Braver at the Table: The Quiet Power of Tabletop Gaming

I’ve watched people get braver at a game table before they got braver anywhere else.

It happens slowly. A guy shows up to his first session barely making eye contact and picks a character who’s everything he isn’t: loud, reckless, quick with a joke. Give it 6 weeks and he’s the one holding the group together, and somewhere in there the character and the person traded places.

I’ve run board games and tabletop role-playing games for 20 years. Heavy board games on Saturdays, a tabletop roleplaying campaign on Sundays. Over time, I’ve come to believe the table does something quiet and useful. It gives people a low-risk place to practice being with other people.

That sounds like a small thing. For a lot of us, being with other people is the whole mountain.

At a game, you get to try things and see what happens. You can push a bold plan and get outvoted. You can say the wrong thing to a friend’s character and find out the friendship survives it. The stakes are real enough to matter and fake enough to be safe, which is a hard combination to find anywhere else in adult life.

My Saturday group plays heavy strategy games. Twilight Imperium, Diplomacy, the kind where you make deals and then break them. People stab each other in the back for 6 hours and then order pizza together. The lesson underneath the cardboard is that you can fight hard, lose, and still get invited back next week.

Roleplaying adds another layer. When you play a character, you get a little distance from yourself, and that distance is where the practice happens. Someone who can’t ask for help in their own voice can ask for it as someone else first. Someone still working out who they are can run 3 or 4 versions of themselves on a Sunday afternoon and see which one feels right. I’ve watched quiet people discover they’re funny. I’ve watched people try on confidence like a coat and decide to keep it.

Then there’s the plainest part of all. Showing up. Same people, same table, same time every week. For someone whose world has gotten small, from anxiety or depression or illness or just the slow narrowing that comes with age, a standing invitation is a real thing to hold. You’re expected. Somebody notices when you’re not there. That matters more than the game does.

I’m in graduate school for rehabilitation counseling right now, and a lot of it has put names to things I’d already watched happen at my table. I still want to be honest about the limits. Nobody at my table is being treated for anything, and I’d hate for anyone there to feel like a patient. It’s a hobby that’s good for people, the way a weekly walk with a friend is good for people.

Loneliness makes people rusty.

So if you’re someone who finds other people exhausting or frightening, I’d point you toward a small table. Find 3 or 4 others and a game with rules, because the rules take the pressure off. You take your turn, you react to whatever just unfolded, and the connection sneaks in around the edges.

The bravery I see at the table is real, even when it’s wearing a wizard’s robe. People practice trust on a Sunday afternoon and carry a little of it into Monday. I’ve watched it for 40 years, and it still gets me every time.