The Dungeons, Dragons, & Psychology Podcast is a TTRPG podcast that helps collaborative storytellers build great campaigns using psychology. Each episode dives into different aspects of tabletop roleplaying games, and offers listeners (psyclithids) tricks of the trade for how to improve their own games. Your host, Robert Walker, is a longtime DM and holds a MS in I/O Psychology. He is also the author of "Session Zero: The DMG to Writing Great Campaigns in any System."
Text us, Psyclithids Session Zero isn’t just about rolling stats and swapping backstories—it’s the primary emotional regulation tool for your group. In this episode of The Dungeons, Dragons, and Psychology Podcast, we dive into why Session Zero matters so much, and how it sets the tone for your entire campaign. We’ll explore: Player Contracts: Setting clear expectations for behavior and table norms.Aligning Expectations: Making sure everyone’s on the same page about tone, style, and play focu...
1 Oct 2025
Defense Mechanisms for RPGs: Realism at the Table
Text us, Psyclithids What happens to an adventurer after the dragon burns their village, or when they fail to save an innocent life? In this episode, we dive deep into the psychology of defense mechanisms—the unconscious strategies people use to protect themselves from overwhelming stress—and explore how they can shape roleplay at the table. Drawing from the work of Sigmund Freud and Anna Freud, we’ll unpack four core defenses—repression, denial, rationalization, and projection—and show how t...
28 Sept 2025
The Impostor Syndrome of the DM (a.k.a. The Matt Mercer Effect)
Text us, Psyclithids Do you ever feel like you’re “not good enough” to be a Dungeon Master? That pressure to run the perfect game… That voice in your head saying, “I’m a fraud”? This week on The Dungeons, Dragons, and Psychology Podcast, we dive into the psychology of impostor syndrome, why so many DMs struggle with it, and how to build real confidence in your storytelling. Amazon Link to Session Zero https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BL52LB1X Amazon Link to The Player’s Handbook fo...
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