Educational Benefits of RPGs

[Nimoeth]

Hello all,
First, a quick background: I've been playing RPGs for about 20 years. I've played all kinds; Star Wars, BattleTech, TMNT, Shadowrun, Cyberpunk, GURPS, WoD, to name a few, but D&D is still my clear favorite.

After looking over the forums here, I've noticed that you all seem to be intelligent, knowledgeable RPG'ers with well-formed opinions. (End of shameless pandering & flattery... ) With that in mind, I thought I'd attempt to gather some ideas and possibly spark a good thread.

I'm writing a thesis paper on the educational & developmental benefits of RPGs. For this paper, I'll focus primarily on "table-top" games, with a short mention of LARP's, computer versions, and board games for diversity. The major points that I've come up with so far are: reading comprehension & vocabulary; math & physics; creative thinking & problem solving; and social skills development. Please feel free to expand on any of these points and/or add your own!

I would love to hear any opinions and ideas from you, the wise experts! (Sorry, more flattery almost never hurts...)

 

[Parlan]

I always thought one of the biggest benefits was an increased vocabulary.

Most of the material is written, and much of that is descriptive. All of that leads to great opportunities to learn new "25 cent" words.

 

[Mark]

Sharpens the math skills.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

The 1e AD&D books definitely increased my vocabulary.

 

[phindar]

I think basic math and vocab, but to back up Parlan, one thing my group does every so often is we go through and list all the words Gaming taught us that increased our SAT scores.

Alcolyte, Alcove, Cistern...

It can backfire too. I was watching an episode of the West Wing and Jeb quizzed the senior staff, "There are three words in the English language that begin with letters "dw", name them please." The answer comes up, Dwarf, Dwindle and Dwell. I immediately thought, What about dweomer?. A quick check of a few dictionaries later and yep, dweomer's not English. It turns out we gamers have our own patois.

 

[James McMurray]

Increased reading comprehension also increases logic skills.

All the number crunching sharpens the basic math skills, making you better prepared for higher math.

Reading Gygaxian AD&D books drastically enhances your vocabulary.

 

[Lockridge]

I'll add that D&D helps with math comprehension (especially in statistics and algebra).
Spatial relationships - due to distance and speed calculations. Not to mention table-top minis and their rules.
Creativity and imagination - enhanced of course because of the adventure and perhaps story building.
Diplomacy and personal relationships and negotiating skills are enhanced.
Communications skills enhanced due to the need to get ideas across to players and DMs alike. This is important in order to ensure that your idea/move is not interpreted as violating rules or disrupting other's plans.
Overall tactical strategy skills enhanced.
Topography / map making and map reading (whether its a dungeon or a map of downtown driving its still a map.
Geography - players must face different landscapes/weather ect as they travel.
Sociology - players must experience and negotiate with different cultures as they travel.
Reading skills - from interpreting rules (Attacks of opportunity seem challenging to some).
Writing skills - in creating descriptions for own adventures.
Drama/theatre - The DM is the stage director and every NPC while the players must roll play to get into character.
Micro-economics - financial balancing of limited resources with ever-increasing wants in terms of character building. Then we take this to resource allocation as an overall group.
Fair play - This is part of social/negotiation skills. if you don't play nice, no one will play with you.
History - The exposure to the medieval culture of D&D Forgotten Realms actually increased my interest in ancient and up to 1800s history.
Physics - If I'm wearing boots of flying and I try to attack someone, is my centre of gravity now at my feet?

And finally, my favourite subject - lunch. There is always the challenge of splitting the pizza. And not to mention dietary skills in determining what food is most healthy (haha).

 

[SpiderMonkey]

That's funny; I did a similar paper my senior year of high school. What I wrote all those years ago has been covered here (and better), but I'll add/elaborate on a few:

-Understanding 2D representations of 3D objects. This goes under "map reading" somewhat, but I've noticed on this new temp job I have that I can read the diagrams that the experienced technicians have trouble with. I attribute it directly to D&D.

-Budgeting. I did more budgeting in D&D before the age of 17 than most people do through their twenties. You have to project likely income, measure it against the benefits of short and long term investments, and still leave enough for emergencies, daily expenditures, etc.

-Reading. Period. I keep seeing "vocabulary" mentioned in prior posts, and this is true. Vocabulary, however, is only one aspect of reading fluency. D&D is not like passively reading a novel; you have to internalize it, apply it, and often explain it to others. This reads straight out of Bloom's Taxonomy. You begin to see it as a "system" template and are able to apply this cognitive approach to other endeavors.

-It appeals to Multiple Intelligences (ala Gardener). This educational theory postulates that people have a number of different types of intelligence (between 7 and 9, depending on who you're reading). D&D can appeal to and develop nearly all of them. Linguistic? check. Inter- and intra-personal? check. Kinesthetic? Well...if you LARP, I guess (though I would argue that the mere tactile nature of dice and minis would promote it, to a degree).

That's all I can think of, at the moment.

 

[Nightchilde-2]

Vocabulary
Math
Problem solving/logic (including finding ways to solve problems with "outside of the box" thinking)
It can also be an excellent team-building exercise.

 

[EricNoah]

Probability -- at least a lot of hands-on experience with different kinds of random number generation.

As you search and survey, you might also want to make sure you check the ages of your interview or poll subjects. EN World tends to skew a bit older than some forums, for example.