imagine ♦ create ♦ play ♦ learn ♦ grow
The need for social play has become more important than ever with the growing reliance on digital media for entertainment, and is too often ignored in favor of an increased focus on structured activities that are designed solely to improve academic performance. As a company founded by parents and educators, we believe that this shift away from creative social play can increase feelings of isolation, indifference, and anxiety in children.
“The game lets you take risks and fail in a safe environment…The game’s immersive narrative forces you to interact with others…You don’t wander around assuming people — and creatures — look, act and think like you…D&D is the perfect engine for empathy training…While movies, TV shows and video games offer immersive narratives and worlds, they don’t engage the imagination in the same way that D&D does.”
Roll Models uses storytelling and roleplay to create a shared imaginative space where children overcome challenges, share in successes, and work together to solve problems in a safe and fun environment. Within this space, we help children learn to take the perspectives of others, improve their frustration tolerance, develop their creative problem-solving skills, take risks safely, and cultivate communication and collaboration skills.
“Because D&D is inherently cooperative and escapist, it urges players to reimagine the ways they interact with peers. And because each player has their own specialty, like communicating with dragons, they’ll have their moment to feel valuable in a group setting.”
More than just simple lessons about taking turns or cooperating with others, collaborative social play creates and strengthens bonds between players, as the stories we tell inform us of each other’s goals and aspirations. Long-lasting friendships can be formed around our table, as children from different backgrounds come together to share in heroic adventures.
“…D&D has emerged as a powerful spell of healing for those who struggle with social anxiety, autism and ADHD… No one uses a cutthroat game like Monopoly to treat social anxiety, but D&D’s collaborative gameplay can work wonders.”
