Event One

Employability provision in Higher Education is traditionally delivered in-curricula and adapted to the values and skills sets of programmes. In addition, extra-curricula & co-curricular employability activities are often available on demand to students.  This talk outlines the use of a table-top role-playing game (TTRPG) as the pedagogic delivery mechanism an extra-curricular employability skills session.  The TTRPG involves players trying to navigate there was through a series of puzzles that are designed to develop specific employability skills.  The game was delivered both physically and digitally to 42 players with unified positive feedback.  TTRPG show potential as a tool for students, in an abstract way, explore and realise their own employability skills.

Prof Ian Turner (@DocWithTheSocs) & Dr Louise Robinson (@Doc_R_) 

Increasing attention is being drawn to ways in which a sense of sharing a common world with others is disrupted, even lost, in certain psychopathologies. For instance, reports from individuals with depression often describe a sense of disconnectedness from the world and others (Plath, 1963; Wurtzel, 1994; Styron, 2010; Ratcliffe, 2014). This sense of no longer sharing the ‘same world’ as other people leads to painful experiences of isolation, estrangement, and loneliness; a sense that the world once occupied with others is now out of reach, while simultaneously an experience that the world one now occupies is not one that others can understand. I am interested in exploring how the unique features of creating a collective imagined world might support, even reinstate, a sense of connection with others. Where the “real world” is no longer experienced as a common ground, can the imagined worlds of RPGs work as a tool for re-finding a world that can be shared? I pose some initial thoughts about why we might think that the explicit communicative practice of creating an imagined world together might facilitate a feeling of sharing a world where that feeling has been threatened.

Dr Lucy Osler (@LucyOsler) 

Dungeons and Dragons combines the utility of speaking therapies with the engagement of drama and play therapy. Working with Dr Ian Baker and Professor Ian Turner, an empirical study has been proposed to further explore D&D as a tool to be used by mental health professionals both in a community and an in-patient setting.  Using routine outcome measures such as the RCADS and the CHI ESQ at the pre, midway and post study we aim to measure the positive impact D&D can have on individuals struggling with mental illness (and have a lot of fun whilst delivering the 'therapy'!)

OR ……………………………

This talk will share with you the exploits of a plucky mental health nurse (who also happens to be a massive nerd) and his quest to find likeminded individuals who believe that D&D is the panacea we all know it to be.  I will share with you tales of speaking to sorcerers in the far-off places of the world and the discovery that I have two wizards in my kingdom who are willing to join me on this expedition. I look for any fellow heroes who can help us navigate the labyrinthian dungeons of medical research and the courage to slay the dragons of ethical approval!! Grab your mental health potions, put your mage hands together and please humour this bard as he spins a yarn about the greatest adventure, he may ever go on

Fred Lee, DM, RMN 

COVID-19 impacted the mental health of the general public negatively, associated with preventative measures, restricting life activities. The restrictions, such as the stay-at-home strategy, resulted in heightened stress, depression, loneliness, substance abuse, and domestic violence, violating people’s occupational and personal lives. During the pandemic, the demands for role-play games (RPGs) increased: for example, the sales of “Dungeons & Dragons” tripled, underscoring the potential mental health benefits of such games. However, research into the mental health benefits of such games remains under-developed, needing more scientific attention. Accordingly, this talk summarises a recent publication that reviewed the existing literature and suggests areas for application and research about RPGs and mental health including psychotherapy, career guidance, education, and people with disabilities. The Insights offered can help practitioners and researchers in RPGs and mental health conduct empirical research and develop alternative approaches for mental health in stressful times.

Dr Ian Baker, Dr Lucienne Spencer (@LJSpencer11) & Prof Matt Broome (@matthewrbroome 

In the last decade, there has been reinvigorated academic enquiry into the place of game-based learning and gamification in legal education and the role of serious games in legal curricula (see Ferguson 2016, Jacques 2018, Kathrani et al 2018). However, this has largely been focused on the development of online or digital tools to design and implement new experiential learning experiences. There has been a particular focus in online learning environments (Newbery-Jones 2015) and exploiting VR platforms (Bouki et al 2014). This trend in increased exploitation of gamification has also been reflected in pedagogy more generally (see Caponetto et al 2014). As can be expected, there is much more variety in the modalities of gamification and game-based learning in more general pedagogy, with an even balance of face-to-face and online learning reflected in the literature (Caponetto et al 2014). The rationale behind this project is to address the lacuna in the pedagogic literature of legal education developing a gamified system of problem solving, ethical education and legal learning that operates in the analogue space, drawing upon a pen-and-paper role-playing game system to motivate and randomise the experience of developing legal knowledge, applied problem solving expertise and professional employability skills.

The aim of this project is to consider the viability of pen-and-paper RPGs as a tool for legal education. In order to achieve this aim, this project has a number of objectives. The principal research objective is to design, develop, construct and appraise a tabletop, pen-and-paper RPG to be used in the context of legal education. A secondary objective is to position this in the pedagogic literature and literature of legal education. Finally, this project will measure engagement and collect feedback from student participants in order to consider the viability of RPGs as an effective tool for legal education and skills development. While this project would act as a pilot, it is envisaged that the project will provide a base game system for use in a range of specific legal subjects and even across a range of different subjects, both domestically and internationally.

Dr Craig Newbery-Jones (@CJNewberyJones), Dr Steven Montagu-Cairns & Dr Joshua Warburton (@DrJoshWarburton 

Roleplaying games like Dungeons and Dragons can involve extensive improvisational acting (known as RP, or “role play”, heavy games) that often take place in a fantastical world that shares some - while being radically different from – our own. Role play can be very beneficial for those that engage with it, allowing the player to learn something about themselves and potentially expanding empathy towards others whose experiences they had not previously considered. This brings the potential for roleplay to be beneficial for one’s mental health by expanding one’s self-knowledge and, therefore, one’s agency. However, it’s unclear how exactly engaging in fantasy worlds with larger-than-life characters has this epistemic role. This brief talk will explore preliminaries ideas about the way in which roleplaying can be beneficial for one’s mental health, drawing on the normative character of such improvisational activities.

Jodie Russell (@jelliedsours)