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Ever had someone be a jerk to you, and you couldn't figure out how to respond until three hours later?
That happened to me this weekend.
Except this time, my 700-year-old elf monk, Q, stood up for me.
I was playing Q in a D&D game. During a fight with a monster, I decided to hang back and give our spellcasters space to attack without getting caught in the crosshairs (for the D&D folks reading this, I didn’t want Q to suddenly find herself melting in a fireball!)
When my turn ended, the next player chided me.
"You should've moved your character closer to the monster so I could get advantage on my attack."
And then he made that tsk tsk noise. You know, the one people make when they're scolding a child? He didn't let it go, either. He kept complaining about my decision.
Now, being a woman at a D&D table sometimes comes with its own challenges. Having your decisions second-guessed or someone feeling entitled to tell you how to play isn't exactly a new experience.
Laura the human was thinking, Geez, sorry. I guess I messed up.
But Q? Q is a 700-year-old elf who has absolutely no patience for this nonsense.
She shot back at him, "If you're so clever, I'm sure you can figure out how to hit the monster without my help."
The situation was imaginary but my feelings were very real.
In real life, I was second-guessing myself. But through my character, I was able to push back in a way I might not have otherwise.
And here's what is so freaking cool about that: I wasn't just pretending to stand up for myself. I was actually practicing it.
Our brains don't completely separate imagined experiences from real ones. Some of the same neural systems involved in real experiences also become active when we imagine or rehearse them.
So while Q was standing up to a bully in a fictional world, Laura was getting to practice what it feels like to speak up in the real one.
And that's exactly why I find tabletop role-playing games so fascinating for professional development.
In a recreational D&D game, a Dungeon Master might remind everyone that players have agency and everyone gets to make their own decisions. (And for what it's worth, this guy was eventually booted from the table.)
But in a QUEST game designed for leadership development, a Leadership Game Master would go a step further.
They might ask:
"How did the criticism affect the other player?"
"What would have been a better way to respond when someone didn't act as strategically as you'd hoped?"
Now we're getting somewhere.
Because this isn't really about whether Q should have moved closer to the monster.
It's about how we respond when someone makes a decision we disagree with. How we give feedback. How we handle being challenged. And whether our reactions encourage people to contribute or make them think twice about speaking up again.
That's the difference between playing a game and using a game for professional development.
We get to experiment with different behaviors, notice how we affect one another, and have conversations that might otherwise be uncomfortable.
All while fighting imaginary monsters.
And sometimes, we get to practice becoming the people we want to be.
If you'd like to learn more about playing D&D at work, join us for our next roundtable on December 7 at 1 PM ET.
Laura
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