Dungeons and Dragons – Gaming with Autism

Two years ago I wrote about Dungeons and Dragons as a radically social response to autism. The idea – proven by peer-reviewed study – was that D&D had a therapeutic benefit for people living with autism. Back then, I had just started running a group funded by the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) for a local community centre.

Well, two years and 100 sessions later, I felt it time to reflect on how the campaign has gone, what I’ve learned, and what I’ve done right. While the group I run for the local community service is ostensibly for people living with autism, it is never just autism: there are usually other issues associated – such as anxiety. For that matter, pinning ‘just’ autism down to a specific set of symptoms is no easy task.

(Click the PDF icon, upper right, if you prefer reading a black-on-white script)

Author David Mitchell (Cloud Atlas), who has a son with autism, has observed:

Autism’s symptoms vary widely from person to person, and change over time. There’s an evergreen adage: “If you’ve met one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism.”

In addition, a couple of the group members are not autistic, but have a range of other disabilities, physical and psychological. However, are all verbal and group-ready (more on that later). I include this preamble to make it clear that I can’t and won’t make telling observations on how to deal specifically with autism in a Dungeons and Dragons setting, but rather, will provide more general thoughts on how I dealt and continue to deal with my diverse, neuroatypical group.

I come to these reflections from the perspective of a dungeon master, not as a medical professional (my formal expertise is in poverty, and more recently, cyberpunk). I have a support worker with me every session, provided by the community service, and one or two of the players will often have a carer with them as well.

Never Underestimate Anyone

I don’t do this in life and I don’t do it as a dungeon master. As David Mitchell puts it:

First up, is that we stop assuming a communicative impairment denotes a cognitive one…Instead, let’s assume that we’re dealing with a mind as keen as our own, and act accordingly.

Again, my group isn’t solely autistic, and the players have very different needs and abilities. I see it as my job to create a positive environment for social interaction (providing this space is, after all, the reason the group was created). In general I’m not interested in dumbing anything down, certainly not in the thematic sense. Sometimes I might streamline combat, by smoothing over some of the more esoteric aspects of 2^nd edition AD&D (I’m looking at you THAC0). Sure. But the complexity of the adventure I run will be very close to what I run for my group of friends on the weekend.

Complexity does have its challenges, of course. One of the players criticised me once, for example, for taking advantage of the fact that it was harder for them to judge when they were being manipulated (her words – note the self-awareness). I replied that I wasn’t trying to take advantage, but rather simply sow division in the party as per the powers of a malign magic item they had discovered. It is true that I did worry beforehand about this particular item and whether I should include it in the adventure. But after the party got through this challenge, they were stronger, and less likely thereafter to be turned against each other by evil enemies or entities. Lessons had been learned for the experience.

However, the player in question did have a point about being judicious about party conflict, which leads me to a key theme for gaming this context:

Division v Unity

I try to ameliorate inter-group conflict. The purpose of the program is, in part, to get people into a social situation and have them practice social skills. And, you know, enjoy themselves. It isn’t much fun, I think, for someone who rarely gets out, to expend all that energy – physical and emotional – travelling to a game, only to find themselves dealing with constant stressful disagreements. This is perhaps one of the biggest differences between the NDIS group and the campaigns I run with friends (in the latter I’m happy for them to torment each other).

Does this mean there are no disagreements? Shit No. Every single session there are major disagreements. Every session there are debates about courses of action, the same as any D&D group anywhere in the world. The party ended up instituting a system of voting for major decisions because of this (each side gets to debate their preferred course of action, then after all the arguments are aired, there is a vote. Ties of 3-3 are broken by a d20 roll on each side).

There is a tightrope to walk on this issue. Dungeons and Dragons is a safe space for participants to explore social interaction, embody a character, learn cooperation and consultation, and yes, to make mistakes. Learning to compromise, and to recover from mistakes, are essential to making D&D therapeutic.

Yet the point remains –  I don’t want it to be a place of anxiety or stress, which leads us to:

Not Everyone is Group Ready

Over the past two years I’ve had around ten players in the group, though only ever six or seven at any one time (side note: like regular D&D, anything beyond seven is unworkable, and will diminish the beneficial objectives of the game). Two players moved on when life commitments took them elsewhere. But, unfortunately, two more players left the program because they simply were not ready.

The term ‘group-ready’ is one used by the community service where I work. The idea isn’t complicated: is the individual ready to engage in group activities, or will they be so disruptive the whole program might be jeopardised? Less dramatically, will the individual find group activities too stressful, and be forced to quit?

This happened to one of my players – as much as she enjoyed playing – decided it was too stressful. She loved playing her character, but found it difficult dealing with the six other characters around the table.

Another of my players was disruptive and caused anxiety in the group. I tried my best to manage this, using a variety of strategies I had discussed with support workers. But they proved insufficient, and one of my regular players started having panic attacks. Another of the long-time players said to me: “I just don’t enjoy it anymore”. The problem was resolved, sadly, by diverting the disruptive individual to other programs. I beat myself up over this a bit, but in the end, the player in question was simply not group ready.

Conscientious Engagement

Not everyone should try to be engaged equally, of course. Rather, it is a question of thinking over the needs of each player. As with all groups, one or two players tend to dominate discussion. As with all groups, the DM should keep in mind whether it is enjoyable for players to hear just one player talking every session (maybe it is, if that character is a bard, for example, and the others are committed to playing strong silent type warriors). For an NDIS or equivalent group, I think it self-evident that a DM has to go to extra lengths to ensure participation. I know some of the players have good ideas, but are too hesitant to voice them, so I ask them what they think. Others just want to roll some dice. Another just wants to cast fireball in every single encounter.

