RPG Research is a non-profit charitable research and human services global volunteer-run organization studying the effects of cooperative music and all role-playing game formats and their potential to improve lives around the world. All of our staff and executives are 100% unpaid volunteers who believe in our Mission and Vision to make a real Impact. This includes research into role-playing game therapy (RPG Therapy), role-playing games for education (RPG education), applied role-role-playing gaming (applied RPG), and many other uses.
Video Interview Transcript
PERSEPHONE
Hi, this is Persephone Corvid Rose with Redwood Voice.
ELENI
Hi, I’m Eleni with Redwood Voice.
PERSEPHONE
We are joined by one John Degler.
JD
That’s my dad and grandfather, I’m JD.
PERSEPHONE
We’re joined with JD today because Paul Critz, station manager of KFUG, told me something interesting about recreational therapy Dungeons and Dragons. And we’re joined with JD to talk about what that means.
JD
Well I’ve been doing training with a company called RPG Research where they use tabletop role-playing games as recreational therapy for people who have a variety of issues that they deal with. It’s been a huge learning experience for me. I’ve been doing D&D for the better part of three decades or longer, but I haven’t approached it from this particular side so it’s been an adventure.
PERSEPHONE
Awesome! You said it helps with various issues. What kinds? Like, if there’s just a laundry list.
JD
There really isn’t. There’s all kinds of benefits of playing role-playing games from learning critical thinking skills to socializing skills. And mainly what it brings to the table is helping people who have troubles with those types of skills actually access them in an environment that is inclusive and non-threatening.
PERSEPHONE
So, you’re currently in the training yourself. How’s that going? Tell me about that.
JD
Oh, it’s absolutely lovely. It’s kind of fun, the original 12-week program for the level one training system was turned into 16 weeks. As I finished the last half of the 16 week program, Hawk, the gentleman who runs the company, discovered that his workbook wasn’t actually working and extended it to an 18-week program. It makes sense because some of the information is pretty intense. This isn’t just learning how to play a game, it’s learning the terminology that you need to become a recreational therapist over a number of trainings and how to apply it in an RPG setting and be effective without just playing the game and going “oh look we did it”.
PERSEPHONE
I was going to ask, what are you doing for those 18 weeks?
JD
Well, I have my workbook here. It’s a 302 page workbook.
PERSEPHONE
Not only is it 302 pages, it’s like textbook margins so it’s a lot of stuff!
JD
It’s stuffed with all of my notes, and my notes are copious because I don’t have experience in this particular aspect of RPGs, so I have to work harder at doing this. It’s been a really interesting stretch of my comfort zone.
PERSEPHONE
What got you into doing this?
JD
Well, I was actually online doing some research for one of my games and on Facebook I came across a post about RPG Research. And then I went to their website and I went “oh my god, I want to do this”. Our area is underserved. We don’t have a lot of programs for kids and the last after school program we had, the person who was running it got arrested. So yes…
PERSEPHONE
Interesting.
JD
So, I would like to return something like this to the area to give kids who are interested something to do. You have to learn multiple game sources and there are multiple different types of games. You have to learn the terminology involved with the games. Because, for example, you cannot call all of the “Choose Your Own Adventure Books” that are out there “Choose Your Own Adventure Books” because CYOB INC., the company that owns that trademark, just settled a lawsuit with Netflix over a program Netflix was doing that was a “Choose Your Own Adventure” program. You have to know the correct terminology so that people understand you and you don’t get sued.
PERSEPHONE
It’s funny you gotta balance both those out. And is there anything you found since you’re learning different game systems and how that kind of translates to different kinds of recreational therapy?
JD
Well, one of the one of the game systems I just recently played since week six was No Thank You, Evil! It’s a really simple almost LARP kind of game. It is tabletop based, you have a character sheet that’s very minimal and you have a guide. You bring the kids along through the quest. The one we did was something about “Dragon Snot Fountain” or “Dragon Snot Falls”. It was great! And it involves a lot of “get up and move” activities. In one part of the adventure you have to pretend you’re climbing a ladder. In another part, you have to do the bee dance to get the directions to where you need to go. And there’s a lot of activity involved to help stop what they call the wiggle butt syndrome little kids have and people who have really bad ADHD have.
