Research: Using TTRPGs to develop soldiers' social skills in civilian interactions

[Roi C.]

Hey folks. Under a really odd set of circumstances, I recently I got the opportunity to write a proposition for pilot program for my country's military, aiming to use tabletop role-playing games as a novel method for training combat soldiers, focused on honing mental, emotional, and social skills for interactions with civilians in high-tension, culturally diverse situations, where rapid decision-making and a deep understanding of others are crucial.

Based on my and others' experience, I believe RPGs have the potential to enhance one's empathic capabilities, encourage creative problem-solving, and improve emotional self-regulation, key skills that could lower the risk of violence and mitigate tension in tense encounters.

However, I'm navigating somewhat uncharted territory. Research specific to RPGs in a military context seems scarce. I'm currently deliberating on which skills to measure and which might be less relevant. Any knowledge, experience, research suggestions, or insights you can offer on this topic would be incredibly helpful. Thanks!

[Vahnavoi]

If research seems scarce, it's because games made for military use would not be referred to as roleplaying games. They'd be referred to as wargames. You are coming at this from a different angle (interaction with civilians versus battlefield strategy and tactics), but the idea of using tabletop games to teach skills is both older than and a precursor to modern tabletop roleplaying games.

So if I were you, I'd start by looking at tabletop variants of Kriegsspiel to see if there's any research on how succesful it was in its goals.

Next, I would suggest you take a good look at live-action roleplaying drills utilized by Scouts, emergency first aid workers etc. to train their specific skills. There's two reasons for this: one, their work likely already includes applicable scenarios for your work. Two, one big question I think your project has to face and answer is: what benefit is the tabletop as medium supposed to have over live-action drills or, in today's environment, computer simulations?

Third, I would suggest looking at uses of roleplaying in therapy. There may be an overlap there with military contexts, such as when treating post-traumatic stress disorder.

Fourth, you might want to look for any research done on Mafia/Werewolf, and other social deduction games.

[Roi C.]

Next, I would suggest you take a good look at live-action roleplaying drills utilized by Scouts, emergency first aid workers etc. to train their specific skills. There's two reasons for this: one, their work likely already includes applicable scenarios for your work. Two, one big question I think your project has to face and answer is: what benefit is the tabletop as medium supposed to have over live-action drills or, in today's environment, computer simulations?.

You bring up a lot of important points that I'll thave to think about (thank you for that!), but regrading that specific point, I think the advantages here include (1) tabletop games feeling more like game of sorts compared to live action roleplay drills, who feel more like training, thus offering some sort of R&R, and (2) tabletop RPGs offer an opportunity not to train for a number of set, specific scenarios, but to train skills instead that can be applied dynamically to different situations.

[Nizaris]

I don't know if there's been a formal study, but I'd recommend seeing if you can find anything for studies done between inmate behavior and playing D&D in prison populations. Not a straight correlation between the subjects, but there may be something useful if there's actually been a study that's been performed. To my knowledge I don't think a full study that's actually been conducted regarding reduction in prison violence and D&D, just a few anecdotal stories from inmates that it improved communication and reduced violence.

[KorvinStarmast]

For Roi C.

You are perhaps fishing in the wrong pond.

There's a group of people who are very good at this who have been running those kinds of free play simulations for the US Army at Fort Polk, Louisiana.
It is the Joint Readiness Training Center. JRTC.
(Hmm, I now discover, Fort Polk has been renamed Forth Johnson).

https://home.army.mil/johnson/

Since your application / need to be fulfilled is for your military, what those folks do is very much in the field of play.

They made a move into making more robust "OOTW/MOOTW" modules over thirty years ago.
Not sure if you need to work through "The School of the Americas" or your defense attache, but I am pretty sure that they have allied forces modules still on offer.
As I look into their web site, I see that the operations group can be contacted.
https://home.army.mil/johnson/units-...erations-group

If that isn't the right POC, I am sure they can get you to whomever handles advice/support for allies/other nations.
What you are looking for seems to be something like a CPX ...

[J-H]

This isn't fully new ground. I recall seeing a reference a decade or so ago to Israel and D&D, but I don't remember if it was considered a positive or a negative when talking about security clearance stuff, or possibly for hiring on the intel side of things (analysis or operational).

