What is a TTRPG? It's a Practice Space for Being Human

Forget the dice and character sheets. TTRPGs are rehearsal spaces where we practice the hardest parts of being human: making decisions under pressure, navigating conflict, and discovering who we really are when everything's on the line.

Aaron L Sexton

You're sitting around a table. Your friend just told you that the bridge ahead is guarded by a troll who demands payment you don't have. Your character has a sword, but violence isn't the only option. You could try to negotiate, sneak around, or find a completely different solution. The clock isn't ticking in real life, but somehow the pressure feels real. Your heart rate picks up slightly as you consider the possibilities.

This is the moment when you realize a TTRPG isn't really a game at all.

The Rehearsal Space

Susan Haarman's research suggests that TTRPGs function as spaces for "dramatic rehearsal" or opportunities to practice civic engagement and democratic decision-making in low-stakes environments (Haarman, 2022). But the rehearsal goes much deeper than civic participation. Every session is a masterclass in being human under pressure.

When was the last time you had to make a consequential decision with incomplete information while other people were watching and waiting? When did you last have to negotiate with someone whose motivations you couldn't quite figure out? TTRPGs create these scenarios on purpose, then hand you the tools to work through them collaboratively.

The beautiful thing is that the stakes are simultaneously real and not real. Your character might die, but you won't. Your choice might have consequences that ripple through months of future sessions, but they won't follow you home. This creates what researchers call a "safe-to-fail" environment where the learning happens through actual experience rather than abstract instruction.

The Laboratory of Social Dynamics

Michael Giordano's study of novice players reveals something fascinating: people don't just learn game mechanics when they join a TTRPG group. They learn "legitimate peripheral participation", or how to join a community, contribute meaningfully, and gradually take on more responsibility (Giordano, 2022). But they're also learning something more fundamental: how to be in a relationship with other people when the normal social scripts don't apply.

Think about it. In most of our daily interactions, we know the roles we're supposed to play. Parent, employee, customer, friend :each comes with established patterns and expectations. But when you're a half-orc barbarian trying to convince a suspicious merchant that your party means no harm, all bets are off. You have to figure out, in real time, how to communicate across difference, how to build trust, how to read social cues that don't quite map onto anything in your regular experience.

This is where the "cooperative" nature of TTRPGs becomes crucial. Unlike competitive games where someone wins and someone loses, TTRPGs require you to succeed together or fail together. The group dynamic forces you to practice skills that democracy desperately needs: listening to different perspectives, finding compromise, supporting others when they're struggling, and stepping up when leadership is needed.

The Identity Workshop

Katherine Angel Cross writes about TTRPGs as spaces for "defiant becoming" - places where marginalized people can practice ways of being that might not be safe or possible in their everyday lives (Cross, 2012). But this identity workshop isn't just for marginalized folks. It's for anyone who's ever wondered who they might be under different circumstances.

The shy person who plays the bold leader isn't just escapism. They're trying on leadership, seeing how it feels, practicing the skills in a context where the consequences of failure are manageable. The person who always takes care of everyone else gets to play a character who's reckless and selfish, but it may not be because they want to become that way, but because they're exploring the full range of human possibility.

This is deeper than therapy, though it can be therapeutic. It's about expanding your sense of what's possible for you as a human being. When you've successfully negotiated peace between warring factions as a diplomatic bard, something shifts in how you approach conflict in your actual life. When you've made the hard choice to sacrifice something valuable for the greater good as a paladin, you've practiced a kind of moral reasoning that stays with you long after the dice are put away.

The Answer

So what is a TTRPG? It's a technology for practicing humanity. It's a way of creating controlled complexity where people can rehearse the skills that matter most: decision-making under uncertainty, collaboration across difference, moral reasoning under pressure, and identity formation in community.

The dice and the character sheets and the fantasy settings are just the delivery mechanism. What's really happening is that we're creating a space where adults can continue growing, learning, and becoming. Not through lecture or instruction, but through experience and reflection in community with others.

This is why the research on play benefits matters so much, even when it's focused on children (Schaefer, 2003; Lockwood & O'Connor, 2016). Adults need these spaces too. We need opportunities to practice being brave, being kind, being decisive, being collaborative. We need chances to fail safely and try again. We need spaces where we can be more than what our daily roles allow.

TTRPGs provide that space. They're not just games. They're practice for being the kind of humans we want to be.