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dnd made me meet my girlfriend, made me a group of friends out of coworkers and made my regular childhood group of friends meet much more often. It has been a solidly positive influence in my life

The info in this video should be shown to EVERY parent, politician and school teacher who believes D&D is "harmful" to the minds of others

I run a high school D&D club. We currently have 5 tables that meet weekly. I’m in a small school - 125 students. So that’s high engagement. But the most successful aspect is the incredible growth and development of the student players and DMs. I’ve had kids who didn’t show up to school become so invested in the club and their friends that they started wanting to be at school so they wouldn’t miss that time with them. One kid would not have graduated without it. I’m continually amazed at the results that come out of this club and equally amazed that more educators aren’t taking advantage of this (there is a steep learning curve, I’ll grant that).

My English teacher husband is currently trying to figure out how to create and DM a D&D world that will help his kids better understand the themes from Shakespeare's Hamlet ❤

DnD also makes me take a shower and leave the house eventually.

D&D allowed me to explore my creative side, spend time with my friends, build connections, join a community, become aware of my weaknesses and start improving them. I got to meet a whole new side of myself, and I'm forever grateful for that.

D&D helped me overcome some of my shyness and social awkwardness. It helped me think logically, appreciate research and history, write clearly, take notes, plan ahead, cooperate with others.... It's a great game and super helpful if you're the DM.

My DM sent this in our group chat… and I love it. I’m the youngest in our campaign with a very stressful life atm, and being able to see these people every week does make me happier. I can confidently say DND saved my life. It really is an escape, and the people I get to see almost every thursday sometimes feel more like family than my blood family does (even though I would never tell them that 😂) I love them all, and this video really does help prove it’s impactful in many ways. Thank you.

Roleplaying as a general practice is just really, really good in the lives of people. Whether it's TTRPGs, LARPs or even just the silly things that used to happen on Forums (and probably still do, I'm just not into that scene anymore) where people would make their post look really fancy and have to actively try not to "auto hit" NPCs or other characters in whatever combat was involved. I tried to start a local D&D group from my job at one point with a few extras pulled in from friend groups, and myself and one of the other guys were trying to get his girlfriend (now wife) to play with us. Her response would always be something along the lines of "I don't do that kind of nerd stuff" and I would always counter with "Have you ever done ANY kind of roleplay at all?" Her standard response to that would be "Not like THAT." alluding to NSFW roleplaying scenarios. I'd always just say "The type of roleplay is irrelevant, it's the practices involved that are important" and I still stand by that to this day. The type of roleplay you're involved in isn't really the part that matters, it's that you have experience stepping outside yourself and putting yourself in someone else's position.

I was given a grant by our county board of education to run an after school D&D club based on how it serves the social and emotional needs for our students

I've always loved acting and performing, but it's been much harder to join productions or choirs as I've gotten older. D&D fills that void for me. Hanging with friends, creating a story together, and all that jazz is the best part.

I learned more about engineering, weather, history, culture, science and mediation in TTRPGSs than in school.

A really interesting video, so it gets a long comment in reply 🙂 I belong to a UK nationwide organisation for, basically, retired folk. Local branches organise all sorts of groups (film, bridge, history, writing etc.) run by and for the members. By chance, I met a couple of members with whom I had played D&D back in the 1970s & 80s. So, we thought we'd try to get a D&D group together. That was just over a year ago and now we have a table of six meeting every other week. I'm 70 y.o. this year and my fellow players are all well into retirement. Returning to DMing after a break of over 30 years was a tad scary but it was like riding a bike. Getting back to your video, the players have all been through life. We've developed all the social and organisational skills you mention. But that means life has become a bit "been there, done that, know what to do next". I'm no psychologist but what the game seems to bring to us is the chance to exercise our imaginations. The game puts you in situations for which you have no reference in your everyday life. We may have experience but not of saving the occupants of a burning village! Personally, putting together and running scenarios again has changed my life. Like you, it's quite easy to spend every quiet moment thinking about the current campaign. But when you have a lot of free time on your hands, this is a very good thing. You briefly mentioned cost. We started with the "Essentials" rules, which WotC have published for free on line. We've had an excellent game under those rules. As an established group, our organisation has been good enough to finance a set of the full handbooks. The old hands dug out their dice and the newcomers soon bought their own. Cost should not stop you playing D&D. You talked about how you will look back on the days whwn you played D&D as you get older. Don't look back, move forward. I can assure you we have just as much fun as we did in our 20s and 30s. Keep up the good work.

