The Psychology of D&D

"The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek."

“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”

—Joseph Campbell

I still remember the day Matt’s elf died. The party was deep in the Underdark, and had disturbed the lair of a dragon that dwelt in that cavernous, subterranean realm. By the time they realized they were overmatched, it was nearly too late. While the rest of the party fled, Matt’s elven warrior covered their retreat, sword in hand, staring straight into the dragon’s massive jaws. But while the rest of the group escaped with their lives and found their way back to the surface, Matt’s character didn’t make it. He’d sacrificed himself to save the party.

I remember trying to console Matt afterward, over pizza and Mountain Dew—telling him his character had died a hero. But he was still upset. We were 13 years old, and in this game, emotions sometimes ran high. 

Dungeons and Dragons, the original tabletop role-playing game, was created by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson and first published in 1974. I was introduced to the game at age ten by my friend Adrian, and immediately fell in love with the way the game allowed me and my friends to explore imaginary worlds together.

Today, the game is enjoying something of a renaissance. Thanks to the popularity of streamed games like Critical Role and high-profile cultural references in popular media like Stranger Things, it seems more people are playing D&D today than ever. 

But what is it about D&D that makes this game so compelling? As both a psychotherapist and a lifelong Dungeon Master, I’ve often asked myself this question.

I believe D&D appeals to something fundamental to human nature: the urge to gather around the campfire with friends and tell stories. As far back in our evolution as the development of language, we told stories as a way to create shared meaning and understanding of ourselves and the world around us. Sharing stories about our experiences in hunting, gathering, warfare, and relationships would have played an important role in survival. It would have allowed us to learn from each other’s experiences, and for knowledge to compound, as each generation passed on its stories to the next.

At the same time that we shared the wisdom of experience, storytelling would have helped us strengthen our social bonds. We could empathize with each other’s stories, and so feel closer to each other, which further benefited the survival of the group. 

When we play D&D, we are participating in this age-old tradition. Although online play has become more popular in recent years, D&D is traditionally played sitting around a table, with dice, paper, pencils, drinks, snacks, and sometimes miniature figures to represent the characters. But the action really happens in conversation between the players, as we work together to create a story of fantasy and adventure.

Into this primal storytelling tradition, we can add the framework for the story itself: the hero’s journey, as conceptualized by Joseph Campbell and expressed in Star Wars and hundreds of other stories we all know. While Campbell’s idea of a monomyth has been justly criticized—there are many types of stories found across cultures, not just one—a typical D&D adventure is very much in keeping with this archetypal structure.

It’s right there in the name, Dungeons and Dragons. In the most basic form of D&D adventure, the heroes descend into a dungeon—defined loosely as a dangerous, underground environment—very much like the mythic underworld braved by heroes going back to the Greek myths. There, they confront all kinds of hazards, from deadly traps, to fearsome monsters, to dark magic. At the end, they discover some kind of treasure, which they then bring back to the surface world. 

There’s something inherently compelling about this basic structure, so much so that we, as a culture, devour movies, TV, video games, and any other media that present us with new variations on it. 

Is it that modern life presents us with so few opportunities to be heroes? To work together as a team to overcome meaningful challenges? To fight for causes that are unquestionably good, rather than ambivalent? 

The social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has spoken about the need that boys have to work as a team with other boys to overcome challenges. Certainly, when I was growing up, our D&D groups were that kind of activity. D&D taught us teamwork, problem-solving, strategy, and conflict resolution. But D&D’s appeal, today, goes well beyond adolescent males, reaching an increasingly diverse audience.

Like video games, D&D also offers a much clearer reward structure than our usual experience of modern life. Quests, experience points, and leveling up form a compelling feedback loop for our dopamine circuits, which is why designers are now trying to ‘gamify’ everything.

Most modern forms of entertainment make us passive consumers. Movies, TV, and even novels (as much as I love them) don’t require or allow for much participation on our part. Even most video games have linear plot lines that don’t really let us create our own stories. (Open-world games like The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom are somewhat of an exception, which is probably why they are so popular and critically acclaimed).

D&D, on the other hand, allows us to do something unique: to make up our own characters, settings, and stories, together with our friends. Especially in the wake of the pandemic, when many of us have experienced a longing for greater social connection, D&D offers a way for us to connect with our fellow humans and create something together, to put our imaginations together and share in an archetypal hero’s journey, which can be deeply meaningful as well as fun. 

No wonder many therapists are starting to offer D&D to clients as a form of group therapy. While I haven’t taken that step yet, I can see how it would help people. But you don’t need a professional therapist as your Dungeon Master to have a meaningful, or even therapeutic experience with D&D. All you need to do is get some friends together with pencils, paper, and polyhedral dice and start making things up. 

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