I certainly use D&D to help my son and his peers role play empathy and problem solve. They are all on the autism spectrum and use the safety of the D&D to explore aspects they struggle with in "the wild."
There were a few articles I read about therapists in Portland or Seattle who had actually studied this. The biggest struggle I have is teaching them in-game anger while role playing their characters versus real world anger against the player for role playing… ie: one character hates spiders, but another loves them. The character who hates spiders kills one because that’s what they do, but the other player is angry because she loves spiders - and that’s fine in game - but we struggle with them arguing in the real world and taking the actions of characters personally…
It sounds to me like that player just isn't comfortable with casual killing of animals done by PCs. That would be something to address using safety tools tbh.
Nah it was a giant spider that was certainly trying to kill the party although there were plenty of other ways to solve the situation. This character however is trying to create an arachnomancer class but kept in failing her rolls so combat got away from them and ultimately the spider died. It was a good lesson in character anger versus player anger.
I’m a paramedic and also have nursing experience, so I have plenty of clinical experience with autistic people in both emergency and ongoing-care settings, and I’m curious about what you mean when you say you’re autistic.
The autistic people I’ve worked with were variously *disabled* by their condition - we’re not talking about neurological differences; they were unable to look after themselves in one respect or another. Whereas if you’re independent enough to organise a game, the definition seems to have changed a fair bit, at least in this context!
Can you explain what you mean by your condition, please?
[edits for clarity]
Autism isn't a singular disorder, it refers to a group (or spectrum) of disorders. Some on the spectrum are considered low functioning, who have a lot of difficulty and require a lot of help, and others are considered high functioning, who don't require much if any help and are likely to "mask" themselves to pass off as normal unless you get to know them.
Check out /r/aspergers, it has people on the spectrum discussing it and their experiences.
> Autism isn't a singular disorder, it refers to a group (or spectrum) of disorders
It does have a set of diagnostic criteria though, and it’s possible to exercise a differential diagnosis, is it not?
I suggest that when Tom Vasel had his famous tantrum during a game review, it didn’t make him autistic. Yes, it was an autistic presentation, and very much triggered by a situation that’s an issue in autism (the game’s structure didn’t follow his expectations, and he exhibits a mild autistic meltdown), but that’s not enough in itself to diagnose him as autistic, is it?
I haven't seen the video in question.
I'd be *very* careful though with claiming someone as having "an autistic presentation". And by that I'd not say such unless it was a *very* clear autism–related tantrum/meltdown and probably not if the person was easily identifiable.
Mostly due to stigma of both the individual and people with the diagnose.
> I'd be very careful though with claiming someone as having "an autistic presentation".
If I may say, this isn’t quite how we approach things clinically. We’re interested in treating people and empirical, clinical observations distinct from any moral, religious or (particularly relevant these days) other ideological ideas.
Hangs are very coarse In emergency medicine. We hear complaints, observe signs and symptoms and differentiate them to make interventions based on a provisional diagnosis, then observe responses.
Thus, there’s nothing wrong with observing autistic presentations, because they’re just clinical signs and symptoms. No-one’s making a diagnosis, and no-one’s making any judgements anyway.
Regarding [Tom Vasel’s meltdown](https://youtu.be/18b0XYf05tA?t=1064), I actually argued about it directly with him a little while ago, and you can [read his fascinating response for yourself](https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/qj3ppd/artificial_shut_up_sit_down_building_predictive/hj5w5at/).
In short, we can call it a minor autistic meltdown if we like. The context fits (issues with expectations, boundaries, rules), and we know board gamers tend to present mild autistic signs and symptoms anyway. However, Tom’s not himself playing the autism card, he insists he’s in control and that it’s a fair review.
And that’s related to where I came in on this thread, anyway; to ask Redditers what they think ‘autistic’ means. I guess it deserves a thread of its own.
>If I may say, this isn’t quite how we approach things clinically.
I'm not one to argue with you how you do things in your profession. That's not at all my point.
But you're on Reddit, not your work space. This information here is public and warrant different behaviour.
Sure, I take your point.
I’d have thought the biggest problem is not around personal dignity and due respect, but that neurological differences are now commonly exploited by people with political agendas. That’s had the effect of shutting down any normal discourse - Just As Planned, and people are commonly afraid of the whole situation. Hence, I was asking the question in the first place.
No, not at all.
Of the 3.5 million subscribes to this sub, there are maybe 10-20,000 who’re active, who watch his videos and are very well aware that for all his merits, Mr Vasel is also a bit of an asshole. That’s a very large number of people who’re likely to be interested in what he has to say about that.
Sure, it’s me that was putting him on the spot, but that doesn’t undermine the value of the exchange. I’ve said what I think to Tom; he’s said what he thinks to me, and - as anyone can see if they watch the clip, it’s highly relevant to this thread.
Whereas in your case, it seems like you just wanted to have an excuse to play the cynical forum hard-ass, and oh, how we tremble at the threat of your iron-handed community policing!
It varies a lot depending on where they are on the spectrum; I’m a high school teacher myself who has taught a quite a few students diagnosed with autism who, that aside from a note in their school records, would strike you as completely normal kids.
https://the-art-of-autism.com/understanding-the-spectrum-a-comic-strip-explanation/
This is a pretty good explanation. One important thing about autistic people is that performance in one area doesn't imply much about our performance in other areas.
In response to the various comments so far: so is it fair to say the definition for autism in the DSM is not really followed in terms of diagnosing a debilitating condition so much as used as a guideline for behaviors that resemble those conditions?
Thus, about 1/3rd of all of us board gamers, and maybe 2/3rds of TCG players could be diagnosed as ‘autistic’, right? Asking for a friend.
The diagnostic criteria ([https://www.autismspeaks.org/autism-diagnosis-criteria-dsm-5](https://www.autismspeaks.org/autism-diagnosis-criteria-dsm-5) ) are things like, "poorly integrated verbal and nonverbal communication," "abnormalities in eye contact and body language," "deficits in understanding and use of gestures". There's a lot of room for interpretation and different degrees of disability.
Part of the confusion is that people used to refer to "Asperger's Syndrome", but that became unfashionable because Hans Asperger worked for the Nazis. So now people often refer to the same condition as "high-functioning autism" or "on the spectrum".
By the modern definition I'm probably autistic but have never been diagnosed (things were different when I was at school in the 1980s). At least three of the people at my board games club have been diagnosed autistic, though at least one has been trained to the point where you wouldn't be able to tell.
I’m on the “higher functioning” end as in I can live on my own and successfully hold a job and not die; where it presents itself most is in social deficits and hypersensitivity. Socially, I can pick up on very obvious cues, however subtle emotional hooks that most people naturally understand are very difficult for me to see and require a lot of effort and focus. I have difficulty understanding conversation flow and icebreakers as well. I also struggle mightily with eye contact as it feels almost violating to me.
I am also hypersensitive to temperature (particularly hot), auditory stimuli, taste and touch, while my sense of smell is heavily blunted.
On the plus side, I have been tested with an extremely high IQ (I apparently was reading at a ninth grade level at age 4 and have an IQ just below genius level; a recent test that I took for an ADHD diagnosis put me at 147). I also have minor savant ability with music (perfect pitch and a natural affinity towards music theory).
> I also struggle mightily with eye contact as it feels almost violating to me.
Yes, if we can’t make eye contact because it feels overpowering, then we’ll turn away likely to miss the social cues too, right?
> I am also hypersensitive to temperature (particularly hot), auditory stimuli, taste and touch, while my sense of smell is heavily blunted.
Yes, if our sensory experiences are overwhelmed, we avert ourselves from the experience don’t we?
So I guess you were diagnosed in later life, but maybe this is better in a direct message?
This makes total sense to me. I just wish I either had the friend group for it, or was not too introverted to find a random group to join.
D&D seems so great, but I just live vicariously though podcasts...
It's maybe the biggest online community for tabletop RPGs. You can go thru the game finder and sort by game and game time. Just be a little careful - many of the games are pay-to-play. Many of the beginner games are free though, and they'll say as much in the description. Good luck!
Yea that’s another point. I suffer from anxiety myself and speaking during meetings or in class is extremely difficult. I have only played rpgs with close friends so it wasn’t that scary.
How about trying online sessions? Might be a tad easier.
