Profs & Pints DC: Role-Playing Games and Mental Health

Profs and Pints DC presents: “Role-Playing Games and Mental Health,” with William Nation, adjunct professor of psychology at Texas Woman's University and staff psychologist at Johns Hopkins University.

[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/profsandpints/dc-d-n-d .]

Role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons used to be the stuff of basement nerd culture. Fast forward a few decades from their 1970s origins and now they’re everywhere, from big-budget movies and television shows to corporate team-building exercises.

Here’s the wild part: Beyond being fun, these games actually are helping people’s mental health in real and measurable ways.

Learn about the fascinating history of role-playing games and their emergence as a tool for mental-health professionals with William Nation, who has spent years using tabletop games in therapeutic settings and educating others how to do so.

He’ll take us through time from the 1980s, when the growing popularity of such games strangely inspired fears that they were a gateway to Satanism, to the modern boom in their popularity, examining how both the games and the culture around them have changed.

Then we’ll explore how role-playing games, storytelling, and collaborative problem-solving have been found to help with things like anxiety, depression, developing social skills, and navigating neurodivergence. You’ll learn what happens in our brains when we tell stories together, how pretending to be a wizard can make you more confident in real life, and why therapists are running Dungeons & Dragons groups.

Whether you’re a die-hard fan of role-playing games or just curious about them, you’ll enjoy venturing into worlds of those who are using them to improve mental health. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: Dungeons & Dragons action as captured by photographer Armitage Armstrong / Creative Commons