The thumbnail scared me, but fantastic video. It means a lot when creators care about getting things right and spreading information rather than misinformation.

As a DM of 25+ years, I can say that tabletop games has been a huge outlet for me in many ways. From a creative outlet, a way to decompress, and just forge bonds with people, it has helped me so much.

I ran a campaign based on Magellan’s circumnavigation of the Earth. I learned a lot from researching for that campaign, both about the voyage itself and about the areas explored.

'It's the friends we made along the way'

This is indirectly really useful for finding initiative in your life. I think that finding and pinpointing the exact intention and specific objective for doing something is really inspiring. Good video 👌

*affecting FYI. If you already knew that and it was to increase engagement, it worked.

I’m running a game set in Ancient Greece as close to historically accurate as possible (but with all the myths and legends being real) it’s been a lot of fun and very educational.

Woohoo Dr. Connell! She is a river to her people edit after the ending: that cat is MASSIVE

I feel that the funny stories and anecdotes from gaming bring as much joy as gaming

This is somewhat off topic, but I just wanted to thank you for this video. I want to incorporate ttrpgs into my master’s degree capstone project, and this video popping up just gave me the push I needed to draft my proposal email. So thank you

What made me decide to DM for the first time (now a forever DM) was Matt Mercer at the wrap-up of campaign 2 saying he literally researched possibilities of time travel and it's consequences for Liam. Got me hooked.

another major benefit that i don't feel is directly addressed which is correlated to the fact that one of the biggest factors to procrastination is suppressing emotions(frustration, etc...), as you have mentioned DnD helps express mental health issues, you are not only spending time on with friends, learning but you're also addressing your own personal problems/issues. and to reference the case mentioned at the start this could be directly correlated to the fact that they are able to resolve their mental health issues(that they might have had) so that they are actually able be more productive as they are no longer are spending enormous amounts time and energy dealing with their problems in a way that is not seen as productive(e.g. sitting in bed for 8 hours straight staring at the ceiling/similar)

What a great video! I'm in school to be a librarian and was shocked at the amount of peer-reviewed research articles my university has access to about the impact of ttrpgs! I've enjoyed being able to use some of them in my homework.

I have a friend who works on a bording school called a "roleplaying school" where every single class has an overacring story of over the week. Exsampel can be you stranded on a new planer and in math you need to figure out the resources on the planet to survive. In grammatisk they have to discover the old culture of this world along with other things. Then on the friday all there skills get added toghater. All the students have to work together in order to make it though the weekly quest. Next week its a new quest and location... thanks for reading this dyslexia novel 😂

Great video (not surprised) with the extra bonus of some cat ASMR at the end! Every cat appearance makes your (already) excellent videos that much better!

awesome video. really good editing as well. The effort of making it came thru, I loved it. In regards to RPGs, I'll play it until I have mental clarity to do so, I do it for more than 30 years and it feels like I'm never stopping. I wish more dnd content on youtube was nicely edited like this one.

D&D has given my kids and I a really cool way to connect, and I can also add life lessons into the mix as the DM.

I do have to say, that it did help with my story telling abilities as a DM

Honestly, when I'm feeling unsociable, having a session scheduled will force me to get out and socialize. Ironically, doing social things gets me out of my funk faster, even though social activity is the last thing I want.

