The Alibi of the Character

How TTRPGs Hack Social Anxiety

Why pretending to be an orc might be the most honest thing you do all week.

This is part of a series on TTRPGs, mental health, and the stories we tell about ourselves. In this instalment, I want to look at one simple idea:

Why is it sometimes easier to be honest when you’re pretending to be someone else?

If you’ve ever found yourself speaking up more boldly as your D&D character than you ever would as “you,” this one’s for you.

The Weight of the Mask

In Transactional Analysis (TA), we talk about the Adapted Child (AC). This isn’t a literal child, but a way of being we slip into when we’re trying to stay safe.

The AC is the part of us that learned, very early on, how to survive by fitting in. It’s the kid who figured out that being quiet, being perfect, being helpful, or being invisible reduced the risk of being shamed, punished, or rejected.

For many of us, especially if we’re neurodivergent, queer, trans, or grew up in critical or chaotic environments, the AC becomes a master of camouflage. It learns to:

• Smooth out our reactions so we don’t seem “too much”

• Hide our confusion so we don’t look “stupid”

• Swallow our needs so we don’t feel “needy “or again “too much”

It works. We get through school, work, and family dinners. But there’s a cost.

Wearing that armour 24/7 is exhausting. We stay hyper‑vigilant, constantly scanning for signs that we’ve said the wrong thing, taken up too much space, or broken an invisible rule. Social anxiety is often less about not wanting connection, and more about being terrified that connection will lead to humiliation or abandonment.

If that’s your default state, “just be yourself” is terrible advice. You don’t feel safe enough to even know who that is.

Enter the Social Laboratory

This is where Tabletop Role‑Playing Games (TTRPGs) quietly offer something powerful.

Psychologists sometimes talk about psychological distance, the space between “me” and the thing I’m looking at. When something is a step away from our core identity, it often feels less threatening. We can experiment more freely.

TTRPGs create psychological distance by giving you a character.

When you sit at the table and put on the mantle of a paladin, a rogue, or a grumpy old wizard, you are granted what I like to call an alibi.

Suddenly, the stakes change:

• If you try a bold negotiation and it goes badly, you didn’t embarrass yourself. Grog the Barbarian did.

• If your rogue flirts and gets rejected, it’s an awkward moment in the story, not a verdict on your worth.

• If your bard makes a terrible decision, the group laughs affectionately, not contemptuously.

You, the player, are safe behind the character sheet.

That alibi turns the game table into a low-stakes social laboratory where the usual rules of your anxiety don’t apply in the same way. You get room to experiment.

Testing New Waters

With the alibi in place, the game becomes a sandbox for trying out different ways of being.

Here are some of the things I see people practising at the table—often without realising it:

• Practising boundaries

It might be terrifying to tell your manager, “No, that deadline isn’t realistic,” but it can be surprisingly easy for your wizard to tell a goblin, “You shall not pass.”

The body still gets to feel what it’s like to hold a line and survive.

• Experimenting with assertiveness

Maybe your day-to-day self speaks softly, apologises constantly, and avoids eye contact. In-game, you can try on a voice that is louder, firmer, or more direct than your AC would ever dare.

You can interrupt. You can lead the plan. You can say, “Actually, I disagree.”

• Lowering the perfectionism barrier

In real life, perfectionism says, “If I mess up, everything falls apart.”

At the table, the dice will eventually roll a 1. You will fail. Spectacularly.

And you get to see, over and over, that the world doesn’t end. In fact, it’s often the failures, the botched spell, the terrible stealth check, that create the most memorable, beloved moments in the story.

From the outside, it might look like “just a game.” From the inside, your nervous system is collecting new data: I can speak, act, risk, and still belong.

When the Mask Starts to Melt: Bleed

The point of this isn’t to hide behind the mask forever.

In the gaming world, there’s a term called “bleed”, when emotions, traits, or patterns from the character seep into the player, and sometimes vice versa.

Bleed gets a bad reputation when it’s only discussed in the context of distress, but it can also be profoundly healing.

You might notice that after months of playing a confident leader in-game:

• You sit a little more upright in real-life meetings.

• You find it slightly easier to say, “I actually have a different view.”

• You notice yourself checking in on a struggling friend the way your character would check in on the party rogue.

At first, you might tell yourself, “It’s just the character.” But over time, it becomes harder to deny that something in you is changing.

The safety you felt wasn’t only in the character sheet. It was also in:

• The group that welcomed your presence

• The structure and rules of the game

• The story that gave you permission to try on different versions of yourself

And, crucially, it was in you, in parts of your personality that didn’t get much airtime in your everyday life.

The alibi gave those parts a way to surface without being immediately shut down by anxiety or shame.

Why This Matters Beyond the Table

If you live with social anxiety, you’ve probably been told to “challenge your thoughts” or “expose yourself to feared situations.” There’s value in those approaches, but they often miss something vital: we learn in relationship, not in isolation.

TTRPGs offer:

• A structured way to relate to others

• A shared focus that takes pressure off “performing” yourself, helpful in task avoidance

• A playful frame where mistakes are expected and often celebrated

That combination can make it much easier to experiment with dropping the mask, even just a little. Over time, the skills you practise as the character can become tools available to you as yourself.

You don’t have to turn your homebrew TTRPG game into therapy for it to be meaningful. Simply noticing, “I feel more like myself when I’m pretending to be this fictional person,” is already rich information about what parts of you need more room.

Your Turn

Have you ever played a character who felt braver than you? Or found an “alibi” in fiction, a character, avatar, or persona, that helped you speak your truth?

I’d love to hear your stories in the comments.

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Note: Dungeons & Dragons is a trademark of Wizards of the Coast. I am not affiliated with them. TTRPGs can be a helpful support for mental health, but they are not a substitute for professional care. If you’re dealing with trauma or significant distress, consider seeking support from a qualified mental health professional.