Alex Roberts: Weaving Worlds and Healing Souls – How Tabletop Games Become a Rehearsal for Life

The intersection of creativity and care often reveals unexpected synergies. For Alex Roberts, a celebrated tabletop game designer behind titles like the Jenga-powered RPG Star Crossed and the critically acclaimed For the Queen, this intersection is not just a coincidence but the very foundation of her professional life. Roberts also runs a thriving counselling service, a seemingly disparate career path that she insists is inextricably linked to her game design philosophy. With the recent publication of For the Queen: Second Edition by Critical Role studio Darrington Press, Roberts’ unique perspective on the therapeutic power of play is gaining renewed attention, challenging conventional notions of healing and human connection.

The Architect of Connection: Alex Roberts’ Dual Path

At first glance, the worlds of intricate game mechanics and introspective therapeutic dialogue appear to exist on opposite ends of the spectrum. Yet, for Alex Roberts, these two domains are profoundly intertwined, each enriching the other. Her journey into game design began, as it often does, with a simple desire for fun and creative expression. However, what she discovered along the way transcended mere entertainment, evolving into a powerful methodology that has fundamentally shaped her approach to helping others.

From Play to Praxis: Bridging Two Worlds

Roberts articulates this connection with remarkable clarity: "Playing story games made me a better counsellor." This statement, while bold, underscores a core truth she has unearthed through her work. Designing and facilitating narrative games demands a heightened sense of presence, a meticulous attention to detail, and, crucially, an exceptional capacity for active listening. In a storytelling game, every player’s contribution, every nuance in their expression, and every twist in the narrative is vital. This immersive engagement, Roberts found, mirrored the essential skills required for effective counseling – the ability to truly hear and understand another person’s experience without judgment.

"I obviously got into making games because it’s fun but it’s taught me how to play close attention and listen to people," she elaborates. This synergy suggests that the very act of crafting interactive narratives cultivates empathy and communication skills, making the game designer not just a creator of worlds, but also an accidental facilitator of human connection and understanding. It’s a testament to how creative pursuits can inadvertently build fundamental competencies applicable to profound human interaction, turning the playful into the profound.

For the Queen: A Narrative Tapestry Woven with Intent

For the Queen stands as a prime example of Roberts’ design philosophy in action. It is a collaborative storytelling game where players assume the roles of attendants to a powerful matriarchal monarch. The core mechanic involves drawing prompt cards and responding to them, with each player’s answers and the cards themselves collectively weaving a unique narrative. The game is less about achieving a specific objective and more about the shared journey of exploration, character development, and communal world-building.

Unpacking the Mechanics of Empathy

The genius of For the Queen lies in its structural design, which actively encourages deep listening and empathetic engagement. Players are not merely waiting for their turn to speak; they are constantly processing and integrating the contributions of others. The narrative flows organically, shaped by the collective imagination and responses at the table. This inherent collaborative structure primes players to engage with each other’s ideas, fostering a dynamic where listening is as crucial as contributing.

Roberts emphasizes this deliberate design choice: "[For the Queen] is structured in such a way that people are primed to listen to each other. Players get into the mode of listening so they can answer follow-up questions." This mechanic directly translates to a therapeutic setting, where active listening and the ability to ask relevant, probing questions are paramount. The game becomes a safe space, a micro-community where participants practice the very skills that underpin healthy relationships and effective communication in real life. The narrative emerges not from a single author, but from the combined perspectives and emotional landscapes of all involved, creating a truly unique and often deeply personal story.

Design Choices as Therapeutic Tools

The game’s thematic breadth further solidifies its therapeutic potential, delving into complex themes such as power dynamics, authority, loyalty, and varying expressions of femininity. These are not trivial topics but deeply resonant aspects of the human experience that players explore through the lens of their fictional characters and the overarching narrative.