I know that before I started playing DnD, I had no friends and due to extreme levels of social anxiety, I avoided social situations for my entire childhood and teen years leaving me developmentally stunted in terms of my social skills. Since playing DnD, I have multiple friend groups, my social skills have improved, and it has helped me manage the challenges of my Hyperthymesia. When you cannot forget anything and are overloaded with memories constantly to the point of panic attacks, having a story and character to focus your mind on really helps.

D&D is a friend maker 😊

One of the players in our group found us because his therapist strongly suggested he start playing D&D agian (he hadn't played since he was a kid). He hasn't missed a session in over two years.

I'm on the spectrum and I'm pretty sure my first DnD group was a turning point for socialising and empathising with others my own age. It is a social meeting with a clearly defined activity other than just "socialising", which made that socialising a lot easier for me. I was able to practice talking and empathising through a character, and when I wasn't sure, able to roll an insight roll, or make mistakes without hurting the feelings of real people. Quite aside from the fact that I still know people from that group 11 years later; or that I've researched geology, mythology, and various other subjects for crafting my own campaigns.

That's awesome! I do the same thing for some of my students at school. And they all feel like they are becoming better by playing D&D. Thank you for your amazing video!

Great video. I completely agree with what you said about looking back on this in your twilight years. I also hope to keep playing as I get older, and while we may not have actually slayed dragons, we definitely had real connections with friends as we overcame obstacles and accomplished cool stuff.

I’m a little late to this video and I’m sad about that but so glad you create the content you do. You’ve quickly become my fav dnd KZfaqr and appreciate your thoughtfulness in every video you make! Would have completely lost myself to anxiety and depression if it weren’t for world building and DMing for my friends every week.

For all the reasons you described! It's one of the few things that still brings people together (in person no less!). I love the social aspects as well as problem solving and a narrative everyone can participate in.

When I was in seventh grade it was a new school and I had no friends, one day a kid saw I read a fantasy book and told me he's building a dnd group in our class and asked me if I want to join. I played with them for years now and they're my closest friends. finally a month ago I had the courage to start DMing for a different group of newcomers and it's been going pretty great.

Genuinely, I -Really- love D&D and TTRPGs, it's fun making my own TTRPG setting and putting in all of this detail about monsters and the world and what not and showing off this vast world I made with friends.

I almost didn't make it through 'College' (on Germany) until I discovered AD&D 1e. There were no German translations, so I started to do that with very little knowledge, which improved my English dramatically and saved me. I believe playing D&D helped me in many ways, but I wasn't aware until I saw this video. Thanks. 😊

I really like this more in-depth video. Keep it up! 🙂

Dnd is such a good creative outlet for me, I started DMing and it’s satisfied my urge to just- well create. It also brought me a bunch of friends that I never would’ve talked to if it weren’t for DND (since were a lil bit anti social).

I hope to eventually be able to run my campaign when we're all in a nursing home.

Did the final assignment in my cogsci-psychology bachelor’s degree on the benefits of d&d to mitigating the severeness of symptoms of stress related mental illnesses.

I love D&D because it’s a creative outlet that I don’t feel guilty about pursuing. I don’t feel guilty because I’m giving that time and focus to other people, it’s not just a selfish indulgence, it’s work that is shared with others.

this is exactly why I actually want to use the real world as a gaming world for DnD, to learn those things, with little to no resistance to transfer the skills/knowledge into utility for the real world. also, when I initially began my research for materials for a game world, I realized that our real world is as cool if not cooler than a fantasy world. did you know there is 1 waterfall castle in Poland? there's the rainbow mountains in china, and then there's tons of ancient ruins, there's also the ruins of an old underground city in the middle east somewhere too. there's also the old damascus steel that Alexander the Great wanted 200 lbs of that "precious steel" since it was basically a "secret technolgy" at the time, it was the only steel that could cut a silk scarf floating down in the air when thrown up in the air, which is interesting since silk has been used for quite some time to stop arrows, which basically meant that it was bullet proof armor back then.

Great video! Keep it up. Always click on your content!