As a DM I can say that one of my players is an 18 year old and I've seen him turn red and nearly start stammering a few times when he is having to have the social interaction. In one case, a young giant came up to him and was super enthusiastic about the fact that the player character could float/fly, and wanted to know how. He ended up recruiting the giant for his warlock patron but was super awkward at first! When running a game for my kids I also saw similar... due to inexperience, they locked up when they simply got a gruff blacksmith who was pushy and looking for an answer.

Sales, customer service, and other jobs that include people-interaction also use role-play as a way to practice, especially if you have a specific set of responses and scenarios to practice. You could do it as D&D or you could skip right ahead to scenario role-play. D&D can get you more emergent practice, but you'll get more time-efficiency out of a more traditional business roleplay / scenario practice that isn't book-ended by 2 hours of rolling math rocks to determine how good you are at killing imaginary monsters with imaginary sticks, swords, and magic.

[Vogie]

I mean, in general this is a good idea. You would want a way for players to get into the groove of non-military interactions. However, you wouldn't want to use most of the RPGs we normally talk about here. Any of the D&Ds, Pathfinder, Call of Cthulu's, and the like just wouldn't fit the bill. The closest I can think of to a traditional TTRPG in this mindset is Legend of the Five Rings, because they have a really expanded type of Social encounter system. It's been a minute since I've looked it over, but normal skills would include Etiquette, Courtier, and Sincerity. World/Chronicles of Darkness could work, especially if you go with the Hunter splats, just because the storyteller system is more geared towards role play than crunch... that being said, starting that route might get others more interested in Werewolf internal politics. But then again, Making the players create their characters in that type of setting (you're all Vampires, as the most famous example) might be the right amount of conceptual removal for the players to get out of their own heads.

The Cypher system games bill themselves as being not combat focused - their core feature is that you gain XP by discovery of secrets, not necessarily killing monsters. That being said, character creation gives you almost exclusively combat-related options and skills. It is, however, an excellent attrition system - since your stat pools that you spend on abilities are the same as those effected by damage or other trauma, it's a great system to mechanically feel exhausted at the end of an adventuring day. Numenera is their big game (scifi, set 1 billion years in the future), and there are others out there. The Strange is essentially Sliders, I know there are superhero and First Responder Books for more down to Earth types of games.

Traveller is a great "living under capitalism" simulator - you finish character creation older than you start and deeply in debt, and your first couple rings around the gameplay loop will be wildly nonviolent just because your crew isn't equipped for that sort of thing. It is a scifi futuristic setting where the players are essentially space merchants (think Firefly), but if you're trying to get people into the mindset of finding non-violent ways to deal with society exploiting them, that might vibe.

There are a bunch of TTRPGs that aren't explicitly about fighting at all. Brindlewood Bay is essentially a "Murder, She Wrote" ttrpg, and there's some variants out there. Kids on Bikes is a 80s teen movie simulator (from Stand By Me to Stranger Things) and has a couple other spin offs. Mall Kids, Golden Sky Stories, Wanderhome, and the like are all more slice of life type of things.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Hey folks. Under a really odd set of circumstances, I recently I got the opportunity to write a proposition for pilot program for my country's military, aiming to use tabletop role-playing games as a novel method for training combat soldiers, focused on honing mental, emotional, and social skills for interactions with civilians in high-tension, culturally diverse situations, where rapid decision-making and a deep understanding of others are crucial.

Wow, this sounds like a great opportunity for you.

My first thought here is: don't overestimate the tabletop aspect. Having a nice map of an Afghan village and walking around on that asking the GM questions can help in training some skills, like which places would you go to in certain situations and how do you even recognize these places. But ones you've decided to look for your new informant at the market rather than the bakery, the daycare or a village elder (I don't know how Afghan villages work, or soldiering in one for that matter) the real meat of the simulation is in having the conversation, for which you'll probably need a good actor, or rather an actor who may or may not be good at acting, but understands a lot of local customs, mannerisms, typical reactions and linguistic quirks.

That's my first thought, you're looking at roleplayed scenario's and exercises, maybe a bit similar to the ones used in first aid training, and you can tack on a little tabletop gameplay for some bigger picture stuff. Which can help in training more complete skillsets, but the acting out of the interactions trains the core skillset.