PERSEPHONE
Yeah, as one of those people that sounds great! I’m like yeah!
JD
When you get up and move, you get involved more and that really helps with that aspect of keeping people involved and helping them focus. There’s other games out there like Doctor Who: Adventures in Time and Space. It’s a really simple system. It’s a lot of fun to do, and it really involves a fan base that people can get involved with. It helps them focus on that because, you know, they like Doctor Who let’s see what we’re gonna do!
PERSEPHONE
Nice! Maybe sometime we gotta get, like, the full Redwood Voice team and you should bring us through one of these.
JD
Oh yes! Oh, you guys would have so much fun with No Thank You, Evil! Another fun thing about that is if something seems too much for a kid, they have a little token that they can put down that says “no thank you evil” and they can skip it entirely. It’s a really interesting and fun system that I have never even seen before and it’s one of the things I’ve been exposed to because of this training.
PERSEPHONE
I haven’t either because that’s much more of a like kinesthetic thing with people moving around. I don’t really see that in a lot of tabletop games.
JD
It’s kind of a hybrid between tabletop and LARPing and it’s a lot of fun.
ELENI
So, I personally really love that because I’ve had friends who tried to get me into D&D and the reason I can’t is because choices and like saying “oh can I do this?” makes me really anxious and panic a lot, so I like having the option to be like “no, no thanks”.
JD
And then that’s something that tabletop RPGs in a recreational therapy setting could help people confront along with like decision making abilities. And it’s really beneficial, according to the research that Hawk has put together.
PERSEPHONE
Kind of along the same lines of people who panic with decisions, I’ve run many a game where there’ll be someone on their phone the whole time and not paying attention or taking in the details and then conflict from there.
JD
That’s actually really common at my table as well. And it’s worse because I use digital devices to help get content out to the players and it’s getting even worse now in COVID because everything is digital. So, I don’t have any personal strategies for getting around that other than “pay attention”.
PERSEPHONE
So, that is actually a good segue question. Is this available during COVID times?
JD
Yes! RPG Research is headquartered in Spokane, Washington, so all of the training I go through remotely and it’s really fun. We start each training module each week with our administrative stuff making sure we’ve done our homework and that kind of thing. We do a pre-test to show what our baseline competency is. We do applied gaming where we actually play a certain game system, and then we do our lecture which focuses on the questions of the initial quiz. Then, we do the applied gaming section again to finish it out and then we do our post test to see if we retain that information. It’s a really good system Hawk has worked up. I’m really really into this system. Of the 18 weeks, I think I have done 16 now. I started the first nights at week 10 and we kind of went and repeated several weeks because people weren’t able to show up. That happens during the winter. I’ve gone back through and started with week one and it’s been very informative and very very interesting.
PERSEPHONE
Nice! Sounds very thorough.
JD
Very thorough kind of application process! And it’s a lot of fun too. I’m on the radio, so people don’t think of me as being an introvert, but I am. And this has been education for me and how to interact with other people that I don’t know and that I’ve never met before and how to be open with them right from the get-go. Because that’s not usually who I am.
PERSEPHONE
So, even the people like administering and kind of leading get to learn something from it too.
JD
Oh yeah, absolutely.
PERSEPHONE
And because it is remote, obviously it does have the thorough application process, but could anyone sign up to see if they’re eligible?
JD
There is an application process. You basically go to the website rpgresearch.com, you click on recruitment, and it’ll take you to what jobs are available. If you’re interested in any of the numerous positions they have from research assistant to volunteer player level 1 training, you click on the link, you fill out the application and send a resume. And then they get back to you. It could be me because i’m the volunteer coordinator now! And not only do they have these volunteer positions open and paid positions on the LLC side, Hawk has invested in a bus and a trailer that he takes up and down the coast and all around the country. He takes role-playing games and tabletop role-playing games to different communities that are underserved. He’s actually passed through Crescent City before on his way down to Santa Rosa, where he’s originally from. I’m wanting him to bring that bus here so that we can get the interest going and get some kind of recreational therapy system based on tabletop roleplaying games going here.
PERSEPHONE
I would love to see that. If you need any media help- [laughs]
JD
It’s constantly growing. There’s more than 150 volunteers on six different continents. One of the other volunteer coordinators I’m training with is in Germany and he’s from Nigeria. It’s a very diverse crowd of people who are interested in making this happen and that growth has happened in the last 18 months which is amazing.