The recently published Second Edition by Darrington Press demonstrates Roberts’ ongoing commitment to refining this experience. Beyond refreshed artwork, Roberts made conscious decisions to revise certain prompt cards. She specifically cites the removal of a prompt that asked about being perceived as "ugly," noting that she witnessed several players reacting negatively to it in the original version. "Being told they’re ugly hits people a certain way, keeping it in was not worth the bad times it caused," Roberts explains. This decision exemplifies a counselor’s sensitivity applied to game design – a recognition that while games can push boundaries, they should do so with care and respect for players’ emotional well-being. It highlights a commitment to creating an inviting and supportive environment, even when exploring challenging themes.

The Power of the "Pass" Mechanic

Crucially, Roberts understands that not all players will feel comfortable engaging with every prompt. To address this, For the Queen incorporates a "pass" mechanic, allowing players to opt out of answering a card if they so choose. Far from being a mere convenience, this feature is an integral part of the game’s design philosophy, serving as a powerful tool for self-regulation and respecting individual boundaries.

Roberts recounts a telling anecdote involving her sister, whom she describes as "quieter." During a session, her sister passed on approximately half her turns. What Roberts found most striking was that despite this, her sister "was so happy with how that worked, because they were still enjoying it very much." This observation underscores a vital principle: participation doesn’t always mean overt contribution. The ability to listen, to be present, and to choose when and how to engage is a form of participation in itself. "It’s important to me to think about those [quieter] players in my design," Roberts emphasizes, showcasing an inclusive design approach that prioritizes comfort and agency, mirroring the ethical considerations of a therapeutic practice. This mechanic allows for a truly consent-based play experience, where vulnerability is invited but never coerced.

Games as Catalysts for Healing and Self-Discovery

Roberts firmly believes that the act of playing certain storytelling or roleplaying games can be a profoundly therapeutic experience, akin to a group therapy session in some respects. This isn’t to say games are a replacement for clinical therapy, but rather that they can offer significant healing benefits in their own right.

The Acknowledged Self: A Foundational Therapeutic Principle

At the heart of Roberts’ philosophy is the concept of acknowledgment. "The experience of being acknowledged and treated as a valuable human being that’s being listened to is powerful," she asserts. This fundamental human need for recognition and validation is often met within the collaborative space of games like For the Queen. Players are given a platform to express thoughts, feelings, and narratives, often for the first time, and have those contributions accepted and integrated by their peers.

"Being able to say things that you’ve maybe never said before and have it be accepted as alright," Roberts adds, highlights the psychological safety fostered by these games. In a world where self-expression can often be met with judgment or misunderstanding, the shared, fictional space of an RPG can become a crucible for authenticity. This experience resonates deeply with the core of group therapy, where individuals are "empathetically witnessed by people with a shared experience," creating a sense of belonging and mutual understanding that can be profoundly healing.

Rehearsing Relationships and Expressing Suppressed Emotions

The fictional nature of these games provides a unique opportunity for players to explore emotions and behaviors that they might otherwise suppress in daily life. Roberts is particularly interested in "the healing that comes from expressing emotions you’re not expressing daily." She actively encourages the emergence of raw feelings, stating, "I want that person’s anger to come out, I want to hear about their sadness."

Roberts highlights the "hyper-gendered" nature of certain emotions – the societal expectation that women express sadness and men express anger, for instance. Roleplaying games offer a chance to subvert these rigid behavioral expectations, allowing individuals to explore a broader spectrum of emotional expression in a safe, contained environment. These experiences can be "reparative," providing opportunities to address emotional needs or relational dynamics that might have been unmet or unaddressed during formative years. As Roberts poignantly notes, "These kinds of reparative experiences are very often things that people should have experienced when they were young or with their families, but that didn’t happen for some reason."

The analogy to therapeutic relationships is clear: "We often talk about therapeutic relationships [between counsellors and counsellees] as being a rehearsal for other relationships," Roberts explains. "These things can also happen in the roleplaying space." By embodying characters and navigating fictional scenarios, players implicitly practice social skills, emotional regulation, and interpersonal dynamics that can translate directly into their real-world interactions. It’s a low-stakes environment for high-stakes emotional and social learning.

