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3 Powerful Reasons You Should be Playing D&D with Your Workmates

Picture this: You’re sitting around a table with your coworkers, immersed in an epic adventure, slaying dragons, solving puzzles, and forging alliances. This isn’t just another team-building exercise; it’s Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), a tabletop role-playing game that has gained immense popularity in recent years. But why should you consider playing D&D with your workmates? In this post, we’ll explore three valuable lessons that playing D&D can teach you about teamwork, problem-solving, and creativity, and how these lessons can positively impact your professional life.

Lesson 1: Teamwork Makes the Dream Work

In D&D, players assume different roles within a team, each contributing unique skills and abilities to achieve a common goal – typically, completing a quest or defeating a formidable foe. This collaborative aspect of the game can teach you invaluable lessons about teamwork in the workplace:

  1. Effective Communication: D&D requires players to communicate and coordinate their actions. Just like in the office, clear communication is essential to ensure everyone is on the same page. Through D&D, you can practice articulating ideas, listening to others, and making informed decisions as a group.
  2. Delegation of Tasks: In D&D, not everyone can be the fearless leader or the master of all skills. Recognizing and assigning tasks based on each player’s strengths is crucial. This mirrors the importance of assigning roles in a team at work, where utilizing individual strengths leads to better overall performance.
  3. Conflict Resolution: Disagreements are bound to arise, whether it’s in a D&D party or your office team. Learning how to navigate conflicts and reach compromises in a game setting can improve your conflict resolution skills at work, fostering a healthier work environment.
Playing D&D with your workmates is fun and has lots of benefits
Playing D&D with your workmates definitely improves teamwork

Lesson 2: Creative Problem-Solving

D&D presents players with complex challenges and puzzles that require creative problem-solving. These challenges can be a breeding ground for innovative thinking and resourcefulness:

  1. Thinking Outside the Box: In D&D, there is rarely a single “right” solution to a problem. Players are encouraged to think creatively, considering unconventional approaches and experimenting with different strategies. This mindset can translate directly to the workplace, where thinking outside the box can lead to innovative solutions.
  2. Adaptability: D&D is filled with unexpected twists and turns. Players must adapt to changing situations and make quick decisions. These adaptability skills can be highly valuable in the fast-paced, ever-evolving world of business.
  3. Critical Thinking: Analyzing clues, deciphering riddles, and making informed decisions are all essential aspects of D&D. These same critical thinking skills are invaluable for problem-solving at work, whether you’re tackling a complex project or troubleshooting an issue.

Lesson 3: Fostering Creativity and Imagination

D&D is a world of limitless imagination, where players can create and explore fantastical realms, characters, and stories. Engaging in this imaginative exercise can enhance your creativity and inspire innovation in your professional life:

  1. Storytelling: As a D&D player, you become part of an ever-evolving narrative. This can improve your storytelling abilities, a valuable skill in presentations, marketing, and communication in general.
  2. Risk-Taking: D&D encourages players to take calculated risks, sometimes even daring ones. Of course, this willingness to step out of your comfort zone can lead to breakthrough moments in your career, where calculated risks can yield significant rewards.
  3. Problem Framing: D&D teaches you how to frame problems creatively, often looking at issues from various angles. This can be applied to business challenges, helping you see problems as opportunities for innovative solutions.

Final Thoughts on Playing D&D with your Workmates

Playing D&D with your workmates may seem like a leisure activity, but it offers powerful lessons that can benefit your professional life. Through teamwork, creative problem-solving, and fostering imagination, D&D can help you develop crucial skills that can be applied in any workplace. So, why not gather your colleagues, roll the dice, and embark on an epic journey of growth and collaboration? In the world of D&D, and in your career, the possibilities are endless.

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Survive the Sinking Submarine: Ultimate Hell Week Scenario

My last post explored using roleplaying games like Dungeons and Dragons to create a Hell Week scenario experience for your staff. With the aim of creating a bonding experience for teams, leaders and new starters. In this post I aim to develop a scenario/event that you could use to create this type of experience.

Event Goals

Before we start, it is essential to understand the goals of the event and work out from there. This event is designed to be run for groups of new leaders in an organization. These are high performing individuals tipped for future leadership positions or newly promoted into one.

The goal of the event is to foster a sense of team and belonging amongst the future leadership of the business. This will achieved through overcoming shared adversity.

Overview of the Hell Week Scenario

In an effort to keep the hell week scenario outside of the lived experience of the cohort but allowing for high pressure the scenario will focus on escaping from a submarine. Participants will be allocated different roles/skillsets and work together to escape. A series of tasks requiring multiple skillsets will need to be prioritized and completed against time pressures. Additionally, surprise events throughout the scenario will add additional pressure, upsetting any planning. Adaptability and teamwork will be essential in beating the scenario.