PERSEPHONE
Like, so it started like 18 months ago?
JD
No, he’s been involved in the therapy side since 1977, I believe. Hawk, John, and Danielle got together and put together RPG Research and they filed as a nonprofit in 2016, I think. So, RPG Research has been an official non-profit since 2016, but Hawk has been doing this since the mid-80s. I’m really hoping that we get more attendance at the trainings because right now it’s been three to four people including the coordinators in all the trainings that I’ve done. And it’s really difficult. For one of the trainings, you play Neverwinter night’s expanded edition and there’s all kinds of different things you can do with it. One of them is running the DM Client which is, basically, you’re an invisible player that provides rewards or consequences to the other players as they go through the module you’ve created or that’s already been created. And this is all of it is based on teaching you how to make decisions and how to help players move forward in their game. It’s a way of playing D&D electronically because Neverwinter Nights is actually based on second edition rules. So, it’s all actual Dungeons and Dragons, just on a computer and a whole bunch of people can play it. And the idea with the training is to get a whole bunch of people together on the server and they pass the responsibility around and lead through different parts of the adventure. We’ve barely been able to get two people together during the winter and I’m hoping this summer, that’s gonna change and we can get more robust training.
PERSEPHONE
Sounds like you might need even more people to join in.
JD
Absolutely!
PERSEPHONE
And again for people at home, if they are interested in joining, how would they go about doing that?
JD
Go to rpgresearch.com and at the top of the website you’ll see a row of links you can click. One is volunteering and you can click on that link and it’ll give you a list of all the jobs that are there, and there’s paid jobs there as well if you want to move to Spokane.
ELENI
Something I was curious about: do you think it’s like an advertising issue as to like why there’s only just a handful of people involved? Or just, you know, we are in the middle of an almost two year long pandemic. Why do you personally think it’s only just a handful of people that are currently involved with this? Because like you said, there were only, like, two to four people at a time. I was just curious if you had any personal theories as to why that was?
JD
I agree with Hawk’s comment on it. He’s been doing this for years and what he has seen is, during spring summer fall they have a swell of volunteers who get involved and do things, and then over the holiday break you know Thanksgiving and Christmas they fall off because they’re all doing things with family. So, you know, that makes a lot of sense. It kind of goes dormant and there’s a few dedicated people who stick to it, and a few new people, but not usually a lot. I was kind of an apparently unusual person getting on board during the winter session and it was really more focused because there were fewer of us and we were able to be more involved with the questions and the training. It goes through a cycle like a lot of other volunteering. Locally, I volunteer for DNACA and Community Concert and we don’t plan events during that three-month time period for the most part. The latest we’ll really go is November and then we’ll skip through to February because there’s so many other things going on. I also do Community Concert and you know there’s so many things going on during the winter that people are really too compressed to do something else.
PERSEPHONE
Understandable! Yeah, is there anything else that we’ve not asked that you would like to make sure gets said?
JD
They’re developing a brain computer interface for allowing people who are complete shut-ins, you know, paralyzed from the neck down to be able to do yes no questions to do a computer game and participate in a tabletop role-playing type games like Neverwinter Nights. And this is something that Hawk has already done. He’s used a cheaper interface to get characters to move in Neverwinter Nights just by thinking about it. Yeah, so he and a group of researchers are putting together a computer game based entirely on the brain computer interface to help these people who are literally laying in a bed staring at the ceiling and doing nothing but have full cognition. They’re conscious and they’re aware, but they can’t do anything so they’re trying to develop this so that they can do something. They have research going on about this subject constantly. On how tabletop RPGs, LARPing, electronic role-playing games, and hybrid role-playing games help people. So this is a constant body of knowledge that’s expanded and is constantly expanding and he knows more about all of that than I do. They have community outreach programs, they’ve got the bus, they’ve got just so many different things happening!
PERSEPHONE
Awesome! Thank you so much for talking to us. For Redwood Voice, I’m Persephone Rose.
ELENI
And I’m Eleni.
If you’re interested in this work, you can find everything you need about them on their website, or even go straight to their volunteering section.