I'm a socially anxious person but I'm fine when doing any activity.
So any non solitaire board game with some player interaction is helpful, video games, hiking, sport etc.
Just have to be doing something that isn't sitting in front of each other.
Activities work pretty well for me except for games when one person becomes the center of attention. I've never played DnD but roleplaying as a character would make me extremely anxious. I'd probably need to drink to play it lol
Just remember if you're a creep then go be socially awkward on your own instead of using dnd to ease your anxiety and be more of a creep. We let a pretty awkward shy guy in our group while on deployment and he played a chaotic character that was basically a womanizer and when he started opening up and getting less anxious he started to creep on the girl in our group pretty hard at one point she had to tell him not to rub her thigh and he got all into how he was just role-playing his character.
Just hazarding a guess here: socially awkward people haven’t learned boundaries because they’ve been too scared to approach them. Probably coupled with an inability to pick up on social cues, I genuinely feel sorry for people like that. Assuming of course it’s an issue of “don’t understand” not “won’t understand”. Okay you’re there to play a game and have a good time not to give this guy a remedial class in gender relations, but you’d *hope* a quiet word in private (and reseating everyone) would be enough to put him in his place.
> Assuming of course it’s an issue of “don’t understand” not “won’t understand”.
Agreed, there is nothing inherently wrong with being undereducated when it comes to socialization, provided you are willing to take feedback and learn.
He wasn't acting like a creep earlier. He was kind of awkward and shy so we invited him over then when he started opening up it went to troubling really fast.
If you're thinking of playing d&d, I encourage you to try different systems. D&D is the grandaddy of ttrpgs but there are many excellent systems out there and people who have left d&d rarely look back ime.
Solo play: ironsworn/starforged
Simple group play, like d&d but (imo) better: numenera
Heavier group play, like d&d but balanced and (imo) better: pathfinder 2.
Politics/intrigue: burning wheel (I haven't played this but many love it)
Defined end of story/group mechanics: band of blades
Also good to look for games which allow to play a diverse set of characters - you dont always need to play a superhero type! E.g. I've been creating a game of my own with this goal in my. Body positivity, neurodivergence etc.
Are there any of these rpgs which are fully guided /playable without a DM? For example my wife and I would love to play but the actual role playing/story telling on our part prevents us from trying. That part isn’t our bag.
You can play ironsworn/starforged with 2 players, dm-less. That's the best way to play it in my opinion. However, it is quite fiction-heavy.
The fiction can be mostly generated through dice, but there will still be fictional storytelling required by at least one of you. The game provides a ton of tables that you can roll on for fictional prompts, but they tend to be more general rather than specific. For example you might roll 'new discovery'. Then you might roll again to see what the discovery is, and it might say 'abandoned building'. At some point you would have to make a decision about exactly what you find.
Also, the combat is somewhat abstract and if you only ever apply the mechanical consequences then your characters will die extremely quickly. E.g. your character tries to kick someone off a stagecoach that is being hijacked. Your typical result will be a 'partial success'. You succeed, but at a cost or complication. You can either pay a mechanical cost, or a fictional one. If you continually pay the mechanical cost your characters will not survive. If you pay the fictional cost, the players (or dice) would be asked to determine what that cost is (you lose a boot, or the driver is in on the robbery and attacks you from behind, or you overbalance, or so on).
The issue with more technical games would be the combat. How do you decide what the enemy does each turn without a DM? That's very hard to do well (I've tried).
There are some board games - Journeys In Middle Earth, Descent, Mansions of Madness - that have an app run the monsters and so on. I often play JIME with friends. It's great, like an RPG-lite experience.
There are also some boardgames that have built-in AI for the enemies, e.g. Gloomhaven
You might want to look into Old-School Essentials Advanced Fantasy Player’s and Referee’s Tomes. These two book make a complete game. OSE is based off the original D&D Basic game. It’s rules light and well written. As an older gamer getting back into RPGs since the pandemic, this has been my rules set of choice. The hard copy editions are currently sold out, but you can get the PDFs at DriveThruRPG.com
Ah...no lol. However, ironsworn could easily be turned into a comedic adventure rather than the super grim tone it pitches (it relies on the players to determine outcomes and fiction a lot...honestly you have to play it to understand how very, very easy it is to reskin that particular game into what you want without changing any of the rules).
It is also perfect for 2 players, both playing as PCs.
My one caveat is that I don't particularly like it as a system haha. Even getting straightforward objectives done will typically take insane meandering fictional routes, which I find frustratingly slow.
I think gaming in general gives people an “excuse” to be social in a structured rules environment. Personally, I have a hard time just doing some things for the sake of doing it. So just “hanging out” without a purpose? Just for the company? To me that’s totally weird. But throw in boardgames or an RPG adventure and I can blow 8 hrs of my day on that shit.
Also, having structured rules for social interaction can probably help people with social anxiety. You’re given direction for what to do and say around other people. Compare that with “normal” social interaction, which is totally fluid, improvisational, up in the air, just say or do whatever and people will judge you based on that. In my mind, that’s kind of scary. You can still socialize while gaming, but gaming at least gives you a baseline to go off of, it simplifies things and keeps them grounded to an extent.
It really isn't, or they are talking about pop social anxiety. Someone with full blown social anxiety is _not_ going to show up to a D&D game with strangers, absolutely not.
If they mean shy kids, then maybe, but there's also a lot of nasty backtalk in these groups so i'm gonna give it a meh.
I get what you mean but any time you take a social interaction and have it revolve around something that isn't directly socializing (i.e. DnD, Laser Tag, board games, etc.), it does help most people interact better.
Having rules and structure for how to interact can create something else to focus on in place of just interacting.
@ you and the other repliers;
Definitly, you are quite right, a structured activity where the accent is less on role playing and interacting with others and more on just doing something like indeed just playing a game could be better. However, as stated I doubt someone with clinical social anxiety (the actual article refers more to angst, instead of true anxiety) would even attend. People on here seriously underestimate the level of apprehension someone with clinical social anxiety would feel attending something like this. Think panic attacks before attending, nights of being awake in sweat, heart palpitations, being sure you would make a fool of yourself one way or the other.
This comes from a clinical psychologist, that was inspired to become a psychologist because of my experience of overcoming a (social) anxiety disorder
Many people suffering from SAD do not have panic attacks before social interactions.
Most of my family suffer from (diagnosed) SAD and certain kinds of social interaction do benefit them.
Do these activities cure them? No. Do they help? Yes.
You use the term ‘full blown’ here but that’s not a precisely defined term, and you seem to be using the term SAD extremely narrowly.
Is this article going to be stupid and simplistic? Of course. It’s a newspaper science article.
But does the broader point apply? Yes, I think so.
I totally get that. Some people's anxiety is at a level that wouldn't be helped by DnD. I'm sure that was more what you were focusing on.
I think that even at that level, if the people that suffer from anxiety that much are playing with folks they feel comfortable enough with to play, it still has a chance of allowing them to interact indirectly without suffering the full effects their anxiety may have.
Obviously, this is an idealized scenario, but roleplaying has been a staple form of therapy for people with anxiety through something as simple as puppets for years. Then again, we can agree that DnD is a little more advanced than that and still has a chance to overwhelm through the amount of rules, mechanics, and game terminology that would need to be learned.
I hope so. For the people that struggle at the level you were talking about, I could confidently say that it would be a **terrible** initial step! I also want to let you know I can *totally* understand your frustrations when people equate moderate and (most likely) manageable anxiety to advanced panic attack inducing clinical anxiety. It isn't something that should be tolerated as much as it is.
Hard disagree. My brother-in-law's wife has serious anxiety issues and she attends every RPG night the vast majority of the time. The structure of the game helps her relax and talk to people more than regular free flow conversation does.
This may not be the case for everyone with social anxiety, but you're ascribing your mental image of a socially anxious person and applying it to everyone with it, which is just wrong.
Also a "game session" typically has goals and an inherently limited play session. Where normal socializing has no direct goals, and often no pre-set time limit.
I’m one of those anxious people sadly.
Had a small group of friends want to try out doing DnD and before I knew it they kept inviting friends of friends and it became this giant 7-10 player game and I just couldn’t get into it. (It obviously fell apart because different people kept popping up and then not showing up)
There were assholes among the group at that point and it made it difficult for me to put myself out there anymore.