So in some ways, just like every D&D group out there. And in other ways, not so much at all.

I feel pretty drained after a two-hour session with the NDIS group. Not that I notice during. But after, when I walk to the car, pack the miniatures and the maps and the books in the back, and sit in the driver’s seat, it hits me. I’m hyper-alert in a way I simply don’t have to be in my regular group. Which leads us to:

Shorter Sessions

The NDIS group is two hours, every time, with a 5-minute break in the middle. This is good for the attention span and energy of the players, and my own energy.

The upside of this is it makes sand-boxing so much easier (you’ll find a good explanation of sand-boxing versus rail-roading here. In short, sand-boxing gives the players much more agency, rail-roading press-gangs the players from encounter A, to B, to C). That is, if the players make a choice that is unexpected, or has consequences that really need some thinking through, I have time to plan and prepare for that change to happen the following week.

Online v Live

The point of Dungeons and Dragons, in this context, is clearly to do it live. While I know some of my players would prefer to do it online (as it reduces social anxiety), the face-to-face element of D&D is the core, transformative part of this program.

But those are thoughts for normal times, and these are no longer normal times. Positive engagement with a trusted group of friends, even online, is good for one’s mental health. So in that sense I think there is still a strong justification for D&D during a pandemic. In addition, with the use of maps, dice-rolling, and chat boxes that come with the Roll20 App, plus video conferencing and so forth, there is scope to help some of the players develop their IT proficiency (as it has done for me. As a technophobe with an instinctive preference for the live format, being forced to transfer the program online during lockdown made the game a lot more accessible for my regular weekend group. We’ve played through the pandemic, and a mate who lives in the US has now joined our Australia-based game).

Fun

This is all sounding pretty heavy so far. Honestly, the most important thing is to have fun. For my part, I roleplay overblown characters. Outrageous Monty Python accents for NPCs, spectacular descriptions of magic and battle, diabolical dragons, profoundly stupid hill giants, wicked goblins, camp high mages, foppish royal heralds, rogues with thick Australian accents. In turn, this helps ease any embarrassment the players might have, and create an atmosphere where laughter is ever-present. The players, in turn, have learned to have fun together, growing through a shared history of challenges.

Nerd-o-licious Specifics

The above general observations could probably be applied to a range of role-playing games. The following more particular to a Dungeons and Dragons campaign.

Alignment

I encourage players to play good characters, or at worst neutral. I’m not particularly interested in running evil campaigns in this context. My player’s ages range from about 16 to 55, and so I have in general a PG rating for my adventure. Evil campaigns lend themselves to evil acts, and I don’t think players returning home to tell families about human sacrifice to dark gods, or of massacres, or of torture sessions with captured prisoners, is good publicity for the kind of work we’re trying to do with D&D in the community sector.

Death

Don’t hold back. I’ve spoken to others about this, and watched experts from the US cover this issue, and it gels with my own instincts: don’t go easy.

But don’t go nuts, either. To be clear: I’m not interested total party kills as a dungeon master. My style certainly has deaths, but as a general rule they are rare. My philosophy is that the players are the main characters, and main characters should not be killed off without good reason. However, the possibility of a main character death should always be there – a la Game of Thrones – as this makes the game for more interesting and exciting. In two years of play, there have been three main character deaths in my campaign.

Actions have consequences, and this gaming space is a safe way to explore those consequences.

Splitting the Party

Yeah, nah. Not really possible in a two-hour session – it’s not like you can ask some of the players to wait in another room, while you sort out a little side-quest the mage has gotten himself into. Nor is it possible to have half the group one week and half the next, while you resolve the two directions the party has gone in (I mean: I suppose you could, but D&D represents one of the very few weekly social outings for some of my players – I’m hardly going to stop that).

Edition

I have run D&D with both 5^th edition and 2^nd. 5th is newer, simpler, and undoubtedly more popular with younger players coming to the game. But. 2^nd Edition is my first love. And I am the DM, so, you know. I run it when I can. As always, the edition matters less than good, engaging work by the DM.

Updates

I do this with all my groups: provide a small narrative of an important scene or event from the last session. It’s good to prompt the memories of the players, and I am a writer, after all: I do like writing a short pulp D&D fantasy scene reminiscent of the Dragon Lance novels (I can’t write hardboiled, dark, cyberpunk all the time). I occasionally use updates to give the players a reminder of the broader goals of the adventure they are on.

Has it worked?

I won’t go into too many specifics here, in order to protect the privacy of my players, but will say in general: yes. For some, it is the only social activity they have outside the house each week. For others, they eagerly look forward to the next session, planning strategies during the week to help the party overcome the latest obstacle. For many, they’ve learned to compromise, to deal with each other’s (and my) idiosyncrasies, and form cohesive group. For all, they’ve stayed with the campaign, week in and week out, including during a pandemic (this is when we were still playing live) putting aside their anxieties to slay dragons, tear down evil temples, and get ripped off by unscrupulous traders with funny accents.

Conclusion

The short version: never underestimate anyone, have fun, be vigilant. Push your players but never too much, and never forget the reason you’re there: positive social interaction. Oh yeah: and to roll some damn dice.