It All Began With Gen Con
A long time ago, in a state not so far away, a girl sat around a table filled with friends who were taking the time to explain what even is a tabletop role playing game to her. Admittedly, Dread was a … choice… for an introduction to the big wide world of TTRPGs, but here we were. That girl did not have the best time pretending to be a nuclear physicist, mainly because her depth of knowledge into the world of physics was the splash pad and not comparable to the ocean of knowledge surrounding her. The frustration of not being able to fake it in the physics world with those who knew what they were talking about would delay this girl from participation in other tables for several years, but not forever, because that is the magic of Gen Con.
Hi! I’m Kayla and yes, I was that girl back in 2011. There are many things that I could talk about, and I will very likely talk more on inclusivity at the table and making new gamers feel welcome (because new gamers are awesome and mean that we will be able to fill up our tables when we want to play games - especially Indie games). But this will not be that post. No, my nostalgia is primary fueled by having just wrapped up Gen Con 2022 and my post-COVID return to the ‘best four days in gaming’. Despite the many years I’ve been to Gen Con at this point in my life, I was still able to have some new experiences. And what better way to kick off Saving Throw Therapeutics’ blog than where the seed of my love for gaming was planted and where, despite some adversity to start with, it blossomed and grew into this whole new unexpected career for me.
For those of you who have never gone to Gen Con, or any Con, I can’t recommend the experience enough. It is energizing and magical to be swept up in all of the unique options for gaming, sites to see, cosplay to admire, and shopping to be had. I also feel like every year I have the great opportunity to grow my network. I was even lucky enough to find a new friend in the DMV area through Games on Demand. But that is getting slightly ahead of myself, so let’s start at Gen Con Day 0 - Trade Day!
Full disclosure, I have never participated in Trade Day before. But this year I represented Saving Throw Therapeutics to learn in talks around the industry. Trade Day is geared towards retailers, game developers, and educators. While therapy doesn’t really fit nicely into those boxes, I still felt there was a lot to learn and I am really happy that I attended. Some of my highlights were TTRPGs in Middle School which talked about systems a teacher has been using in their MS role playing club successfully over the past 10 years. While they aren’t focused directly on therapy, they presented ideas to use other systems such as Tales from the Loop which I will definitely have to get more information on. They also spoke to the anecdotal growth their club participants had over the years, learning more about themselves and developing social skills and leadership skills that they took on with them to high school.
Another tip they provided was the use of ‘popcorn initiative’ to help with drifting attention one might find in a middle school setting or at a neurodivergent table. For those of you unfamiliar with the idea of popcorn initiative, basically you have each PC, NPC, and monster roll for initiative as normal with the highest going first. However, after the first character takes their turn, they are then able to choose the next character to go instead of following numerical order. This follows until each and every character gets a turn that round. The last character to go in the round can decide who goes next for the following round, and yes they can choose themself. While at first glance you might think, well the PCs will just choose everyone on their team to go first and deal as much damage as possible, which is entirely possible. However, if they do that they risk giving the monsters a double round of attacks on them with the monsters going last and then opting to go first. There is a lot to think about when choosing the order of each round, which definitely helps with player engagement.
An additional talk was presented by college business professors who are using the character creation process to assist them in teaching about what makes a good business leader and where their students relate. This is a phenomenal tool that has a lot of therapeutic potential and that I sometimes incorporate into my individual sessions. From a therapy standpoint, I like to have my clients make a character sheet that represents themselves in some way, whether that is who they see themselves as today, who they would like to be in the future, or who they were in the past. There is so much you can talk about around character growth and what to level up to get to your future self. Where would you put your finite skill points? What are you best at? What are your growth areas? How do those present or translate to the skills that fall under each umbrella? Maybe the traditional stats are less useful of a conversation, so we create new stats and new skills to talk about. The possibilities really do seem endless. The professors introduced an idea I hadn’t thought of yet, which was to have someone else (ie: a parent, friend, etc) fill out the character sheet for the person to talk about how they see the person’s strengths and growth areas. You could also talk about how that person thinks the other would act in certain situations. I think this could be an exceptionally useful tool in family therapy and couples counseling alike.
Besides sparking feelings of creativity for therapy, I had another big learning moment during Trade Day. Almost everyone I spoke with had no idea that Therapeutic Game Masters exist. So here I go, setting a goal for myself in front of you all, time to put together a talk on the use of TTRPGs in therapy for Gen Con Trade Day 2023.
I was very exhausted by the end of the talks, so I did end up skipping out on the social mixer to say hello to some friends that had made it to town that evening and that I don’t get to see often. If you are somehow, even tangentially, connected to the industry I would absolutely recommend Trade Day moving forward. I left with a brain full of ideas and a bag full of notes and resources. And this is where I will leave our talk for now. Stay tuned for my next post which will cover more information on my Gen Con 2022 experience and maybe even some more of me waxing nostalgic!
- Kayla
