Date of Award

Spring 5-17-2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts in Expressive Therapies

Major

Expressive Therapies

First Advisor

Chyela Rowe, PhD, RDT/BCT

Abstract

Tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) such as Dungeons & Dragons are beginning to emerge as group therapeutic interventions, with a growing number of studies exploring their application. Early forays into this topic suggest a potential for TTRPGs to encourage prosocial behavior and collaboration in clients, as well as to explore heavy topics such as death from a more approachable distance. TTRPGs and the drama therapy core processes share many concepts, such as characters as projective objects, benevolent transgressive play, and aesthetic distance. Yet, research into TTRPGs from a drama therapy perspective is highly limited at this point. This capstone thesis highlights the use of TTRPGs in a community engagement project where a dyad of elementary school students volunteered to play the TTRPG Monster of the Week over the course of six weeks at an after-school program. The pair acted out an improvised urban fantasy story about their characters as protectors of monsters in a Massachusetts neighborhood, with this author serving as the Game Master. The author designed the TTRPG campaign through the lens of the drama therapy core processes, and with the aims of creating opportunities for the players to engage relationally, practice perspective-taking by embodying a character, and work together to solve problems. Observations from the implementation of this community project, in comparison to current literature, supported recommendations for further research into the use of TTRPGs as a drama therapy approach.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

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