Personal Transformation Through Play

Roberts herself attests to the transformative power of roleplaying. She shares a personal experience of how games positively impacted her life, particularly during a period of low self-esteem: "A lot of the ways in which roleplaying has changed my life for the better is doing it at a table with other people I liked and respected – during a time where I felt under-confident and didn’t have a ton of self-esteem – offering my opinions and having other people say: ‘That’s great!’" This personal testimony underscores the profound validating effect that a supportive play environment can have, fostering confidence and a sense of self-worth. It demonstrates that the benefits extend beyond theoretical understanding, touching the very fabric of an individual’s self-perception.

Beyond Clinical Walls: Reimagining Healing

While clinical, one-to-one therapy has become increasingly recognized and accepted in Western societies, Roberts cautions against downplaying or under-acknowledging other modes of healing. Her perspective challenges the narrow definition of what constitutes effective support for mental and emotional well-being.

Broadening the Definition of Therapy

Roberts cites an example from Rwanda, where individuals offered one-to-one therapy often preferred to engage with their trauma and grief through community-based approaches, such as shared mourning rituals. This highlights a crucial cultural difference in how healing is perceived and sought. "I like to remind people that ‘therapy’ as we know it hasn’t been around for that long but people have always suffered and found ways to work with that suffering," Roberts states, placing contemporary therapeutic practices within a broader historical and anthropological context.

This historical perspective underpins her core argument: "One of the reasons why I do feel that games are therapeutic is that they don’t have to actively be therapy to provide some of the healing benefits." This distinction is vital. Games are not a substitute for professional mental health care when it’s needed, but they can serve as powerful complementary tools, fostering resilience, social connection, and emotional processing in ways that are accessible, engaging, and often joyful. They tap into innate human drives for play, storytelling, and community, which are, in themselves, healing forces.

Cultivating the Right Environment for Therapeutic Play

However, Roberts is also careful to include an important caveat: the therapeutic benefits of games like For the Queen are highly dependent on the "culture of play at the table." Not every group or every game session will automatically provide a healing space. It requires a conscious effort from all participants to create an environment of trust, respect, and empathy.

"It’s perfectly legitimate to not want to be in anybody’s therapy session," she acknowledges, emphasizing that players’ boundaries and comfort levels must always be respected. For those seeking the deeper, more cathartic experiences that games can offer, Roberts’ advice is simple yet profound: "You don’t know when something profound is going to happen in a roleplaying game. My God, just play with people you like and trust." This highlights the essential role of interpersonal trust and psychological safety in unlocking the full potential of these shared narrative experiences. When these conditions are met, tabletop games can indeed become a powerful arena for emotional exploration, personal growth, and communal healing.

Conclusion: The Unfolding Narrative of Well-being

Alex Roberts’ dual career as a celebrated game designer and insightful counselor offers a compelling narrative about the untapped potential of play. Her work with For the Queen serves as a testament to how thoughtfully designed interactive experiences can transcend mere entertainment, becoming powerful tools for fostering empathy, honing communication skills, and facilitating emotional healing. By structuring games to encourage active listening, providing safe spaces for vulnerable expression, and offering opportunities for "reparative experiences," Roberts has effectively blurred the lines between play and personal development.

In an era where mental well-being is increasingly recognized as a public health priority, Roberts’ insights encourage a broader, more inclusive view of what constitutes "healing." Her work reminds us that human beings have always found solace and growth in shared stories and communal activities, long before the advent of formal therapy. As she eloquently argues, games don’t need to be therapy to be therapeutic. They can be a rehearsal for relationships, a safe harbor for suppressed emotions, and a vibrant community where individuals are acknowledged, heard, and valued. Ultimately, Alex Roberts invites us to trust in the power of play, to gather around a table with people we like and trust, and to allow the unfolding narrative to guide us toward deeper understanding, connection, and perhaps, a quiet form of healing.