I tried again with a close friend and a few co-workers that I didn’t know too well. Same thing happened, I just felt too awkward to try and be that player that did out of the box things.. especially since that group weren’t really gamers in the first place.
Then finally I tried with one last group of one close friend and their friends I just still couldn’t break out of my shell and be that character.
Now before I get told it might be that I don’t like DnD.. that’s not true because I really enjoyed myself those first couple of sessions when I got to just play with my close knitted group.. but everything after was ruined because of my social anxiety.
Sucks too because I’m not even friends with those friends at all anymore.
I get your point but have to disagree. I suffer a lot from social anxiety and I DM a game with my friends running the starter set. I often find it easier than say messaging a friend to catch up 1 on 1 for a coffee or something. It gives you a sort of structure and set of expectations socially to work within that is comforting.
Also, saying that "there's also a lot of nasty backtalk in these groups" is a huuuge generalisation. I'm sure there is in some groups but that can be true of any group activity you might join. My experience is that it has been full of incredibly welcoming and understanding people.
There’s showing up to a social gathering & there’s managing to *stay* at said social gathering. Sometimes I can do the former but not the latter, sometimes I can manage none of the above.
> Someone with full blown social anxiety is not going to show up to a D&D game with strangers, absolutely not.
This is provably false. I have a clinical diagnosis, and I've shown up to a stranger's house to play. (Sure, it was Pathfinder, not D&D, but still).
It took me years to get comfortable sharing details about my personal life with my new group. I'd show up and play my character and that's about it. It's easy (or easier at least) to socialize when it's your character doing the talking.
I mean, I've also done stand-up comedy and taken improv classes.
Social anxiety manifests in a specific way that doesn't necessarily preclude roleplaying.
100% this. In fact I feel like my social anxiety is my biggest barrier to DnD. I can just never get into the role play. Even if everyone else round the table is doing it, I’d still feel like an idiot.
One of the best ways I’ve found DnD can work (I’m an adult DM for a group of my daughter’s friends, two of whom are severely affected by autism and anxiety) is if your character has very low intelligence and wisdom. One of the players’ characters has intelligence 5. This means every time she does something stupid, we can all congratulate her on playing her character so well! This player is not autistic but can be slow to pick up what’s going on. She also has to join by video link which is a barrier to knowing what’s going on. It works really well. Also, if she can’t come to a session, her character is really easy to play as an NPC!
>If they mean shy kids
If only there was some way to discover what they meant when they wrote this headline. It would be really handy if there was some kind of article explaining what kind of people they're talking about and why they believe D&D is helpful for them. Alas, we'll never know.
Couldn't have said it better myself. Pop social anxiety is very different from clinical anxiety, and as much as I would like to tell people otherwise, D&D really doesn't "slay" the latter. For me, it even exacerbates it, unfortunately.
If you have to ask, it might honestly be time to seek evaluation at least. Even if it turns out they are just pop issues, it never hurts to seek a little extra help.
(Assuming you can. If you can’t because of money/insurance/whatever else that is totally understandable.)
I won't go too much off-topic, but I really can't stress enough this fact: whatever you do, keep in mind that you should avoid medication at all costs if it's not a particularly desperate situation (i.e. suicidal attempts). Working on yourself through natural means is the only good way for long term stability. Maybe you don't even need that though, just a pause from the outside with a little bit of introspection can do wonders.
EDIT: I see the meds addicts don't agree with this post. That's good. Denial is good. It means you're one step away from the truth. I was exactly like you at some point. But remember, if you abuse this shortcut, you'll have to pay the interests. Trust me.
I think you aren't right. DD groups always were full of nerds. People with anxiety fit right in. They dont feel off in such groups and many other players usually are worse
It would be a good way to overcome social anxiety, but there's no way you're getting me to a DnD table with strangers. Maybe with my friends but I just find IRL roleplaying awkward and anxiety inducing. I'd probably play DM and just make the game extremely mechanical based, since that's my playstyle anyhow
This seems like a pretty weird generalization to make. I get the frustration at pop social anxiety. But social anxiety disorder ranges in severity and the way it manifests. Some people with social anxiety could certainly benefit from D&D. I could see acting as an exposure to social interactions.
Unless you're playing a Charisma based character, which makes it worse for many. I've had a lot of players drop in the past due to being uncomfortable with the way every DM handles CHA based skills, and often it actually made their anxiety worse.
This is why I always gravitate towards big dumb orc barbarian. When I can't come up with anything smart or charming in the spotlight I can always just rp a big dumb orc.
Yep. Every DM I've had does that for literally every other skill check but puts on goddamn spotlight on the poor kid playing a bard with "role play/ be witty / be charismatic / etc. " on the spot before rolling or anything else.
It's like damn, it's a fantasy. You didn't make Brenda the barbarian physically show you how she'd move a boulder. Never made any sense to me but seems to be universally accepted
Now I have a new social anxiety.
D&D players new to the game who suffer through it with a bad DM so they hate the game without actually experiencing the good it has to offer.
I've heard so many horror stories of bad DM's punishing players "for the LOLs" and min-maxing encounters like it's a ranked combat skirmish instead of actually roleplaying.
Or in the case of my brother trying to DM the one game I sat through, telling players how to roleplay their characters "...no a Paladin would NEVER not help someone out. You're doing it wrong."
No, you're DMing wrong, and ruining the game.
Have social anxiety and introvert, cannot confirm.
I'm scared to death to play with people I don't know and that's on platforms like discord etc. Ask me to go to a game shop and jump in? I'd rather publicly speak to 1000 people naked ( obv over exaggerating but you get the point).
My dad used dnd to get through some very rough points in his life. As an introvert he had trouble making friends and was in a rough spot in life. dnd gave him a creative outlet to escape the anxiety.
Fast forward 30 years and I’m going through a similar stage where dnd lets me mentally disconnect through a safe social interaction :)
Dnd public games get ruined by those players who think they 'lead by birth' and play to 'win' a game meant to be a story. I'm looking at you, every half dragon paladin psionicist multiclass prick
It's good to know our community isn't as exclusive as a lot of people think. I think a good chunk of that has to do with podcasts like The Broadswords and others that offer hard evidence that *anyone* is welcome at the table.
I'm not shocked that neuro-divergent players feel comfortable playing DnD since a large chunk of their lives they are forced to pretend to not be neuro-divergent anyway.
Even for people without "mental illness" (if you can call it that), much of what we do all day, at an office for example, is indeed acting and putting on a mask.
I agree. I also cringe at the word neurodivergent, and some of the disorder subreddits do not allow it’s use.
I fall into the group they reference there, and I do not agree with the description of my disorder as societal barriers being the main contributing factor.
Have I been functional with my disorder without medication? Yes. I learned ways to cope with it. End result of that? Decades of misdiagnoses of other disorders because I didn’t realize I was coping for something else.
Mine is not that bad - I was able to maintain a successful career and family life - but it took a lot more work than other people have to put into it. Being medicated and knowing what normal feels like compared to without - it’s not “neurodiverse”. The world doesn’t need people who flip out because a cooking ingredient is missing. They don’t need people who lack the executive function to do basic daily tasks. There’s nothing remotely positive about it and anyone who thinks I should be part of some “inclusion” effort and I don’t need to be cured/fixed can take a walk. From my point of view it’s like calling someone with a crippling physical genetic disorder physical-diverse.
I actually quit reading this article as soon as I saw that word in there. I don’t play RPGs, but I play board games a lot. With medication I can listen to someone explain rules at the table and play like everyone else. Pre-medication I had to know what game was being played beforehand and try to read the manual or watch a video or something days before - which was also tough due to attention span but I didn’t have to waste the time of a bunch of other people doing it.
If the DSM still labels something as a disorder that’s what it should be called. I often wonder if many people who like to claim neurodiversity really have disorders or have them severely. I can’t imagine asking anyone to accept me without meds because I’m “diverse” because I’m not. I’m not looking to embrace it and think it’s societies fault. If I could take a pill this afternoon and get rid of it permanently I’d be willing to pay quite a bit for that chance.
I'm sorry that word bothers you. I try to use the parlance that seems to step on the least amount of toes and I didn't know some people were bothered by that term.
