Sami Chan Reviews Her Series: Skills I Learned By Playing Dungeons and Dragons

This episode's guest, Sami Chan, did a really interesting thing on Linkedin. Sami put together a series of ten slide decks, all with 9 - 15 slides in each, and posted them every week or so in her timeline to share with her connections. The topic of the decks was "Skills I Learned By Playing Dungeons and Dragons". And for any of you that aren't familiar with Dungeons and Dragons, it's a role-playing game developed in the 1970's that takes place in a fantasy world. To play, participants take on different roles, such as a fighter or wizard or knight, and work through the game "as that character" to achieve a goal, like find treasure or magic items or go on missions to save a town or another character. It's immersive, it's role-playing, and it's definitely something that can teach soft skills - which is what Sami ingeniously explains in her series. And interestingly enough, it was L&D professionals that were most attracted to the series. Although Sami is a graphic designer, illustrator and copywriter, it was the learning community that found the posts most attractive, and Sami is now beginning a career in instructional design.

What you'll get by listening to this one is why and how Sami put the slides together and how it affected her linkedin profile. We also go into detail about how D&D taught her the variety of soft skills she discusses in her slides.

It was a really fun conversation --- another episode that has the L&D and D&D connection --- and it definitely conveys the value of role-playing to learning. Enjoy.

Here are Sami's Episodes:

Part 1: Introduction

Part 2: Planning

Part 3: Authenticity

Part 4: Teamwork

Part 5: Leadership

Part 6: Networking

Part 7: Expectation Management

Part 8: Rewarding Accomplishments

Part 9: Problem Solving

Part 10: Quitting