Skill Check

Role-Playing Game Group Therapy for kids and teens with ADHD, autism, anxiety or social challenges

Two kids leaning over a fantasy map with dice and miniatures while a small dragon flies above

At a glance

Ages: 8–10, 11–13 and 14–17 (separate groups)
Group size: 4–6 players
Schedule: Weekly after school, 90 minutes. Days and times to be announced.
Length: 12 weekly sessions
Location: In person in Cherry Creek, Denver
Led by: Ben Greene, LPC, Certified Therapeutic Game Master
Fee: $1,750 (see Group fee below)
Status: Now enrolling. Groups start throughout the year.

Tabletop games like Dungeons & Dragons. Neurodiversity-affirming. No experience needed.

When Role-Playing is More Than A Game

Tabletop role-playing games give kids a creative space to connect, collaborate, and discover confidence through shared storytelling.

Led by a licensed therapist, this group explores meaningful adventures inspired by games like Dungeons & Dragons™.

What Is a Tabletop Role-Playing Game (TTRPG)?

A tabletop role-playing game (TTRPG) is a cooperative storytelling game where kids create characters and go on adventures together. Players work as a team to solve problems, overcome obstacles, and shape the story through the choices they make.

Unlike video games, TTRPGs happen face-to-face through conversation, imagination, and collaboration. Kids use dice, maps, miniatures, music, and storytelling to bring the world to life.

These stories can take place in almost any kind of world. Some adventures are fantasy stories inspired by knights and dragons, while others might involve superheroes, magical animals, mystery solving, space exploration, or entirely original worlds created by the group.

The best-known role-playing game is Dungeons & Dragons, but there are now countless role-playing games designed for different ages, interests, and play styles.

Dice, an open rulebook, a map and miniatures on a table in warm light

What Does a Session Look Like?

In a therapeutic role-playing group, the therapist serves as the Game Master. The Game Master describes the world, introduces challenges and characters, and guides the story forward while helping the group work together.

The players create characters with their own personalities, strengths, fears, goals, and abilities. In therapy, these characters are developed collaboratively with the therapist and can become a safe way to explore challenges like speaking up, handling conflict, asking for help, coping with mistakes, or figuring out how to respond to difficult situations.

The group forms an adventuring party that works together to complete quests and navigate the story as a team. Sessions are usually part of an ongoing adventure, so each week the group picks up where they left off the previous session.

During the game, players are constantly making decisions together. A group may encounter a frightened dragon blocking a bridge. One child wants to fight it. Another wants to negotiate. A third asks more questions and notices clues that the dragon is injured and scared.

As the group discusses what to do, kids practice listening to one another, expressing their ideas, managing disagreement, and adapting to new information. The story creates natural opportunities for collaboration, emotional regulation, perspective-taking, and flexible thinking.

Because the game feels playful and imaginative, kids are often more willing to take social and emotional risks than they would in everyday life.

A wizard, a knight and a rogue standing together as an adventuring party

Moments From the Table

Asking for Help

A player was struggling to read his character sheet and becoming frustrated. The player earned a powerup by asking a teammate for help, while another earned it by noticing the struggle and offering support.

The moment created a safe opportunity to practice both asking for help and supporting others.

Changing Strategies

The group faced a monster that grew stronger whenever the heroes attacked it in anger. One player realized the party would need kindness and creativity instead of force, and helped guide the team toward a new strategy. Another player, who had been excited to play the strongest fighter, became frustrated that his usual approach would not work — but adapted and helped the group succeed in a different way before later getting his own heroic combat moment.

The encounter became a chance to practice flexibility, teamwork, and managing disappointment when plans change unexpectedly.

Being Needed

One player who often struggled with focus became disengaged during an exploration session. Later, the party discovered a massive chasm blocking their path, and realized his character’s teleportation powers were the key to helping everyone cross safely.

The moment gave the player the experience of feeling important to the group and capable of helping others.

Changing Strategies

The encounter became a chance to practice flexibility, teamwork, and managing disappointment when plans change unexpectedly.

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Why Do We Use Dice?

Dice help determine what happens during the story. Sometimes characters succeed in exciting ways, and sometimes things do not go according to plan.

That uncertainty is part of what makes the game meaningful. Kids experience the excitement of taking risks, the pride of overcoming challenges, and the frustration of setbacks in a safe and supportive environment.

When something unexpected happens, players have to adapt. They may rethink their plan, ask for help, try a creative solution, or encourage a teammate. Over time, these moments naturally build flexibility, resilience, problem-solving skills, and frustration tolerance.

Because the stakes are fictional, kids can safely practice recovering from mistakes and trying again.