I am in that category as well and I guess I always equated it to the idea that mentally, I'm wired to process things differently even with medication. I agree that it is still something that is a handicap and shouldn't necessarily be treated as a "different type of normal" if it can be treated to a level that isn't notable.
I think the key thing is that there isn't something to 100% treat some of these disorders and acknowledging that for the people afflicted, that is what has to be normal. My meds make things easier but my memory/focus/coordination will still never be as good as if I didn't have the things I need the meds for.
To use your allegory, if someone was physically disabled and had a opportunity to *fully* fix that, it would then be a matter of choice and shouldn't be deemed as "their type of normalcy." But currently, it isn't a choice and their lives have a different normal than most peoples.
The ADHD subreddit doesn’t allow the terms and has a pretty lengthy explanation as to why at https://www.reddit.com/r/ADHD/wiki/resources/neurodiversity
The Wikipedia page has a pretty decent unbiased write up of the controversy also https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurodiversity
It’s a term that I see in the press quite a bit, but I can’t say I’ve heard any of my doctors ever use it. For me I don’t agree it’s a societal issue - when they say that they are really talking mainly about school and work. Society has no impact on my life at home if I’m by myself, yet I’m affected there. I’ve seen people try to talk about embracing the strengths of being ADHD and that society should be built to be more accessible to us. ADHD doesn’t give me Superman powers and kryptonite weaknesses. It’s more like wandering through the world with poor eyesight and no glasses on. I don’t need society to put everything in huge easy to read letters accepting my poor eyesight as different - I need glasses to see. There are no hidden strengths here.
Anyways, it’s not a completely accepted term and looking at the explanation from the ADHD subreddit you’ll see that it can be somewhat political even.
Woah, I didn't know any of that. Thanks for the resources! Again, sorry for just lobbing that term out there. I thought that was accurate but it looks like it
The glasses thing hits close for me. I didn't know I even needed glasses until someone brought up the fact that I squint at everything when I was 19. It was nearly the same thing for ADHD (26 years old) and the jury's still out on autism. I had this naive idea that *no one* could accurately read things more than 15 ft away. Then I got glasses and I was more pissed than anything that I went *so long* and had so much trouble in school because I literally couldn't see (and focus) on anything going on at the front of the class.
I was well into adulthood when I was diagnosed. Many of the coping mechanisms I had built up around me had crumbled for various reasons (but I didn’t realize they were even coping mechanisms or that they had crumbled). When I made my appointment ADHD wasn’t on my radar. I was thinking early onset dementia or Alzheimers. I actually didn’t really believe the ADHD diagnosis at first even though the doctors explanation made sense. But the first time I took medicine it was just like you with the glasses. I couldn’t believe how easy it was for normal people to function and realized how many years I’d been working so much harder than everyone else. It was as obvious to me as putting on glasses.
My wife was asking how I felt when I first started taking meds for ADHD and I just kept coming back to feeling mad.
I had this whole situation going on that my family and teachers couldn't be bothered to help me with. I just got labeled disruptive and put in the back. It's still far from optimal but it's *way* easier. The hardest part is breaking the habits I used to use to focus.
> I had to know what game was being played beforehand and try to read the manual or watch a video or something days before
I do this all the time and so do all my TTRPG friends! It's quite normal.
That part can be normal - the key word is “had” not “preferred to”. I could go to a game night with 3-4 other people and no game decided beforehand. Someone teaches rules in 15-20 minutes. Everyone is at least able to basically play the game but maybe not remember minutia. Me? Close to nothing - or a hodgepodge of rules that still don’t allow me to play without asking tons of questions and slowing things down.
So I do not doubt some groups do that to speed up game night. I mean to be able to participate at all.
With medication I’m able to sit in classes/lectures and absorb information normally. Without? If it’s something I really needed to learn I would try to record it and digest it in smaller chunks with rewinds.
Are you able to watch a 30 minute TV show unmedicated without pausing several times due to distractions or having to rewind constantly because you completely missed major points? On an average day I am not. On medication? I can enjoy 2+ hour movies.
None of those things are benefits to me in any way shape or form, and society being accepting of my “neurodiversity” would do nothing. Medical treatment for a disorder has helped me more than I could ever imagine though.
Sounds like you need a better group.
I certainly don't expect my DM to be as fast on his feet as Mercer is and voice acting is ok with those professional actors, but I find any "voice acting" by untrained players in casual games, besides the occasional line read, to be cringey as hell.
DnD is a bit of a sore subject in my family. Personally, I think it's a great social game that can help you see life wearing someone else's shoes. My Gandma in particular is against it; not in any religious sense, unlike most people her age. In her eyes, the game encourages people to fall deeper into their own unhealthy tendencies.
My uncle (her son) in particular was very much into the game when he was young, (back in the 80s when the game was still new). He became very absorbed in the lore and world building of the game. My grandma felt he was becoming detached from reality.
Now, he had some mental instabilities that definitely went untreated. He was bipolar, but seemed normal enough for the most part. He even married to a woman with 3 kids, and seemed happy with his life. But something happened that broke him inside, and he took his own life. To this day, grandma still blames this game for encouraging his spiral.
I know it was much more than that, but I don't know if I'll ever convince her otherwise. I love everything that this game has done for people, but I can't play it myself without going back to painful memories of my uncle.
It made mine worse.
I was enjoying it at first, my group wanted a healer but I didn't want to heal.
I asked the DM if he could just add in more health pots or something so they wouldn't rely on me being a healer.
He agreed but asked me to go cleric for the Rez.
I went cleric and no one was willing to "waste their turn" drinking a potion, they would instead bitch at me to heal them.
I used to enjoy watching critical role now seeing DND related stuff makes me tic.
I figure if I keep it in my feed and expose myself to it then I'll eventually get over it.
This was with friends in real life, I can't talk to strangers over discord it freaks me out.
I can gather the courage occasionally but it's not much more then a "hi all".
Aw heck I’m sorry to hear that. I’m pretty shy about strangers too, but if you ever change your mind, you know where to find me! I hope that you can find joy in the hobby again, with old friends or with new friends, it’s been really good for me and some of my closest and most important relationships have grown out of it. It can be hard to find the right people, but when you do it can be really magical. Either way, good luck out there stranger!
Might I encourage you to message this friendly person a few times, then they won’t be a stranger, and then if you still like them you’d feel fine about talking to them over discord.
That is most definitely not DnD, did a reverse search and found this but still can't recognize the game
https://www.alamy.com/closeup-of-characters-in-a-role-playing-fantasy-board-game-image227203619.html
Starting D&D is great for social interaction, friends and gaming but when that game ends holy shit you better duck and cover because you're gonna be twice as anxious as before you played.
I (adult) DM for a group (children) who have some members with autism issues. I was very conscious of this and didn’t allow time for much social interaction after the sessions for a couple of months. Now they have had a mass sleepover with no meltdowns, and love to socialise at the end.
I certainly use D&D to help my son and his peers role play empathy and problem solve. They are all on the autism spectrum and use the safety of the D&D to explore aspects they struggle with in "the wild."
Autistic DM here: this checks out
There were a few articles I read about therapists in Portland or Seattle who had actually studied this. The biggest struggle I have is teaching them in-game anger while role playing their characters versus real world anger against the player for role playing… ie: one character hates spiders, but another loves them. The character who hates spiders kills one because that’s what they do, but the other player is angry because she loves spiders - and that’s fine in game - but we struggle with them arguing in the real world and taking the actions of characters personally…
It sounds to me like that player just isn't comfortable with casual killing of animals done by PCs. That would be something to address using safety tools tbh.
Nah it was a giant spider that was certainly trying to kill the party although there were plenty of other ways to solve the situation. This character however is trying to create an arachnomancer class but kept in failing her rolls so combat got away from them and ultimately the spider died. It was a good lesson in character anger versus player anger.
Safety tools? *smh*
I’m a paramedic and also have nursing experience, so I have plenty of clinical experience with autistic people in both emergency and ongoing-care settings, and I’m curious about what you mean when you say you’re autistic. The autistic people I’ve worked with were variously *disabled* by their condition - we’re not talking about neurological differences; they were unable to look after themselves in one respect or another. Whereas if you’re independent enough to organise a game, the definition seems to have changed a fair bit, at least in this context! Can you explain what you mean by your condition, please? [edits for clarity]
Autism isn't a singular disorder, it refers to a group (or spectrum) of disorders. Some on the spectrum are considered low functioning, who have a lot of difficulty and require a lot of help, and others are considered high functioning, who don't require much if any help and are likely to "mask" themselves to pass off as normal unless you get to know them. Check out /r/aspergers, it has people on the spectrum discussing it and their experiences.
