How To Use Table Top Roleplaying Games In Your Training And L&D Programmes To Prove Impact

This is my moment to take sweet revenge. My avatar of Khaine has cornered the Leman Russ tank that is within charging range. My opponent and his Imperial Guard army are going to feel the pain of having one of their biggest assets wiped off the field, courtesy of the almighty power of an angry god’s Wailing Doom attack. 

I roll the dice….

And they don’t land in my favour. 

My avatar misses the charge. The enemy’s tank survives. In the next round, a relentless Overwatch attack from the Imperials cripples my avatar and leads to his destruction….and my eventual loss of the field.

As I’m packing up my Aeldari army after an intense three hour Warhammer 40k campaign, I’m not thinking about the loss. I’m thinking about the enjoyment of bonding with a friend over my first Warhammer 40k game.

In the days after, I mull over what I’ve learned about the mechanics of Warhammer 40k and the strategic movements that can be destroyed by one ill-fated dice roll. Of the problem-solving skills needed to position units, of the social dynamics that went on between my friend and I as we rolled dice, lobbed in-universe insults at each other and stepped outside our identities as dads for a few hours.

Out of these kinds of experiences, I’ve come to see that table top roleplaying games (TRPGs) like Warhammer 40,000 have incredible potential for training and L&D initiatives. 

But how can L&D practitioners and trainers prove the case for TRPGs in corporate settings? This article aims to find out from research and commentary conducted by specialists.

What Are The Practical Benefits Of TRPGs In Training And Learning And Development?

There is a wide body of research that highlights the benefits of TRPGs in corporate environments in terms of team building, improving decision-making and communication. 

One example that comes to mind is a University of Southern Maine study conducted by Masters student Samantha Funk called Examining The Implications Of Tabletop Roleplaying Games For Use In Leadership Development: An Integrative Review.

In her paper, Funk points out using TRPGs as leadership development tools increases learner motivation, autonomy, competency and critical thinking and crisis leadership. As she writes:

“Researchers found a prevalence of gaming leaders promoting and encouraging environments conducive to team success. Victories belong to the team, almost regardless of individual effort. This was not just about building relationships in general, but also building up the sense that each person was a valued, competent contributor to the success of the team. Players who participate in spaces that they perceive to be both physically and psychologically safe spaces motivated players to continue playing. When a player can connect with a like-minded group of individuals with whom they can navigate various levels of intimacy, feelings of autonomy and competence increase….

When taken in the context of TRPGs, the narrative environment, exposure, and practice of a continued shifting and changing story delivers an experience that allows players to build a cooperative, organisational, and communitive culture with the ability to manage and transcend adversity flexibly.”

Adam Kupka, an instructional design specialist based in Portland Oregon with over twenty years of experience in designing various learning strategies has a high opinion of TRPGs in his work. 

He told me:

“At their core, tabletop RPGs are structured experiential learning environments. Participants learn through exploration, failure, feedback, and iteration. These elements strongly align with adult learning theory.

In Dungeons & Dragons, players encounter situations that require interpretation, negotiation, and strategic action. Outcomes are uncertain and influenced by both preparation and chance. This mirrors real-world problem solving in organisations where leaders must act with incomplete information.

Similarly, Warhammer’s tactical gameplay requires players to think several moves ahead, manage limited resources, and adapt strategies as the battlefield changes. These dynamics resemble operational planning, risk management, and competitive decision making.

The Cyberpunk series introduces complex socio-technical systems where technology, ethics, power structures, and rapid change shape decisions. These narratives parallel the realities of modern organisations navigating digital transformation.

From an L&D perspective, these games illustrate three key learning conditions: safe environments for experimentation, immediate feedback loops and meaningful consequences to tie to decisions.

These conditions align with established instructional design models such as experiential learning, scenario-based learning, and simulation design.

Many RPG mechanics map directly to effective instructional design practices. In Dungeons & Dragons, character progression is structured around gaining experience points (XP) and leveling up. Each level unlocks new capabilities and expands a character’s strategic options.

This structure resembles competency-based learning models used in corporate L&D. Instead of XP, organisations define skill milestones, certifications, or role-based competencies. 

Progression provides clear markers of development while reinforcing motivation through visible advancement. For instructional designers, the lesson is to design learning pathways that provide incremental challenges, make skill progression visible and unlock new responsibilities or opportunities as mastery increases.” 

An adjacent field of roleplay that covers similar leadership training benefits is Live Action Roleplaying (LARP) scenarios. In a study originally published through the International Journal of Roleplaying by Mátyás Hartyándi and Gijs van Bilsen, the authors created four different LARP scenarios to assess the assumption that all successful leaders have to be adaptive in their behaviour and that this could be developed through role flexibility. 

The results showed that “LARPs can be used for a wide variety of goals: organisational gain, personal development and team development. Based on the analysed cases, we hypothesise that it could be beneficial to have a contradiction between different layers of the design e.g. cooperating as players to play competing characters.” 

While the studies mentioned here demonstrate the benefits to TRPGs and LARPs, they acknowledge that a lot of the research remains theoretical and more studies need to be done to continue to demonstrate impact. 

Still, looking at evidence-based research like this is a baseline for how L&D professionals and trainers can start to make the business case for TRPGs. 

