(Originally published in Austin Family Magazine, August 2024 as Kids and Role Playing Games)
The setting is your family room. The props are simple: a towel, a sofa cushion, an empty water bottle. The actors? A pair of four-year-old BFFs find their places. The one wearing her father’s bedroom slippers commands, “I’ll be the daddy, and you be the baby.” For the fifth time this afternoon.
And they may keep going, reenacting this scene again and again. But what are these children getting out of this game? To adult eyes, both the story and the dialogue seem nearly identical. So what’s going on?
What are Role Playing Games?
These children are learning about relationships, the world, and their place in it. This is imaginative play, an early childhood form of role playing game (RPG), which is an interactive form of storytelling. This type of play allows children to explore many things: feeling more powerful or knowledgeable, seeing the world from other viewpoints, making choices, cooperating in play.
This collaboration requires children to listen to one another, take turns, compromise, follow directions, and make decisions. These are skills that the PreK set will need to master as their world expands.
Why the Endless Do-Overs?
Testing Outcomes. Children are born researchers who understand that sometimes changing one small thing can vastly affect an outcome. Will the other players respond differently? How does this affect the story? Iterations allow them to find answers to these, and other, questions.
Exploring Choices. Occasionally, a choice in play has natural consequences that result in unwanted outcomes, and the players rescript their game to get a different result. They are failing in a safe space and learning perseverance. They are also beginning to recognize boundaries, and how to react when rules get broken.
Learning Visualization. RPGs call on players to form a picture in their minds about what is happening and to think metaphorically, allowing one thing to represent another. These skills are used in both reading and math readiness.
Do Older Kids Play RPGs?
Like their preschool counterparts, older children often participate in imaginative play, with a few key differences. Younger elementary-aged children frequently still engage in open-ended RPGs: playing house or school, pretending to run a store. As they reach the tween years, some kids begin to play tabletop RPG games (TTRPGs) Dungeons & Dragons, Magic: The Gathering, Kids on Bikes, and others.
Following Rules. Games, including RPGs, have more rules in middle childhood, imposing organizational and behavioral demands on participants.
Playing Cooperatively. To extend the game with others, players must become less rigid and self-regulate more. Sharing both time and props with other players has the built-in reward of a group of co-collaborators who are likely to return to the game again and again.
Planning Ahead. Quite often, the “game” will show up as a lot of set up but little actual playacting. It’s about process, not product. When school-aged children say they are “playing,” frequently they are preparing for the game they have in mind. They are practicing organizational skills. By projecting what they will need to play their game successfully, they are planning.
How About Teens?
Teens play many of the same TTRPGs as their younger counterparts, but with several key differences.
Pushing Boundaries. Rather than simply learning and applying the rules, teens look for ways to use game rules to their group’s advantage.
Connecting Kids. RPGs, as with much of adolescence, is about peer relationships. Teen players have a deeper interest in role-playing (parlay) than fighting (melee).
Building Skills. RPG-playing teens play more tactically, planning ahead for potential situations and challenges. They are also practicing self-regulation, time/resource management, and flexibility.
Staying Safe. RPGs can be safe spaces to explore a wide variety of behaviors as the Game Master (GM) narrates events, settings, and non-player characters (NPCs). Skillful arbitration of game rules and interpersonal dynamics can be tricky, and an experienced GM is a must. Keeping lines of communication open with your RPG-playing teen and their GM is recommended.
What About Kids Who Are Neurodiverse?
Neurodiversity acknowledges that both thinking and behavior are diverse within human populations. Neurodivergence describes the spectrum of ways people's brains take in, process, and respond to information and stimuli. Neurodiversity includes ADHD, autism spectrum, dyslexia and dyscalculia, OCD, and other diagnoses.
Practicing Skills. RPGs can be effective learning tools used to help everyone, not just neurodiverse people, practice specific social and organizational skills in low-risk environments. Empathy, collaboration, and listening are required of all players to create a successful long-term RPG campaign, and failing safely reinforces learning.
Comforting Rules. RPGs, despite the apparent large number of choices they offer their players, provide the comfort of a set of usually highly defined rules. Having a set of expressly stated rules helps individuals who are practicing successful social interactions.
And in Conclusion…
Ultimately, the goal for RPGs is not about who wins or loses, but extending the play for as long as possible. Children of every age, and adults too, can benefit from playing RPGs, which are not only fun, but let players acquire and practice social and organizational skills needed to succeed in life.
Related Posts