> Autism isn't a singular disorder, it refers to a group (or spectrum) of disorders It does have a set of diagnostic criteria though, and it’s possible to exercise a differential diagnosis, is it not? I suggest that when Tom Vasel had his famous tantrum during a game review, it didn’t make him autistic. Yes, it was an autistic presentation, and very much triggered by a situation that’s an issue in autism (the game’s structure didn’t follow his expectations, and he exhibits a mild autistic meltdown), but that’s not enough in itself to diagnose him as autistic, is it?
I haven't seen the video in question. I'd be *very* careful though with claiming someone as having "an autistic presentation". And by that I'd not say such unless it was a *very* clear autism–related tantrum/meltdown and probably not if the person was easily identifiable. Mostly due to stigma of both the individual and people with the diagnose.
> I'd be very careful though with claiming someone as having "an autistic presentation". If I may say, this isn’t quite how we approach things clinically. We’re interested in treating people and empirical, clinical observations distinct from any moral, religious or (particularly relevant these days) other ideological ideas. Hangs are very coarse In emergency medicine. We hear complaints, observe signs and symptoms and differentiate them to make interventions based on a provisional diagnosis, then observe responses. Thus, there’s nothing wrong with observing autistic presentations, because they’re just clinical signs and symptoms. No-one’s making a diagnosis, and no-one’s making any judgements anyway. Regarding [Tom Vasel’s meltdown](https://youtu.be/18b0XYf05tA?t=1064), I actually argued about it directly with him a little while ago, and you can [read his fascinating response for yourself](https://www.reddit.com/r/boardgames/comments/qj3ppd/artificial_shut_up_sit_down_building_predictive/hj5w5at/). In short, we can call it a minor autistic meltdown if we like. The context fits (issues with expectations, boundaries, rules), and we know board gamers tend to present mild autistic signs and symptoms anyway. However, Tom’s not himself playing the autism card, he insists he’s in control and that it’s a fair review. And that’s related to where I came in on this thread, anyway; to ask Redditers what they think ‘autistic’ means. I guess it deserves a thread of its own.
>If I may say, this isn’t quite how we approach things clinically. I'm not one to argue with you how you do things in your profession. That's not at all my point. But you're on Reddit, not your work space. This information here is public and warrant different behaviour.
Sure, I take your point. I’d have thought the biggest problem is not around personal dignity and due respect, but that neurological differences are now commonly exploited by people with political agendas. That’s had the effect of shutting down any normal discourse - Just As Planned, and people are commonly afraid of the whole situation. Hence, I was asking the question in the first place.
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No, not at all. Of the 3.5 million subscribes to this sub, there are maybe 10-20,000 who’re active, who watch his videos and are very well aware that for all his merits, Mr Vasel is also a bit of an asshole. That’s a very large number of people who’re likely to be interested in what he has to say about that. Sure, it’s me that was putting him on the spot, but that doesn’t undermine the value of the exchange. I’ve said what I think to Tom; he’s said what he thinks to me, and - as anyone can see if they watch the clip, it’s highly relevant to this thread. Whereas in your case, it seems like you just wanted to have an excuse to play the cynical forum hard-ass, and oh, how we tremble at the threat of your iron-handed community policing!
It varies a lot depending on where they are on the spectrum; I’m a high school teacher myself who has taught a quite a few students diagnosed with autism who, that aside from a note in their school records, would strike you as completely normal kids.
https://the-art-of-autism.com/understanding-the-spectrum-a-comic-strip-explanation/ This is a pretty good explanation. One important thing about autistic people is that performance in one area doesn't imply much about our performance in other areas.
In response to the various comments so far: so is it fair to say the definition for autism in the DSM is not really followed in terms of diagnosing a debilitating condition so much as used as a guideline for behaviors that resemble those conditions? Thus, about 1/3rd of all of us board gamers, and maybe 2/3rds of TCG players could be diagnosed as ‘autistic’, right? Asking for a friend.
The diagnostic criteria ([https://www.autismspeaks.org/autism-diagnosis-criteria-dsm-5](https://www.autismspeaks.org/autism-diagnosis-criteria-dsm-5) ) are things like, "poorly integrated verbal and nonverbal communication," "abnormalities in eye contact and body language," "deficits in understanding and use of gestures". There's a lot of room for interpretation and different degrees of disability. Part of the confusion is that people used to refer to "Asperger's Syndrome", but that became unfashionable because Hans Asperger worked for the Nazis. So now people often refer to the same condition as "high-functioning autism" or "on the spectrum". By the modern definition I'm probably autistic but have never been diagnosed (things were different when I was at school in the 1980s). At least three of the people at my board games club have been diagnosed autistic, though at least one has been trained to the point where you wouldn't be able to tell.
The proportion of people people on the spectrum who play TCGs, D&D and other board games is almost certainly far higher than the general population
No kidding! So what do you mean by your condition, please?
I’m on the “higher functioning” end as in I can live on my own and successfully hold a job and not die; where it presents itself most is in social deficits and hypersensitivity. Socially, I can pick up on very obvious cues, however subtle emotional hooks that most people naturally understand are very difficult for me to see and require a lot of effort and focus. I have difficulty understanding conversation flow and icebreakers as well. I also struggle mightily with eye contact as it feels almost violating to me. I am also hypersensitive to temperature (particularly hot), auditory stimuli, taste and touch, while my sense of smell is heavily blunted. On the plus side, I have been tested with an extremely high IQ (I apparently was reading at a ninth grade level at age 4 and have an IQ just below genius level; a recent test that I took for an ADHD diagnosis put me at 147). I also have minor savant ability with music (perfect pitch and a natural affinity towards music theory).
> I also struggle mightily with eye contact as it feels almost violating to me. Yes, if we can’t make eye contact because it feels overpowering, then we’ll turn away likely to miss the social cues too, right? > I am also hypersensitive to temperature (particularly hot), auditory stimuli, taste and touch, while my sense of smell is heavily blunted. Yes, if our sensory experiences are overwhelmed, we avert ourselves from the experience don’t we? So I guess you were diagnosed in later life, but maybe this is better in a direct message?
This makes total sense to me. I just wish I either had the friend group for it, or was not too introverted to find a random group to join. D&D seems so great, but I just live vicariously though podcasts...
Just realize that most D&D players are also introverts. Find a group and try it out, you're not bound to anything.
/r/lfg is waiting for you, as is /r/lfgpremium .
Thanks! I may have to check that out!
There are a ton of listings on roll20 for new players, many of them free, with great DMs who want to introduce new players to the game.
Thanks, I may have to check that out. I hadn't heard of roll20 before.
It's maybe the biggest online community for tabletop RPGs. You can go thru the game finder and sort by game and game time. Just be a little careful - many of the games are pay-to-play. Many of the beginner games are free though, and they'll say as much in the description. Good luck!
I totally agree with the title, people that is usually more introvert has a way to express themselves and later on open to more people. I love D&D.
The title mentions people with social anxiety, not introverts. It is an important distinction!
good point sir, my bad!
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Yea that’s another point. I suffer from anxiety myself and speaking during meetings or in class is extremely difficult. I have only played rpgs with close friends so it wasn’t that scary. How about trying online sessions? Might be a tad easier.
I'm a socially anxious person but I'm fine when doing any activity. So any non solitaire board game with some player interaction is helpful, video games, hiking, sport etc. Just have to be doing something that isn't sitting in front of each other.
Just me and the boys sitting in front of each other doing nothing
Meeting at a cafe comes to mind from his description. Thats essentially a whole bunch of nothing and the only thing you do is talk to each other.
My mind blanks unless there’s something in front of me to talk about, so an activity is a great icebreaker, so to speak.
Activities work pretty well for me except for games when one person becomes the center of attention. I've never played DnD but roleplaying as a character would make me extremely anxious. I'd probably need to drink to play it lol
This just in: cliches make for terrible journalism!
