Agency, Dignity, & Dice

TTRPG Programming for Adults with IDD

A community recreation framework that uses tabletop role-playing games to build social connection, confidence, and leadership in adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Learn More

The Program

Imaginary Adversity Builds Real Connections

Since February 2021, this program has brought full-complexity tabletop role-playing games to adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities in St. Louis, Missouri. Participants don't play simplified systems designed for therapy. They play real games with real consequences, supported by facilitation techniques that make complexity accessible without removing it.

The result: participants who entered cautious now run their own tables for their peers. Groups that started with a facilitator now operate independently, setting their own schedules, meeting at each other's homes, and building social connections that extend far beyond the game.

This is not a clinical intervention. It is community recreation that treats the game itself as the point and trusts participants with the full experience. Growth is emergent, not prescribed.

Five Years of Data

The numbers speak for themselves

Single-site, practitioner-observed data from five years of sustained programming. Reported with honesty about what was formally tracked and what requires further study.

Participants Served

Active Groups

Left Due to Disinterest

Participant-Trained DMs

100%

Pipeline Completion

Years Running

Core Philosophy

Three commitments that hold everything up

Agency is non-negotiable. Every participant makes real choices. When someone is overwhelmed, we narrow the options but never remove the choice. We do not simplify by default. We scaffold aggressively.

Dignity over comfort. Participants are not shielded from failure, conflict, or consequences. The game reflects real-life dynamics. What changes is the safety of the container, not the difficulty of the experience.

III

Engagement first, mechanics second. Connection, energy, and joy at the table matter more than rule mastery. A facilitator who connects with people will succeed even with imperfect game knowledge.

The DM Pipeline

Participants become leaders

The program's long-term viability depends on growing facilitators from within the participant population. This isn't supplementary. It's the mechanism that allows the program to outlive any single facilitator.

Introduction Class

Hands-on first contact. Video, live demo, sample session, and a vote. Agency starts at the first interaction. One decline in five years.

Active Groups

Monthly sessions with an optional post-session DM class. Candidates self-select through voluntary attendance. The facilitator never recruits.

Graduated Handoff

Knowledge transfer, co-creation, personnel briefing, supervised launch, and independence. Twelve to eighteen months from interest to running their own table.

Independence

Participant-led groups that operate on their own terms. The longest-running independent group has been going for four years. The founding facilitator barely recognizes the stories being told at those tables. That's the whole point.

About

Jonathan Rabida

Jonathan Rabida is a Vocational Support Specialist at The Arc of St. Louis and the founding facilitator of the Agency, Dignity, and Dice program at Pathways to Independence. He has been running tabletop role-playing games for twenty-five years.

The program was developed through five years of direct work with adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities, beginning in February 2021. Its facilitation framework -- including the Closed Eyes Binary System, the DM Pipeline, and the three-tier conflict management model -- was built through practice and refined through experience. A full facilitation framework document and academic paper are currently in preparation.

To the author's knowledge, this represents the first documented program serving adults with IDD through sustained, full-complexity TTRPG programming at community recreation scale, with a structured pipeline for developing independent facilitators from the participant population.

Get in Touch

Interested in the framework?

For inquiries about the program, the facilitation framework, speaking engagements, or research collaboration.

agencydignityanddice@gmail.com

Pathways to Independence · The Arc of St. Louis · St. Louis, Missouri