OR they started by talking about what motivated them (like a biomed student being inspired by a relative who needed a treatment that didn’t exist yet).  Their papers were less focused on their past achievements and future academic success and were more focused on what they were looking forward to learning and why… while still coming across as confident.  They came across as more collected, engaged with assignments more, and tended to do better in our project-based class.

The reason I start with this is because the first group of students either seemed very confident or were trying to maybe seem confident because they probably hadn’t really experienced failure and had to deal with that, learn how to recover from it, or consider that they could “fail” at something.  In the second group, they could adjust and knew that stuff might not always work out and needed activity. 

And TTRPGs teach this!

We see our decked out, amazing characters getting low rolls that, no matter how much we prepared, cannot be controlled or countered.  We watch that happen live and also see how that can become part of a story and lead to facing personal challenges or growth in the face of conflict.  We repeatedly watch as this part of self that we have put onto the game table is imperfect over and over again, and we love them for it because they are this fun story that we can see in the 3rd person and tell with our friends.  It’s real life lessons about resilience displayed for us to face and learn from.

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