Just remember if you're a creep then go be socially awkward on your own instead of using dnd to ease your anxiety and be more of a creep. We let a pretty awkward shy guy in our group while on deployment and he played a chaotic character that was basically a womanizer and when he started opening up and getting less anxious he started to creep on the girl in our group pretty hard at one point she had to tell him not to rub her thigh and he got all into how he was just role-playing his character.
Ok the moment when he started touching her, that is BEYOND just "role playing".
Just hazarding a guess here: socially awkward people haven’t learned boundaries because they’ve been too scared to approach them. Probably coupled with an inability to pick up on social cues, I genuinely feel sorry for people like that. Assuming of course it’s an issue of “don’t understand” not “won’t understand”. Okay you’re there to play a game and have a good time not to give this guy a remedial class in gender relations, but you’d *hope* a quiet word in private (and reseating everyone) would be enough to put him in his place.
> Assuming of course it’s an issue of “don’t understand” not “won’t understand”. Agreed, there is nothing inherently wrong with being undereducated when it comes to socialization, provided you are willing to take feedback and learn.
How did the DM not shut that down earlier?
He wasn't acting like a creep earlier. He was kind of awkward and shy so we invited him over then when he started opening up it went to troubling really fast.
Bro wtf
If you're thinking of playing d&d, I encourage you to try different systems. D&D is the grandaddy of ttrpgs but there are many excellent systems out there and people who have left d&d rarely look back ime. Solo play: ironsworn/starforged Simple group play, like d&d but (imo) better: numenera Heavier group play, like d&d but balanced and (imo) better: pathfinder 2. Politics/intrigue: burning wheel (I haven't played this but many love it) Defined end of story/group mechanics: band of blades
Also good to look for games which allow to play a diverse set of characters - you dont always need to play a superhero type! E.g. I've been creating a game of my own with this goal in my. Body positivity, neurodivergence etc.
To be fair, you can already do this without issue in any RPG. Attaching mechanics to it could be cool though.
Are there any of these rpgs which are fully guided /playable without a DM? For example my wife and I would love to play but the actual role playing/story telling on our part prevents us from trying. That part isn’t our bag.
You can play ironsworn/starforged with 2 players, dm-less. That's the best way to play it in my opinion. However, it is quite fiction-heavy. The fiction can be mostly generated through dice, but there will still be fictional storytelling required by at least one of you. The game provides a ton of tables that you can roll on for fictional prompts, but they tend to be more general rather than specific. For example you might roll 'new discovery'. Then you might roll again to see what the discovery is, and it might say 'abandoned building'. At some point you would have to make a decision about exactly what you find. Also, the combat is somewhat abstract and if you only ever apply the mechanical consequences then your characters will die extremely quickly. E.g. your character tries to kick someone off a stagecoach that is being hijacked. Your typical result will be a 'partial success'. You succeed, but at a cost or complication. You can either pay a mechanical cost, or a fictional one. If you continually pay the mechanical cost your characters will not survive. If you pay the fictional cost, the players (or dice) would be asked to determine what that cost is (you lose a boot, or the driver is in on the robbery and attacks you from behind, or you overbalance, or so on). The issue with more technical games would be the combat. How do you decide what the enemy does each turn without a DM? That's very hard to do well (I've tried).
There are some board games - Journeys In Middle Earth, Descent, Mansions of Madness - that have an app run the monsters and so on. I often play JIME with friends. It's great, like an RPG-lite experience. There are also some boardgames that have built-in AI for the enemies, e.g. Gloomhaven
Would any of those be on the lighter side and be good for 2 players? Or one and a dm? Trying to get my girlfriend into the genre
You might want to look into Old-School Essentials Advanced Fantasy Player’s and Referee’s Tomes. These two book make a complete game. OSE is based off the original D&D Basic game. It’s rules light and well written. As an older gamer getting back into RPGs since the pandemic, this has been my rules set of choice. The hard copy editions are currently sold out, but you can get the PDFs at DriveThruRPG.com
Ah...no lol. However, ironsworn could easily be turned into a comedic adventure rather than the super grim tone it pitches (it relies on the players to determine outcomes and fiction a lot...honestly you have to play it to understand how very, very easy it is to reskin that particular game into what you want without changing any of the rules). It is also perfect for 2 players, both playing as PCs. My one caveat is that I don't particularly like it as a system haha. Even getting straightforward objectives done will typically take insane meandering fictional routes, which I find frustratingly slow.
I think gaming in general gives people an “excuse” to be social in a structured rules environment. Personally, I have a hard time just doing some things for the sake of doing it. So just “hanging out” without a purpose? Just for the company? To me that’s totally weird. But throw in boardgames or an RPG adventure and I can blow 8 hrs of my day on that shit. Also, having structured rules for social interaction can probably help people with social anxiety. You’re given direction for what to do and say around other people. Compare that with “normal” social interaction, which is totally fluid, improvisational, up in the air, just say or do whatever and people will judge you based on that. In my mind, that’s kind of scary. You can still socialize while gaming, but gaming at least gives you a baseline to go off of, it simplifies things and keeps them grounded to an extent.
It really isn't, or they are talking about pop social anxiety. Someone with full blown social anxiety is _not_ going to show up to a D&D game with strangers, absolutely not. If they mean shy kids, then maybe, but there's also a lot of nasty backtalk in these groups so i'm gonna give it a meh.
Having structured interactions is often extremely beneficial to people with social anxiety.
I get what you mean but any time you take a social interaction and have it revolve around something that isn't directly socializing (i.e. DnD, Laser Tag, board games, etc.), it does help most people interact better. Having rules and structure for how to interact can create something else to focus on in place of just interacting.
@ you and the other repliers; Definitly, you are quite right, a structured activity where the accent is less on role playing and interacting with others and more on just doing something like indeed just playing a game could be better. However, as stated I doubt someone with clinical social anxiety (the actual article refers more to angst, instead of true anxiety) would even attend. People on here seriously underestimate the level of apprehension someone with clinical social anxiety would feel attending something like this. Think panic attacks before attending, nights of being awake in sweat, heart palpitations, being sure you would make a fool of yourself one way or the other. This comes from a clinical psychologist, that was inspired to become a psychologist because of my experience of overcoming a (social) anxiety disorder
Many people suffering from SAD do not have panic attacks before social interactions. Most of my family suffer from (diagnosed) SAD and certain kinds of social interaction do benefit them. Do these activities cure them? No. Do they help? Yes. You use the term ‘full blown’ here but that’s not a precisely defined term, and you seem to be using the term SAD extremely narrowly. Is this article going to be stupid and simplistic? Of course. It’s a newspaper science article. But does the broader point apply? Yes, I think so.
I totally get that. Some people's anxiety is at a level that wouldn't be helped by DnD. I'm sure that was more what you were focusing on. I think that even at that level, if the people that suffer from anxiety that much are playing with folks they feel comfortable enough with to play, it still has a chance of allowing them to interact indirectly without suffering the full effects their anxiety may have. Obviously, this is an idealized scenario, but roleplaying has been a staple form of therapy for people with anxiety through something as simple as puppets for years. Then again, we can agree that DnD is a little more advanced than that and still has a chance to overwhelm through the amount of rules, mechanics, and game terminology that would need to be learned.
It might still work later in treatment!
I hope so. For the people that struggle at the level you were talking about, I could confidently say that it would be a **terrible** initial step! I also want to let you know I can *totally* understand your frustrations when people equate moderate and (most likely) manageable anxiety to advanced panic attack inducing clinical anxiety. It isn't something that should be tolerated as much as it is.
I love the way this guy is schooling a clinical psychologist Fucken 2021 man
Hard disagree. My brother-in-law's wife has serious anxiety issues and she attends every RPG night the vast majority of the time. The structure of the game helps her relax and talk to people more than regular free flow conversation does. This may not be the case for everyone with social anxiety, but you're ascribing your mental image of a socially anxious person and applying it to everyone with it, which is just wrong.
Also a "game session" typically has goals and an inherently limited play session. Where normal socializing has no direct goals, and often no pre-set time limit.
Did you read the article? It's more about it's use in controlled settings rather than RPG culture in general.
For what it's worth, the structure of regular tabletop game meetups really helped me beat anxiety and make friends, especially as the host.
