The Oshawa Dungeons & Dragons Club will be starting a group for neurodivergent youth age 12-13 in January. There are spots still available for more information or registration enquiries contact us here.
The Oshawa Dungeons & Dragons Club is a social group for neurodiverse youth ages 13-18. Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is a tabletop roleplaying game (TRPG) that has players work together to achieve a common goal. To achieve the goal the players must communicate, strategize, and cooperate with each other to be successful. Emerging research suggest that tabletop roleplaying games can provide benefits to players such as increases in communication skills, creativity and social connectedness. Through role-playing characters the participants have an opportunity to explore different identities and build friendships along the way. The program runs from September to May to give the participants a chance to make meaningful connections.
The Oshawa Dungeons & Dragons Club also gives the youth in the program the opportunity to shape the game and world in which they choose to play. As a group the participants choose the setting, the types of encounters they want to have, and even what they do not what to happen in the game. The participants create characters that have skills and traits that they want to role play, and they are encouraged to create backstories about their characters. The game is then tailored around the group's choices but also includes personalized events so that each player has an opportunity shine.
The program is led by a neurodivergent mentor who facilitates the games. It is their role to guide the participants through the character creation process and then build an immersive game experience that incorporates all the things the participants have chosen to have in the game. This website uses a blog to track the weekly adventures of the characters. This also creates a history of the game world where the players can see how their characters have shape the world.
Why Dungeons & Dragons?
Dungeons & Dragons has been around for 50 years and large diverse community has built up around it and other tabletop role playing games. The community has long known that there were benefits to playing tabletop roleplaying games but it is only over the past 10 to 15 years that research has looked into what if any benefits playing tabletop roleplaying games provide. The results suggest that there are benefits to playing tabletop roleplaying games such as Dungeons & Dragons. The benefits include fostering creativity, team building, increasing social connectedness, and even giving players opportunity to explore their own personal development.
