How Games Can Grow Our Capacity for Connection

The intentional therapeutic application of tabletop role-playing games can help youth develop the Core Capacities of social connection: Regulation, Collaboration, Planning, Perspective, and Pretend Play.

By Adam Davis, Executive Director of Game to Grow

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Game to Grow team partnered with researchers at foundry10 to evaluate the social and emotional learning that occurred during our tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) groups for youth. For about a decade, we’d been hearing from parents that our groups have supported their children to become more confident, creative, and socially capable. However, limited research exists that demonstrates the concrete value of RPGs. The research partnership with foundry10 has added evidence to support that the intentional therapeutic application of tabletop role-playing games can take the social and emotional benefits of collaborative relational narrative play to the next level.

WATCH: Game to Grow’s Research Partnership with foundry10

In most tabletop role-playing games, a special player (often called the “game master”) is in charge of facilitating the game. The game master describes narrative scenarios for the protagonists (characters created by the other players) to navigate. These scenarios may include crossing a rickety bridge, negotiating with a shopkeep, defeating a monster in combat, or any other challenge the game master devises. Players then decide what their characters will do to overcome the obstacles. As players make individual choices, they build a story together. In Game to Grow’s therapeutically-applied RPGs (TA-RPGs) groups, the game master aligns in-game scenarios with real-world areas of social growth that we call the Core Capacities.

The Building Blocks of Social Flourishing

The Core Capacities are a fundamental part of the design of Critical Core, the tabletop role-playing game that was utilized in the research partnership with foundry10. Regulation, Collaboration, Planning, Perspective, and Pretend Play are the building blocks for social flourishing, helping participants build the capacity to connect with others. Learn more about each of the Core Capacities below.

Regulation

The skill of regulation involves navigating both stress and excitement, allowing individuals to be fully present, attentive, and even enjoy challenging moments. When individuals become dysregulated, they are unable to access any of the other Core Capacities, so this capacity is fundamental. The regulation capacity works like a muscle, it must be exercised regularly to become stronger.

Collaboration

The Collaboration capacity involves working with others not only toward a common goal, but authentically enjoying the interpersonal connection. Collaboration looks like cycles of back-and-forth communication involving both verbal and nonverbal expression. Through collaboration, we build the intrinsic desire to continue connecting with others.

Planning

The Planning capacity involves logic, sequencing, and critical reasoning. It includes identifying patterns and predicting outcomes. Of course, no matter how diligently a plan is made, it rarely unfolds exactly as predicted! The planning capacity also includes the ability to adapt to meet evolving needs as situations evolve.

Perspective

The Perspective capacity refers to one’s understanding that others have different thoughts, feelings, and desires. While this often involves “perspective-taking skills” (identifying the internal world of others based on context clues), the Perspective capacity also recognizes the importance of considering and adjusting one’s own behaviors in response to others as well as building the understanding that internal states can be conflicted (e.g., something can be simultaneously both happy and sad).

Pretend Play

Though often regarded as something for children, play is incredibly important throughout the lifespan. The Pretend Play capacity involves symbolic thinking and seeing the world not only for what it is, but what it could be, and engaging with the environment with an eye for potential and possibility.

Research and Trainings on Therapeutic Applications for RPGs

These five Core Capacities are building blocks for higher-order goals. Participants in the research partnership with foundry10 built valuable skills in a context of implicit, strengths-based, and community pedagogy. As one Game to Grow parent said, “it’s like eating your vegetables without knowing you’re doing it!”

Check back for foundry10 research findings and actionable insights in the forthcoming research report: How Youth Can Build Social-Emotional Skills with Tabletop Games.

Visit Game to Grow’s homepage to learn more about Critical Core, our training program, and our ongoing work foundry10.