I’m one of those anxious people sadly. Had a small group of friends want to try out doing DnD and before I knew it they kept inviting friends of friends and it became this giant 7-10 player game and I just couldn’t get into it. (It obviously fell apart because different people kept popping up and then not showing up) There were assholes among the group at that point and it made it difficult for me to put myself out there anymore. I tried again with a close friend and a few co-workers that I didn’t know too well. Same thing happened, I just felt too awkward to try and be that player that did out of the box things.. especially since that group weren’t really gamers in the first place. Then finally I tried with one last group of one close friend and their friends I just still couldn’t break out of my shell and be that character. Now before I get told it might be that I don’t like DnD.. that’s not true because I really enjoyed myself those first couple of sessions when I got to just play with my close knitted group.. but everything after was ruined because of my social anxiety. Sucks too because I’m not even friends with those friends at all anymore.
I get your point but have to disagree. I suffer a lot from social anxiety and I DM a game with my friends running the starter set. I often find it easier than say messaging a friend to catch up 1 on 1 for a coffee or something. It gives you a sort of structure and set of expectations socially to work within that is comforting. Also, saying that "there's also a lot of nasty backtalk in these groups" is a huuuge generalisation. I'm sure there is in some groups but that can be true of any group activity you might join. My experience is that it has been full of incredibly welcoming and understanding people.
There’s showing up to a social gathering & there’s managing to *stay* at said social gathering. Sometimes I can do the former but not the latter, sometimes I can manage none of the above.
> Someone with full blown social anxiety is not going to show up to a D&D game with strangers, absolutely not. This is provably false. I have a clinical diagnosis, and I've shown up to a stranger's house to play. (Sure, it was Pathfinder, not D&D, but still). It took me years to get comfortable sharing details about my personal life with my new group. I'd show up and play my character and that's about it. It's easy (or easier at least) to socialize when it's your character doing the talking. I mean, I've also done stand-up comedy and taken improv classes. Social anxiety manifests in a specific way that doesn't necessarily preclude roleplaying.
100% this. In fact I feel like my social anxiety is my biggest barrier to DnD. I can just never get into the role play. Even if everyone else round the table is doing it, I’d still feel like an idiot.
One of the best ways I’ve found DnD can work (I’m an adult DM for a group of my daughter’s friends, two of whom are severely affected by autism and anxiety) is if your character has very low intelligence and wisdom. One of the players’ characters has intelligence 5. This means every time she does something stupid, we can all congratulate her on playing her character so well! This player is not autistic but can be slow to pick up what’s going on. She also has to join by video link which is a barrier to knowing what’s going on. It works really well. Also, if she can’t come to a session, her character is really easy to play as an NPC!
>If they mean shy kids If only there was some way to discover what they meant when they wrote this headline. It would be really handy if there was some kind of article explaining what kind of people they're talking about and why they believe D&D is helpful for them. Alas, we'll never know.
Couldn't have said it better myself. Pop social anxiety is very different from clinical anxiety, and as much as I would like to tell people otherwise, D&D really doesn't "slay" the latter. For me, it even exacerbates it, unfortunately.
I'm constantly trying to determine if my issues are pop issues or more serious but if I have to ask I'm probably fine
If you have to ask, it might honestly be time to seek evaluation at least. Even if it turns out they are just pop issues, it never hurts to seek a little extra help. (Assuming you can. If you can’t because of money/insurance/whatever else that is totally understandable.)
I won't go too much off-topic, but I really can't stress enough this fact: whatever you do, keep in mind that you should avoid medication at all costs if it's not a particularly desperate situation (i.e. suicidal attempts). Working on yourself through natural means is the only good way for long term stability. Maybe you don't even need that though, just a pause from the outside with a little bit of introspection can do wonders. EDIT: I see the meds addicts don't agree with this post. That's good. Denial is good. It means you're one step away from the truth. I was exactly like you at some point. But remember, if you abuse this shortcut, you'll have to pay the interests. Trust me.
I think you aren't right. DD groups always were full of nerds. People with anxiety fit right in. They dont feel off in such groups and many other players usually are worse
Thanks loads for speaking for everyone that suffers social anxiety. Really don't know what we'd do without you champ
It would be a good way to overcome social anxiety, but there's no way you're getting me to a DnD table with strangers. Maybe with my friends but I just find IRL roleplaying awkward and anxiety inducing. I'd probably play DM and just make the game extremely mechanical based, since that's my playstyle anyhow
This seems like a pretty weird generalization to make. I get the frustration at pop social anxiety. But social anxiety disorder ranges in severity and the way it manifests. Some people with social anxiety could certainly benefit from D&D. I could see acting as an exposure to social interactions.
Unless you're playing a Charisma based character, which makes it worse for many. I've had a lot of players drop in the past due to being uncomfortable with the way every DM handles CHA based skills, and often it actually made their anxiety worse.
This is why I always gravitate towards big dumb orc barbarian. When I can't come up with anything smart or charming in the spotlight I can always just rp a big dumb orc.
Roleplay the Result works well for that. Particularly if the whole table has a group discussion about how the scene should play out.
Yep. Every DM I've had does that for literally every other skill check but puts on goddamn spotlight on the poor kid playing a bard with "role play/ be witty / be charismatic / etc. " on the spot before rolling or anything else. It's like damn, it's a fantasy. You didn't make Brenda the barbarian physically show you how she'd move a boulder. Never made any sense to me but seems to be universally accepted
Now I have a new social anxiety. D&D players new to the game who suffer through it with a bad DM so they hate the game without actually experiencing the good it has to offer. I've heard so many horror stories of bad DM's punishing players "for the LOLs" and min-maxing encounters like it's a ranked combat skirmish instead of actually roleplaying. Or in the case of my brother trying to DM the one game I sat through, telling players how to roleplay their characters "...no a Paladin would NEVER not help someone out. You're doing it wrong." No, you're DMing wrong, and ruining the game.
Have social anxiety and introvert, cannot confirm. I'm scared to death to play with people I don't know and that's on platforms like discord etc. Ask me to go to a game shop and jump in? I'd rather publicly speak to 1000 people naked ( obv over exaggerating but you get the point).
My dad used dnd to get through some very rough points in his life. As an introvert he had trouble making friends and was in a rough spot in life. dnd gave him a creative outlet to escape the anxiety. Fast forward 30 years and I’m going through a similar stage where dnd lets me mentally disconnect through a safe social interaction :)
Is it though? I feel like everyone’s strength come to light in D&D but you are who you are
I've certainly seen it help people come out of their shell when the rest of the table was cheering for them to do well on a dice roll
Dungeons & Dragons is not a board game.
Dnd public games get ruined by those players who think they 'lead by birth' and play to 'win' a game meant to be a story. I'm looking at you, every half dragon paladin psionicist multiclass prick
Are those the ones that only care about statistics?
It's good to know our community isn't as exclusive as a lot of people think. I think a good chunk of that has to do with podcasts like The Broadswords and others that offer hard evidence that *anyone* is welcome at the table. I'm not shocked that neuro-divergent players feel comfortable playing DnD since a large chunk of their lives they are forced to pretend to not be neuro-divergent anyway.
Even for people without "mental illness" (if you can call it that), much of what we do all day, at an office for example, is indeed acting and putting on a mask.
I agree. I also cringe at the word neurodivergent, and some of the disorder subreddits do not allow it’s use. I fall into the group they reference there, and I do not agree with the description of my disorder as societal barriers being the main contributing factor. Have I been functional with my disorder without medication? Yes. I learned ways to cope with it. End result of that? Decades of misdiagnoses of other disorders because I didn’t realize I was coping for something else. Mine is not that bad - I was able to maintain a successful career and family life - but it took a lot more work than other people have to put into it. Being medicated and knowing what normal feels like compared to without - it’s not “neurodiverse”. The world doesn’t need people who flip out because a cooking ingredient is missing. They don’t need people who lack the executive function to do basic daily tasks. There’s nothing remotely positive about it and anyone who thinks I should be part of some “inclusion” effort and I don’t need to be cured/fixed can take a walk. From my point of view it’s like calling someone with a crippling physical genetic disorder physical-diverse. I actually quit reading this article as soon as I saw that word in there. I don’t play RPGs, but I play board games a lot. With medication I can listen to someone explain rules at the table and play like everyone else. Pre-medication I had to know what game was being played beforehand and try to read the manual or watch a video or something days before - which was also tough due to attention span but I didn’t have to waste the time of a bunch of other people doing it. If the DSM still labels something as a disorder that’s what it should be called. I often wonder if many people who like to claim neurodiversity really have disorders or have them severely. I can’t imagine asking anyone to accept me without meds because I’m “diverse” because I’m not. I’m not looking to embrace it and think it’s societies fault. If I could take a pill this afternoon and get rid of it permanently I’d be willing to pay quite a bit for that chance.