In addition, each participant will have six endurance points that are lost if tasks are failed. They can also be traded in to help improve the likelihood of success. However, when the last point is lost the player is out of the scenario.

The player briefing might look something like the following:

Congratulations on joining our team! We believe in hands-on training to prepare you for real-world challenges ahead. In this immersive training scenario, you will find yourself a crew member of a sinking research submarine. Your mission is to work together to overcome a series of challenges and escape before it’s too late. Remember, teamwork, communication, and quick thinking are essential. Good luck!

Duration: 2 hours

Location: Office setting or conference center. Smaller rooms preferred.

Lighting and sound effects can really enhance the immersion

Required Props and Setup to Enhance Immersion

As discussed in my last post immersion is really important. Of course, you don’t need a full on mock up of a submarine. But there are some simple things you can do to help create a sense of place out with the normal office environment.

  1. Submarine Environment: Create a makeshift submarine environment by shifting tables and chairs into a series of spaces along a thin column Alternatively, set up in a corridor to give an improved sense of the enclosed space. Additionally, turn off overhead lights and use desk lights with blue/green lighting gels to mimic the underwater setting. Having a red alarm light will definitely add to the sense of urgency when it goes off.
  2. Sound Effects: Use a portable speaker to play submarine sounds, alarms, and underwater noises. This can be used as a timed track signaling surprise events and highlighting the sense of urgency.
  3. Props:
    • Flashlights
    • Walkie-talkies or two-way radios
    • Gauges to indicate hull integrity and oxygen levels
    • Life vests
    • Clipboards with task instructions
    • Stopwatch
    • Nautical maps and charts
    • First-aid kit
    • Ropes and carabiners
    • Puzzles or challenges related to navigation and communication
  4. Instructor/Facilitator: You will need someone to facilitate the scenario and provide guidance when necessary.
Keeping to schedule is key in running an event like this

Training Scenario Schedule

Below is a proposed schedule of the hell week scenario.

  1. Briefing (15 minutes):
    • Gather all participants and explain the scenario.
    • Emphasize the importance of teamwork, quick decision-making, and effective communication.
    • Assign roles to each participant (e.g., captain, engineer, navigator, medic, radio operator etc) and distribute their respective skills and tasks.
  2. Submersion and Initial Challenges (20 minutes):
    • Participants enter the makeshift submarine (clearly demarcated).
    • Turn on the sound effects to create an immersive atmosphere.
    • The submarine begins “sinking.” Water and pressure-related challenges arise.
    • Participants must address immediate issues like water leakage, pressure indicators, and stabilizing the vessel. Limited resources, must prioritize tasks.
  3. Navigation and Communication (20 minutes):
    • Provide a nautical map with coordinates.
    • Participants must collaborate to determine their location and chart a course to safety.
    • Encourage the use of walkie-talkies for communication between navigation and the steering team.
  4. Obstacle Challenge (15 minutes):
    • Present a challenge that requires participants to work together to overcome an obstacle (e.g., blocked hatch or damaged equipment).
    • They must use ropes, carabiners, and problem-solving skills to succeed.
  5. Medical Emergency (10 minutes):
    • Simulate a crew member’s injury.
    • The medic must provide first aid while others maintain the vessel and continue with the mission.
  6. Countdown to Escape (20 minutes):
    • Introduce a time constraint and associated red lights and klaxon.
    • Announce that the submarine’s condition is deteriorating rapidly.
    • Participants must complete their tasks and navigate to the surface before it’s too late.
  7. Debriefing (20 minutes):
    • After the scenario, gather the team and discuss their experiences.
    • Encourage feedback, focusing on what went well and what could be improved.
    • Highlight the importance of adaptability, teamwork, and problem-solving under pressure.
  8. Final Remarks (10 minutes):
    • Conclude the training with a reminder of key takeaways.
    • Reiterate the importance of quick thinking, clear communication, and collaboration in real-life situations.

Further Work

While I have listed each of the tasks above in a linear series, it would be better to have tasks overlapping. Teams must then prioritize tasks. Remember, failed tasks remove endurance points from participants, adding additional pressure. Endurance points can also be traded for clues and assistance.

Perhaps you can restrict the number of people in each section of the submarine and create time penalties for movement between the sections. This would emphasize the use of walkie talkies for communication. It would also highlight the need for clear and concise communication between different sections of the submarine.

Each task needs more work around the detail, but I think this gives the picture of how an event like this might work. I for one would love to experience it. Part escape room, part rpg, part leadership learning experience. For me it ticks all the boxes.

What do you think? Would this hell week scenario work? Is there anything you would add? Have you attended something similar?