The accurate modifier for the 99 ability score in the thumbnail is +44 (half the score -5

Man I wrote a damn paper on basically this a not too long ago...i wish I could have used this video for inspiration and as a "source" A big thing in learning through narrative, roleplaying etc is that gamification isnt applied correctly. A lot of games, specifically those directly intended to teach learners content through games, lack the key aspects that make games fun and engaging and instead lead to reduced learning instead of furtherin the learning process. Authenticity, immersion, autonomy and interactions are KEY to learning. And most games simply cannot provide that. TTRPGs are a special case here, because they are not reliant on rules, or code but allow for creative problem solving in a space which doesnt really limit the imagination. It also allows for immersion through characters etc etc. I could write a whole 30 pages on this (and have) but there are a bunch of articles on the topic out there, though the field hasnt been explored fully so go for it people! Its actually a lot of fun to research.

its amazing how many people have had such positive experiences with ttrpgs, and i hope to be fortunate enough to do it again someday

If there’s one group of people to ask about DnD in academic contests, they’re definitely at RIT. RIT students drive the success of the largest TTRPG and board game store in the state (and they claim in the nation, but I have no way of verifying that.)

A common thing I've seen mentioned is that it's difficult to find and make friends in your 30's and 40's. I'm in my 50's and didn't have a regular group of people that I'd hang out with, so it was pretty much just me and the wife. This wasn't bad, since we really like to spend time together, but it wasn't doing much to exercise our social skills. Now I'm playing D&D with a group of guys every other week and the wife goes out with a group of her friends while we're playing so it's really worked out - and we enjoy seeing the positive effect that its had on each other, too.

Dnd has maintained a friendgroup that otherwise would have gone our seperate ways long ago. It wasnt this game that brought us together, but it's without a doubt the one that held us together. Not to mention all the laughs and fun we have at the table every week.

Great video! I love D&D because it gives me the opportunity to be creative and I don't get that often in my day job.

I love Barbarians. I love smashing things in game. I tried to get to the bone marrow of a lamb leg once ... the lamb leg said: You're a nerd! Well ... the Barbarian did it! Playing pretend gives me a strange sense of childlike satisfaction. That's got to be healthy. Thanks for the video. 😃

Dnd additionally helps make people more confident with speaking and also being more comfortable with things you enjoy. It also helps you communicate with others as often you need to explain what you need to do or need to explain what is happening (as a Dm)

Talking about conflict resolution. My table of regular players, granted we've been playing together weekly (mostly) for decades come up with a new way of conflict resolution every campaign. In some games, a leader comes about and organically and that characters word is final and all abide by it. In our latest one the group will all give a thumbs up or thumbs down to a plan or idea, with each character having a veto, the veto being code for, "if we do this, we'll have a hard time being friends after" This is an in character thing they actually do, so even if a Veto is ignored, their are no hard feelings, it's all in the fun of the game.

00:01 sounds like addictio-

Being a DM helped foster my love for world building which has made boring scientific and math topics the things I love the most.

I excelled from the direction I was headed in highschool. My reading and math skills sky rocketed (proportionately speaking - I wont say that I was anywhere close to the smartest in the province, but it changed me.)

meanwhile, the highschool dnd group that I run, the Forsaken Adventurers Guild, just invaded Fantasy Coles-Walmart-Home Depot and ran over a devil with a forklift. (I'm a student)

It reminds me of the effect mmorpg used to have. Early WoW was an amazing social place to be, where you could escape from everyday life and forget all your fears and worries.

my guess, is that like games that kids play when young, its a helpful fractal representation of life or aspect of life, that trains the players to get used to life.

D&D also has a built in reward system, ephemeral as those rewards are. School doesn’t offer rewards, just punishment. A mule will eventually kick if all you ever use is the stick. If you lean on the carrot, denial of the carrot BECOMES punishment.

I made new friend in my late thirties by DMing. Not an easy thing between a lot of work, family life, kids… Some strangers asked me to run a campaign for them based on a forgotten forum post I had made, brought friends, and we have been going for over a year, final session coming up ! And they want a new one.