Making The Business Case For TRPGs 

When looking to prove the return on investment for TRPGs training programmes, it’s worth hearing the perspectives of specialists. 

Josh Thompson-Persaud, co-founder of WORK-SELF and a coach at Kindred Coaching who uses TRPGs to help learners improve communication and collaboration skills believes there’s a lot that senior leaders can use TRPGs for in corporate settings to help their teams learn new skills.

They said:

“I think there’s a lot of research on different developmental activities. At the end of the day, something is better than nothing. There’s often a challenge in creating team experiences that are both effective and enjoyable while also delivering business results.

What I’ve seen in corporate environments is that you usually get one of two things: something  business-focused or something team-focused. It’s the difference between making pasta together and sitting through a 30–60 minute presentation on lead scoring. Both involve groups learning something, but the quality and experience of that learning are very different.

The presentation is trying to impart knowledge. Pasta-making is more about bonding and casual interaction. What’s interesting about tabletop roleplaying games is that they bring those two elements together. It’s learning disguised as fun.

When addressing skepticism, the opportunity is to express value in tangible ways. Think about situations where team communication breaks down or someone feels mishandled. These are real workplace scenarios that can be replicated in a controlled environment through roleplay. The pressure is artificial, so you can slow things down, reflect, and work through dynamics.

There’s immense value in training people to respond to common workplace situations in a consistent way. One of the challenges in corporate environments is that when people are promoted to management, they often don’t receive proper training. They’re expected to be good managers because they were good at their job, but those are not the same skill sets.

That’s a major issue. A poorly designed management structure accelerates these problems. Developmental activities like this can help address that by giving people a space to practice and reflect.”

On how L&D can show the impact and use of TRPGs, Thompson-Persaud acknowledged “It’s difficult to measure. If someone has a car accident before work, the impact is clear: output drops to zero. But with developmental activities, you’re looking at more subtle changes.

You have to assess them longitudinally, with check-ins at three, six, nine, and twelve months. People can self-report changes, and you can combine that with observation. But you’re often measuring things that are less tangible like team dynamics, communication, professionalism, problem-solving skills.

These are more cultural or performance-oriented shifts. They show up subtly over time rather than through a standardised test.

When making the argument for L&D, there’s a baseline assumption: you either believe these activities have value or you don’t. If someone doesn’t believe that team-building has a positive impact, it’s very difficult to convince them otherwise. If a company already budgets for something like pasta-making, then we can start there. From that baseline, I can explain the added value of tabletop roleplay.”

Dr Megan Connell, psychologist, co-founder of Geeks Like Us and author of Tabletop Role-playing Therapy: A Guide for the Clinician Game Master encourages L&D professionals to point towards academic studies on the practical benefits of TRPGs to prove ROI.

She “would also encourage people to approach this from a budget perspective rather than trying to sell the efficacy straight away. A lot of roleplaying training seminars cost thousands, whereas you can probably bring someone in to run games for a fraction of that price. That alone can help get your foot in the door.

“Good training design and implementation in a tabletop context starts with having a clearly identified goal of what you want players to get out of the experience.

If you’re working in a corporate environment where communication is breaking down, and you want to improve that, you might design something where multiple tables have to pass messages back and forth effectively. You can introduce both good and bad information and have them work together to figure out what’s accurate.

The idea is to help them learn how to speak, advocate, and communicate in measurable ways. It’s not so much about having the right characters, system, or module. It’s about identifying the out-of-game behaviour you want to see as a result of the experience.”

Dr Joe Lasley, Assistant Professor of Leadership & Organisational Studies at the University Of Southern Maine and CEO of Gamenamic Leadership, says proving ROI “depends on the scale. If you’re doing smaller interventions like 90-minute workshops or a half-day one-shot RPG, the business case is similar to traditional L&D initiatives.

When you invest in longer-term programmes that include coaching and facilitation by someone with leadership coaching expertise, not just a professional dungeon master, you can create deeper impact. You can shift team dynamics, build psychological safety, and establish more intentional and flexible ways of working.

Teams develop metacognition skills and become more of a learning organisation. You can even shift the underlying culture of a team or organisation, depending on the scale.

The ROI on that kind of work goes beyond what you can easily measure. Research from high-profile academics and coverage in Harvard Business Review shows that large-scale cultural interventions are difficult to quantify. Measuring them properly would require extensive longitudinal research, which can cost millions. So you end up spending the ROI trying to prove the ROI. 

That creates a challenge when pitching this work. It’s difficult to say “just trust me,” even though leadership coaching and team development have well-established value. I tend to reference existing research in leadership coaching and organisational development to support the case. If offsites and interventions are focused on identity development, they can be highly valuable. If they’re just focused on surface-level team building or management topics, they’re not.”

The Bottom Line 

These different perspectives on table top roleplaying games in training and L&D programmes share the common thread that ROI can be proven. But it is highly dependent on context and budget. There is a requirement to be able to speak the language of business, while emphasising the creative and practical takeaways that teams can develop in roleplay settings.

The starting point is curiosity, as all great TRPGs provide, whether it's an epic D&D campaign or fast-paced Warhammer 40,000 mission. As a training or L&D practitioner, you have the power to introduce learners to new worlds and expand their imagination in a way that leads to long-lasting behavioural change.