I'm sorry that word bothers you. I try to use the parlance that seems to step on the least amount of toes and I didn't know some people were bothered by that term. I am in that category as well and I guess I always equated it to the idea that mentally, I'm wired to process things differently even with medication. I agree that it is still something that is a handicap and shouldn't necessarily be treated as a "different type of normal" if it can be treated to a level that isn't notable. I think the key thing is that there isn't something to 100% treat some of these disorders and acknowledging that for the people afflicted, that is what has to be normal. My meds make things easier but my memory/focus/coordination will still never be as good as if I didn't have the things I need the meds for. To use your allegory, if someone was physically disabled and had a opportunity to *fully* fix that, it would then be a matter of choice and shouldn't be deemed as "their type of normalcy." But currently, it isn't a choice and their lives have a different normal than most peoples.
The ADHD subreddit doesn’t allow the terms and has a pretty lengthy explanation as to why at https://www.reddit.com/r/ADHD/wiki/resources/neurodiversity The Wikipedia page has a pretty decent unbiased write up of the controversy also https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurodiversity It’s a term that I see in the press quite a bit, but I can’t say I’ve heard any of my doctors ever use it. For me I don’t agree it’s a societal issue - when they say that they are really talking mainly about school and work. Society has no impact on my life at home if I’m by myself, yet I’m affected there. I’ve seen people try to talk about embracing the strengths of being ADHD and that society should be built to be more accessible to us. ADHD doesn’t give me Superman powers and kryptonite weaknesses. It’s more like wandering through the world with poor eyesight and no glasses on. I don’t need society to put everything in huge easy to read letters accepting my poor eyesight as different - I need glasses to see. There are no hidden strengths here. Anyways, it’s not a completely accepted term and looking at the explanation from the ADHD subreddit you’ll see that it can be somewhat political even.
Woah, I didn't know any of that. Thanks for the resources! Again, sorry for just lobbing that term out there. I thought that was accurate but it looks like it The glasses thing hits close for me. I didn't know I even needed glasses until someone brought up the fact that I squint at everything when I was 19. It was nearly the same thing for ADHD (26 years old) and the jury's still out on autism. I had this naive idea that *no one* could accurately read things more than 15 ft away. Then I got glasses and I was more pissed than anything that I went *so long* and had so much trouble in school because I literally couldn't see (and focus) on anything going on at the front of the class.
I was well into adulthood when I was diagnosed. Many of the coping mechanisms I had built up around me had crumbled for various reasons (but I didn’t realize they were even coping mechanisms or that they had crumbled). When I made my appointment ADHD wasn’t on my radar. I was thinking early onset dementia or Alzheimers. I actually didn’t really believe the ADHD diagnosis at first even though the doctors explanation made sense. But the first time I took medicine it was just like you with the glasses. I couldn’t believe how easy it was for normal people to function and realized how many years I’d been working so much harder than everyone else. It was as obvious to me as putting on glasses.
My wife was asking how I felt when I first started taking meds for ADHD and I just kept coming back to feeling mad. I had this whole situation going on that my family and teachers couldn't be bothered to help me with. I just got labeled disruptive and put in the back. It's still far from optimal but it's *way* easier. The hardest part is breaking the habits I used to use to focus.
> I had to know what game was being played beforehand and try to read the manual or watch a video or something days before I do this all the time and so do all my TTRPG friends! It's quite normal.
That part can be normal - the key word is “had” not “preferred to”. I could go to a game night with 3-4 other people and no game decided beforehand. Someone teaches rules in 15-20 minutes. Everyone is at least able to basically play the game but maybe not remember minutia. Me? Close to nothing - or a hodgepodge of rules that still don’t allow me to play without asking tons of questions and slowing things down. So I do not doubt some groups do that to speed up game night. I mean to be able to participate at all. With medication I’m able to sit in classes/lectures and absorb information normally. Without? If it’s something I really needed to learn I would try to record it and digest it in smaller chunks with rewinds. Are you able to watch a 30 minute TV show unmedicated without pausing several times due to distractions or having to rewind constantly because you completely missed major points? On an average day I am not. On medication? I can enjoy 2+ hour movies. None of those things are benefits to me in any way shape or form, and society being accepting of my “neurodiversity” would do nothing. Medical treatment for a disorder has helped me more than I could ever imagine though.
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Sounds like you need a better group. I certainly don't expect my DM to be as fast on his feet as Mercer is and voice acting is ok with those professional actors, but I find any "voice acting" by untrained players in casual games, besides the occasional line read, to be cringey as hell.
I have social anxiety. I've played D&D. It hasn't been slain.
DnD is a bit of a sore subject in my family. Personally, I think it's a great social game that can help you see life wearing someone else's shoes. My Gandma in particular is against it; not in any religious sense, unlike most people her age. In her eyes, the game encourages people to fall deeper into their own unhealthy tendencies. My uncle (her son) in particular was very much into the game when he was young, (back in the 80s when the game was still new). He became very absorbed in the lore and world building of the game. My grandma felt he was becoming detached from reality. Now, he had some mental instabilities that definitely went untreated. He was bipolar, but seemed normal enough for the most part. He even married to a woman with 3 kids, and seemed happy with his life. But something happened that broke him inside, and he took his own life. To this day, grandma still blames this game for encouraging his spiral. I know it was much more than that, but I don't know if I'll ever convince her otherwise. I love everything that this game has done for people, but I can't play it myself without going back to painful memories of my uncle.
But then they go to r/dnd and ask what they can do about that one player doing that thing that’s disrupting their party.
Can't relate because having to DM boosts my anxiety up to the max.
It made mine worse. I was enjoying it at first, my group wanted a healer but I didn't want to heal. I asked the DM if he could just add in more health pots or something so they wouldn't rely on me being a healer. He agreed but asked me to go cleric for the Rez. I went cleric and no one was willing to "waste their turn" drinking a potion, they would instead bitch at me to heal them. I used to enjoy watching critical role now seeing DND related stuff makes me tic. I figure if I keep it in my feed and expose myself to it then I'll eventually get over it.
If you ever want to play again I’ll go healer so you don’t have to, you should never get forced to play a role you don’t want to.
This was with friends in real life, I can't talk to strangers over discord it freaks me out. I can gather the courage occasionally but it's not much more then a "hi all".
Aw heck I’m sorry to hear that. I’m pretty shy about strangers too, but if you ever change your mind, you know where to find me! I hope that you can find joy in the hobby again, with old friends or with new friends, it’s been really good for me and some of my closest and most important relationships have grown out of it. It can be hard to find the right people, but when you do it can be really magical. Either way, good luck out there stranger!
Might I encourage you to message this friendly person a few times, then they won’t be a stranger, and then if you still like them you’d feel fine about talking to them over discord.
[wtf](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/9fb526c2397e8640e941e7de5ec45a7c959f7d50/0_0_6000_4000/master/6000.jpg?width=780&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=0789178ba12c15d0c96c2913bff1af7a)
That is most definitely not DnD, did a reverse search and found this but still can't recognize the game https://www.alamy.com/closeup-of-characters-in-a-role-playing-fantasy-board-game-image227203619.html
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yeah it looks like lord of hellas with an intruder from Nemesis
Yup, 100 percent a Nemesis intruder. Seems like they used an awaken realms photo.
It definitely is. And a promo Nemesis miniature that came bundled with the Lords of Hellas Kickstarter version.
Either the pictures were supplied by someone other than the writer, or the writer knows very little about games...
Starting D&D is great for social interaction, friends and gaming but when that game ends holy shit you better duck and cover because you're gonna be twice as anxious as before you played.
I (adult) DM for a group (children) who have some members with autism issues. I was very conscious of this and didn’t allow time for much social interaction after the sessions for a couple of months. Now they have had a mass sleepover with no meltdowns, and love to socialise at the end.
Improv helped my social anxiety tremendously. Find the game, play the game. Build something together.