DreadClericWesley

Hey, guys, thanks for sharing.

As DMs with an ulterior motive, i.e. therapeutic goals, how do you balance story vs. therapy? Do you start with a story arc and then fit specific goals for each client into that narrative or do you start with your therapeutic goals as waypoints and design the story to hit those markers?

Then, how do you connect the dots for your clients? Do you follow up each game session with a debriefing to connect it to their real life needs or do you interrupt the game to show those connections or do you just let the client ruminate over how the game went and find that application intuitively?

What do you do when the PCs derail your plot? If a plot point is connected to a therapeutic goal or life skill, but the PCs go off the rails, do you guide them back to that point or just go with the flow and reintroduce that goal in a later session?

I guess my main question is how to balance the desired outcomes with the open-ended freedom of play. Does the game provide random teachable moments for building life skills or does the curriculum set the agenda for the game?

Thanks again.

Thanks. I suppose starting with what the players will value and what they are looking for is better than deciding what I want to give them and designing from that perspective.

And you're right. A society of Xorn is a neat idea.