I live in Denmark, and went on a boarding school based on the philosophy of educational roleplay (primarily larp though). It wasent shy off ttrpgs though.

I feel that since starting my first campaign, I have a lot less brain fog and can convey things a good bit easier than prior. It's the exact opposite of a traditional education as you study all the things you want/need to for the campaign instead of dreading having to cram info for a "test" that will be forgotten shortly after. It also promotes long term thinking in contradiction to education systems I've experienced. (Education being the not given a choice, kind. I.e primary/secondary/high school.)

This off course goes for all RPG's, and I bet LARP's too. (role) 'Play is how nature invented learning.' so (role) play. I think the same also goes for Improv lessons too. Because that triggers the same collaboration skills and it includes your whole body too. I think more physical rpg's would be even better.

I was an awkward kid, socially inept and convinced that I wasn't very smart. After high school, I joined the military because I believed I had not better prospects. Enter D&D. Completely be accident. It opened the world by opening my mind and changed my life. 47 years later I'm retired from the Criminal Justice field. I have two Master's Degrees. I've written one book (a scifi piece on the verge of publication), have a second one in the works (fantasy). I have good friends, and a loving family. I cannot give enough credit and recommendations to RPGs in general and D&D in particular. A shame it can't be a must in everyone's life.

Critical thinking and learning to work with your peers well, even if they don't want to work with you are also invaluable skills you can learn from playing D&D too

I saw the thumbnail and was like "wait, that can't be right", did the math... The modifier should be +44, not +30.

CAT AT THE END meow meow

Less than a minute in and I want to say: I remember Mathematics was my weakest subject, until I started playing D&D between my sophomore and junior years. Still wasn't all that good at math. But I understood numbers, sets, and such a *lot* better after DMing for a couple months

D&D allowed me to explore myself in a safe, fun environment through my characters

so me accidentally and single handedly turning the party into the B.B.E.Gs is good for their brains it's a long story.

I'm making my own dnd campaign and I wish dnd is more popular in my country so I wouldn't need to order dice from china and figure out dnd on my own I wish in that there is a dnd club in my area and one of the DM could teach me how to dm without me spending hours looking for a free online version of the players handbook cuz in my country the players handbook is so dam expensive 😭

Dnd made me join around 4 campaigns so far. all of them died mid way and we didnt got to finish them. I had fun sure, but i really hate social interactions now

I've been working on building this t and the game into a business. Financial training and working in financial management and proper budgeting. Education into It

Other than the most important thing for me, the amazing friends I've made, D&D has honestly cured my aphantasia! It's completely changed my life.

You should interview Elizabeth Kilmer next!

technically, the thumbnail is wrong. it should be +39

the thumnail should be 99/+44

D&D is the best thing I’ve ever found, I’ve only played a year but I think I’ll continue to play till my death.

D&d has allowed me to meet tons of new friends. I'd never meet. Otherwise, stay in contact with friends, see my friends on a regular basis, give me a creative outlet, and more

Thanks to DnD, I've learned a ton of useful facts, such as "how donkey meat tastes like", for example.

What a fab video! 😁

Popping in just to say that it should be +44 on thumbnail

Wow that was interesting

HOOT! GROWL! HOOT! GROWL! 5:19

I never thought id go down the Wikipedia rabbit hole on so many topics before I started playing dnd. Did you know caffeine makes spiders get intoxicated like alcohol does human? Or that spiders communicate by vibrating and tapping their legs? We had to negotiate with giant spiders

I’m a very busy working mom. My D&D games allow me to slow down and spend time with those I love most-my boys and my friends. Now, to convince my favorite person to play…my husband!

Did anyone else notice the thumbnail had a Int:99 and a mods of 30? it should be 44 right?

Dnd changed my life for the better

I do not see my characters in my dreams I do not see my characters in my dreams

Me learning plate tectonics and anthropology because I need to make the best dnd world.

I love this video!