A red twenty-sided die beside blue and green dice on a map, with a pen and a leather dice bag

Why Role-Playing Games Help Kids Grow

Kids naturally use play to understand themselves and the world around them. Role-playing games build on this by creating a structured social environment where children can safely experiment with new ways of thinking, communicating, and responding to challenges.

As a spoken and collaborative game, TTRPGs encourage kids to explain their ideas, ask questions, advocate for themselves, and work through problems with others. Over time, this can strengthen communication skills, confidence, and self-awareness.

The game also creates emotional distance that can make difficult situations feel safer to explore. Trying something new as a character often feels less overwhelming than trying it in real life. If a character makes a mistake, fails a challenge, or says the wrong thing, kids have an opportunity to reflect, adapt, and try again without the same fear of real-world consequences.

Playing a heroic character and contributing meaningfully to the group can also strengthen a child’s sense that their ideas matter and that they are capable of helping others.

Therapeutic role-playing games have increasingly been recognized by clinicians and researchers as a powerful tool for supporting communication, emotional regulation, coping skills, and social growth.

Why TTRPGs Can Be Especially Helpful for Neurodivergent Kids

Therapeutic role-playing games can provide a supportive space for neurodivergent kids to practice flexibility, collaboration, emotional regulation, and noticing how teammates are feeling and responding.

Because stories are unpredictable, players regularly encounter moments where plans change or things do not go as expected. Instead of shutting down after frustration or disappointment, kids are encouraged to respond creatively, adapt, and keep moving forward with the support of the group.

The structure of the game also creates repeated opportunities to practice turn-taking, thinking through choices before acting, perspective-taking, and collaborative problem-solving.

Many neurodivergent kids also find role-playing games engaging because they combine creativity, imagination, clear rules, and collaborative problem-solving in a way that feels motivating rather than forced.

Five teens of different genders and skin tones playing a tabletop game around a table with a dungeon map

What Therapeutic Role-Playing Games Are Not

These groups are not video games, and kids do not need prior experience with fantasy games to participate.

The focus is not on “winning,” acting ability, or memorizing rules. The goal is collaborative storytelling, problem-solving, communication, and social-emotional growth in a supportive environment.

A kid diving headfirst into an open rulebook

A teen reaching down to pull a younger boy up from the floor

Skill Check: Questions from Parents

A hand filling in a character sheet with a pencil

How are kids placed into groups?

I build each group for compatibility, looking at age, developmental stage, the challenges each child is working on, and skill sets that complement each other. Every new player starts with a private “character creation” session with me. We learn the game rules, get comfortable with how it works, and set goals for the group.

From your child’s point of view, the goal may simply be “have fun and make friends.” Behind the scenes, I’m thinking about which social and emotional skills will help them get there.

Will I hear about my child’s progress?

Yes. Two parent check-ins are included in the group fee. We use them to talk about your child’s needs and progress, notice where they’re still struggling, and come up with strategies for hard moments at home.

What if my child is too anxious to join a group at first?

That’s common, and it’s okay. Some kids start with individual therapy with me. Building trust one-on-one first can make joining the group feel much more manageable once they’re ready.

How do you handle fantasy violence or scary content?

Every player goes through a consent process called “lines and veils” during intake. Lines are topics that won’t appear in the game at all. Veils are topics that can happen in the story “off-screen” without detailed description. I hold those boundaries for the whole group.

Fantasy violence is often a healthy part of play. It helps kids explore what they’re capable of, express aggressive feelings safely, and learn to tolerate stressful situations. When big emotions come up during the game, we work through them together as a group.

Does insurance cover the group?

Not directly. The Skill Check group is private pay, and I don’t bill insurance for it. If you have out-of-network benefits, I can give you a superbill to submit for possible reimbursement. The $1,750 fee covers your child’s private intake session, all 12 group sessions and 2 parent check-ins. Payment plans and a limited number of sliding-scale spots are available on request, so ask during your free consultation.

What if my child misses a session?

Each group is a 12-session commitment, and missed sessions aren’t refunded. If most of the group has a scheduling conflict, I’ll reschedule that session at no extra cost.

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Office

3773 Cherry Creek North Drive
Denver, CO 80209

(720) 407-4666

A Brief History of Role-Playing Games

Modern tabletop role-playing games began in 1974 with the release of Dungeons & Dragons. Since then, role-playing games have expanded into countless genres and storytelling styles for players of all ages.

Today, role-playing games can tell almost any kind of story imaginable, from fantasy adventures and mysteries to science fiction, superhero stories, magical animal adventures, and emotionally grounded slice-of-life stories.

Although role-playing games were sometimes misunderstood during the moral panics of the 1980s, they are now widely recognized as a creative and collaborative form of storytelling and play. Modern TTRPG groups are commonly used in schools, libraries, community programs, and therapeutic settings to support social connection, creativity, and emotional growth.